objectification
Syllabification: ob·jec·ti·fi·ca·tion
Pronunciation: /əbˌjektəfəˈkāSH(ə)n/
Definition of objectification in English:
noun
The action of degrading someone to the status of a mere object.
One of the greatest sins of today is the sin of objectification. A brief history lesson will tell us that objectification is a strategy that has been used to promote national and financial interests and even to promote senseless wars.
How does objectification work? Objectification: Ziauddin and Malala Yousafzai are Muslims from Afghanistan. They are uneducated, ignorant people who believe in a god that hates women and desires to end “life as we know it” in the U.S.
The truth: Ziauddin Yousafzai and Malala Yousafzai are Sunni Muslims from the Swat valley of Afghanistan. Ziauddin is a poet, school owner and an educational activist who speaks out against radical Islam and the terror caused by the Taliban in his native country. Malala spoke out against the Taliban and their decision to not let children attend schools. After receiving numerous threats, she was shot in the face along with two other friends on their way home from school. After a prolonged coma, she made an almost full recovery. She continues her educational activism fighting for human rights and especially for girls who desire to go to school. She won the Nobel Peace Prize on October 10, 2014.
Objectification obscures the truth. It reduces people to things. Men and women are often reduced to being simply “threats”. While some men and women represent threats to others – to suggest that an entire religion or people group represent a threat is to be poorly informed.
It might not be politically expedient to speak out against the objectification of our fellow human beings. But then again, following Jesus’ call to be peacemakers has not been politically expedient for His disciples throughout the last two-thousand years either.
In the last century, the Nazi party objectified the Jewish race when they proclaimed the Aryan race a superior one and the Jewish race to be inferior. Violence and aggressive action was much more easily dealt toward the Jewish people when they lost their status as first-class citizens.
In the New Testament, we see that Jesus rejected the idea that Jews should primarily see Samaritans as “half-breeds”. He gently informed the Samaritan woman in John 4 that soon Jews and Samaritans would soon worship together in spirit and truth.
When Jesus wanted to tell a piercing story about empty religiosity and hypocrisy, he made the “good guy” a Samaritan. The words “good Samaritan” never went together in the first century Jewish vocabulary before Jesus decided to challenge a common conviction of His day!
Jesus healed numerous men and women who had lost their status as such when they became demon-possessed, lame, deaf, blind, lepers and beggars. While many begged for money, others were forced to shout “unclean” at the first sign of others.
The Bible tells us that every man and woman on the planet today is the made in the image of God, endowed with the capacity to create, love, forgive and communicate with God and others. While many have chosen to turn their backs on God or to turn to false gods, this does not mean that we should treat them as animals – for they are not.
We must love our neighbors (Leviticus 19:18; Matthew 22:34-40 et.al.) and our enemies (Matthew 5:43-48) because they have been endowed by their Creator with a unique gift – His very image.
If Jesus were still telling parables today, I would not be surprised if today one would be called the Parable of the Good Muslim.
Check out a documentary about Malala and her father, Ziauddin Yousafzai:
Malala also wrote a book, I am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban.
Jonathan Hanegan 