“We lived in a paradise until they came and damaged everything.”
Those were my father’s words when I asked him what had happened on the farm where I grew up, and why he hated the current president of Colombia—a former guerrillero—so much. For my father, the guerrilleros are the “bad guys” of the story of Colombia.
I grew up in the Colombian countryside, in an area where guerrilla groups have been present since the 1970s, where the Colombian military intensified its operations against them in the 1980s, and where paramilitary groups arrived in the late 1990s. When all these forces converged in the region, farmers began to suffer the most. The military often assumed that people like my father were helping the guerrillas, and as a result, they treated them badly. However, for my father, the guerrillas are the root cause of the loss of that “paradise” we once loved. For him, anything or anyone associated with them becomes a target of his hatred. He cannot see any good in them, even though they have signed peace agreements and claim to be working for the good of the country—especially for people like him.
When we decide in our hearts that someone is a good or bad guy, it becomes very difficult to transform that perception.
The world today pushes us toward polarization, encouraging us to see things in binaries: good or bad, black or white, right or wrong. If you are not with me, you are against me. If you do not think like me, you are my enemy. Therefore, the use of any kind of violence became the norm. That could be direct (physical or psychological harm), structural (systemic inequalities embedded in social, political, and economic systems), or cultural. John Paul Lederach, a Christian author and expert in peacebuilding, argues that to address any type of violence, we must develop what he calls the “moral imagination.” For Lederach, moral imagination is the capacity to remain grounded in the real world—with all its problems—while envisioning a better one and working to build it.
“Jesus invites his followers to remain open and curious about those they are conditioned to reject.”
— Julio Isaza
He suggests that cultivating moral imagination requires four disciplines: 1) relationship, recognizing interdependence, even with adversaries; 2) paradoxical curiosity, embracing complexity rather than binary thinking; 3) creativity, generating alternatives to violence; and 4) risk, acting without guarantees. Paradoxical curiosity is the focus of this work here, which I believe has been the most relevant in engaging with my father’s way of thinking and in understanding the polarized reality in which we live today.
Polarization is not new. We can already see it reflected in biblical narratives. In Luke 9:51–56, Jesus was traveling with his disciples toward Jerusalem. Along the way, he sent messengers ahead to a Samaritan village to prepare a place for them to stay. However, the Samaritans did not welcome them because they were heading to Jerusalem. From the biblical context, we know that there was a long-standing tension between Jews and Samaritans. In response to this rejection, some of Jesus’s disciples reacted with hostility and anger. As the text says, “When James and John saw this, they said to Jesus, ‘Lord, should we call down fire from heaven to burn them up?’” (v. 54). It seems they believed they had both the authority and justification to respond with violence. However, “Jesus turned and rebuked them” (v. 55), rejecting their impulse toward destruction. For the disciples, violence may have seemed like a legitimate way to deal with their enemies, reflecting patterns they had learned. But Jesus clearly challenged this mindset. Instead of reinforcing division, he disrupted it. What is most interesting about this encounter is the contrast that follows in Luke’s Gospel. Shortly afterward, in Luke 10:25–37, Jesus tells a parable in which a Samaritan, a “bad guy,” becomes the moral example for a Jewish audience, demonstrating what it truly means to be a neighbor.
This is where Lederach’s idea of paradoxical curiosity becomes essential. Rather than accepting the simple narrative that “the other” is the enemy, Jesus invites his followers to remain open and curious about those they are conditioned to reject. Paradoxical curiosity means holding together two seemingly contradictory realities: the pain of rejection and the possibility that the one who rejects you can also be a source of truth, goodness, or even moral example. According to Lederach, “The concept of a paradox suggests that truth lies in but also beyond what is initially perceived. The gift of paradox provides an intriguing capacity: It holds together seemingly contradictory truths to locate a greater truth.” It requires resisting the impulse to label and condemn, and instead asking deeper questions: Who is this person beyond my assumptions? What can I learn from them? What is in their heart? Why does this person think like that? What is beneath that thinking?
Jesus models paradoxical curiosity. He does not deny the conflict between Jews and Samaritans, but neither does he allow that conflict to define the limits of compassion or understanding. By lifting up a Samaritan as the example of neighborly love, he challenges deeply rooted prejudices and invites a new way of seeing—one that refuses to reduce people to enemies and instead opens the door to transformation.
Whenever my father watches the news in Colombia, his anxiety increases. The channel he follows focuses on portraying the president in a negative light, which reinforces his anger and deepens his resentment. He does not experience peace. I can see how bitterness has taken root in him, slowly damaging and consuming his life. My mother, on the other hand, has lived through the same experiences as my father—the violence of guerrilla groups, paramilitaries, and the Colombian military. She has also suffered deeply. However, her response has been very different. Grounded in her faith in Jesus, she has embraced the power of forgiveness, the call to love even one’s enemies, and a willingness to practice paradoxical curiosity.
I have had the opportunity to visit my parents and engage in conversations that move from face-to-face disagreement to heart-to-heart interaction, which is part of the paradoxical curiosity discipline Lederach developed. In our face-to-face conversations, we talk about what is visible—our disagreements, our opposing views. This is not easy, especially with my father. These moments can quickly become tense; we each feel attacked, and anger rises. But when we move to heart-to-heart conversations, we begin to uncover what lies beneath: the pain, fear, and wounds that give rise to hatred, the desire for violence, and the impulse to “call down fire from heaven” on those we see as enemies.
I recognize that this is not an easy path. Like my father, much of our society today seems ready to eliminate those who are different, those we label as “bad guys,” while assuming that we ourselves are the “good guys.” The paradox of the gospel is that Jesus Christ often places those very “others” or “bad guys” at the center of the story, making them the example to follow. As the Apostle Paul reminds us, “no one is good,” and we do not “copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform us into a new person by changing the way we think” (Romans 12:2, NLT). We are not to “be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:21). When we allow hatred for others to have the final word, we let evil conquer us. But when we choose to do good, we overcome it.
This article was first published in the Covenant Companion Summer 2026 issue, the official magazine of the Evangelical Covenant Church.
