As this piece from Ed Rosado below reminds us, our humanity is the biggest circle we can create, and even as we differ in politics, religion, geography and more, when it comes to AI, this election may allow us to focus on how we can embrace what keeps us essentially human.
“And I will show you a still more excellent way” (1 Corinthians 12:31)
Every community draws a circle. Inside the circle stand those who share our language, customs, and faces. Outside the circle stand the others. Psychology suggests that drawing these boundaries is an ancient, nearly automatic reflex. It is, as if, after millennia of drawing these circles, we have become hardwired to draw them where we feel secure and at home.
Scripture, however, insists on a better way: the way of love that freely embraces the other. This means that we are called to widen the circle until the stranger stands safely inside it. Understanding why we instinctively fear the “other” does not excuse our prejudice, but it equips us to dismantle it.
The Architecture of Division
We are hardwired for belonging, but belonging has a dark side. In the early 1970s, psychologist Henri Tajfel and his colleagues conducted an experiment. When they assigned people to groups based on arbitrary criteria, participants overwhelmingly favored individuals within their group despite not sharing any previous history or context. This is because we desperately want a positive, secure identity, and we often elevate the group that gives us meaning at the expense of those outside it.
Biology reinforces this tribalism. The hormone oxytocin, famous for promoting bonding, also triggers a “tend-and-defend” response. It deepens our love for our own people while priming us to protect them from outsiders. Our capacity for tenderness, it turns out, has jagged edges. The very chemistry of human connection is exclusivist and territorial.
Furthermore, the brain’s alarm system plays a similar role. Current neuroimaging shows heightened amygdala activity when we look at faces of a different race. Yet this is not a hardwired biological destiny; it is an acquired caution. Studies of international adoptees show that a lack of early exposure to diverse faces heightens this later alarm response. In other words, familiarity shapes fear. What we often dismiss as innate instinct is largely learned—and what is learned can be deliberately unlearned.
Dismantling this fear, however, requires overcoming our deepest psychological habits. In many cases, people suffer from a profound negativity bias: a single frightening headline or a bad encounter with an outsider leaves a far stronger impression than a dozen positive interactions. Thus, fear is simply faster than welcome.
Continue Reading at Science for the Church
Edgardo “Ed” Rosado, PhD, is Engagement Coordinator at Science for the Church, Adjunct Professor of Theology at Nazarene Bible College and European Nazarene College, and an alumnus of the Sinai and Synapses Fellowship. He has pastored multicultural churches for more than 20 years and led Ciencia, Fe y Esperanza, an initiative funded by the John Templeton Foundation to engage Latinx clergy, congregations, and STEM students in dialogue on faith and science. He lives in Philadelphia with his wife and their dog.
0 Comments