If We Love Our Neighbor, Why Do We Fight?

By Christine Johnson

This is a simple question at first glance, but if you dig a little deeper, the answers are not as easy.  Since late August, Professor Thomas Keating and the theater department have been asking students, faculty and staff on campus this very simple question.  They are taking the answers they have gathered, along with their personal experiences and what the Bible has to say, and turning them into a production that they hope will inspire audiences to slow down and think about the issue. 

Inspired by Mark Berman’s The Genesis Project, Keating is trying to answer the question:  How did we, as a human race, get from “In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth,” to killing each other at war and fighting with our neighbors over where they park their car and how loud their children play their music?    

Keating describes the play as a “concert in the spoken word.”  The play is more of a thought-provoking conversation with the audience than a dramatic story line acted out in act/scene format. 

Keating hopes that the audience will leave the theater asking how they can make a difference by making the effort to love their neighbors rather than fighting with them.

The play will run the first two weekends in October in the Black Box Theater.