Teach the World to Love

“No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”
―Nelson Mandela, 1918-2013

Nelson Mandela died recently. Yesterday, in fact, if I have my facts straight. I don't know much about the man - I don't know anything about him, really - But I like this quote of his, especially the last part. "Love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite." But if this is true, and I believe that it is, why is hatred so widespread? Why is racism, religious intolerance, and violence such world-wide problems? If "People must learn to hate," where is everybody learning it?

Many people learn hatred from other people and pass it on like a disease. A person could learn it from their parents or their peers, and they might have learned it from their parents and their peers. But if we trace that line back as far as it will go, we all have the same two parents, and I highly doubt that they taught their children to hate each other. And yet, one of them did.

Cain was taught to hate and kill his brother Abel, and his teacher was the evil one. Perhaps all of the world's hatred started there, but I doubt it. Satan is still roaming abroad in all the earth, teaching anyone who'll listen to him how to hate their fellow man and themselves, and how to do all manner of sin and iniquity. The devil has, apparently, had many pupils, as we have all become sinners at some point or another, and though I say this with less certainty, I can guess that we have all hated someone (ourselves or others) at some point in our lives. Either by our peers or by our enemy, we have been taught how to hate.

But as Nelson Mandela said, if we can be taught how to hate, we can be taught how to love. But who will do, or has done, the teaching? It almost seems silly to ask, even rhetorically.

Jesus Christ was our perfect example in all things, but especially in love. Everything He has ever done, He has done out of love. Everything He has ever taught, He taught because of His love for those who were being taught. And Jesus taught us that we should love one another as He has loved us.

If hatred can be spread like a disease, I'd say that love can be spread too. We can spread it to our children, to our peers, to our friends and neighbors and everyone else we come across. We can teach it by expressing it, and especially by acting on it, as the Savior did. We can teach each other and the whole world to love one another. I won't lie - It's an uphill battle. Satan has taught so many people hatred that some people have come to accept it as a fact of life, and some of those people don't believe the world can change.

But it can change, and it will. We know through revelation that this world will become the Celestial Kingdom, perhaps in part, by destroying the wicked, but perhaps also, in part, by destroying the wickedness out of the hearts of the children of men. If we can teach ourselves and each other to love ourselves, themselves, and each other, then this world will become much more like the world it was meant to be - the world it will be, and we will be part of the change.