Jane Elliot, a primary school teacher conducted this exercise in 1968, in response to the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. After witnessing how people responded to the unfortunate event with much discrimination, she felt a need to do something about discrimination and not just talk about it.
She carried out this exercise in school by first dividing her 3rd graders into blue and brown-eyed groups. She then tells the blue-eyes they are "the better people in this room," gives them privileges and comments on their superiority all day. The brown eyes must wear collars. The next day, she reverses the process and makes the brown-eyes people the "superior ones". Using this exercise, she taught her students a very important lesson in discrimination. I encourage you to watch all 5 parts. It was immensely enriching for me.
Although this was done in a secular context, I thought there was much to learn from it. As Christians, can we say that we are any better? Many of us probably practice discrimination without even realizing it. Some of us might be teachers who go into a class of normal tech students and decide straight away that they cannot be helped. Some of us might walk along Orchard Road and feel "more righteous" than the youths with funny hair and clothes who hang out outside Cineleisure. Some times, we discriminate by deciding for ourselves who should hear the Gospel and who should not. We do that by sharing God's gift of love only to a select group of people. It's no wonder the church of Jesus Christ is in danger of becoming a middle-upper-class social club!
We need to remember that God's love DOES NOT discriminate between social, income, racial or even religious groups. And salvation is for EVERYONE who believes. Romans 1:16 tells us, "I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile."
What then should be our response?
1 John 1:14 says, "This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins." We love only because He first loved us! (1 John 4:19) The only way to love indiscriminately is to first know God's love for us - His perfect passion for us. And the way to know His love is through a relationship with God, i.e. to know God.
When we know God, and the power of His love, then the most appropriate response will be to love others. Not with the love that we know humanly, but with the perfect passion that He has first given us - a love that does not discriminate, a love that is unconditional.
I pray your life will be convicted as you read all these. Amen!
Joshua Teo
You can find out more about Jane Elliot and her teaching materials HERE at her website.
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