Blotted out

Will the church ever come together, asks Jonathan Gainey?

In a town where I have lived, there was once a restaurant that was closed by its owner. That’s no big deal, except for the fact that it was at a time when certain people could not eat in that restaurant because of their skin tone. The owner closed the restaurant rather than be forced to serve all customers. That happened many decades ago — but sadly, the sin of hatred still lingers in many towns and cities all over the world.

When I moved to Germany in 1990, the wall which separated East Germany from West Germany had recently been knocked down. What an amazing time that was. But soon after the liberation of the East Germans, I heard West Germans calling them, in German, “East-landers.” The particular German whom I was speaking with explained that this was a derogatory term, used for those East Germans who were getting too many benefits from the West German government.

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Tags: reconciliation