What an amazing video we watched tonight in my ladies’ group. It was one of Beth Moore’s sessions from her “Breaking Free” series. The topic was generational prejudice. Her teaching stirred in my heart several memories of prejudice — both on the giving and receiving end.

It breaks my heart how we (yes, “we” — myself included) can strive so hard for godliness in our walks with Christ and yet hold back such ingrained pre-judgments about other people. That’s what prejudice is: judging people before you get to know them.

As Beth Moore said, it stems from fear and ignorance … and it isn’t just racial, although that’s certainly an issue and has been a hot button ever since the Egyptians first began fearing the growing Hebrew population and decided to enslave them.

One thing she said that really struck me is that prejudice is natural. It’s often something we grow up experiencing — often so much so that it’s quite literally second nature. Many Christians don’t even acknowledge that it is wrong to pre-judge people in this way. “That’s just the way my people are,” we say. “My grandparents and my parents raised me this way.”

However, what we fail to realize is that just because something comes naturally to us doesn’t exempt it from being sin. When she said that, I immediately thought of other areas in our lives that we might try to justify by calling it “our nature.” Growing up in a home full of foul language doesn’t make it ok for you to curse. Growing up around an alcoholic doesn’t validate your own addiction. Growing up in an abusive situation doesn’t give you the right to hurt others. It seems like a no-brainer when said that way, but somehow prejudice is pigeon-holed into its own special little box and buried in the backyard. We just avoid talking about it.

One thing we talked about in our small group after the video is that we will not be able to make sweeping changes worldwide, but we can start with ourselves and begin reflecting on our own pre-judgments about others.