Christ, lizards and G.I. Joe
Gary Long defines his view of empathy, its connection to his faith and the experiences of his childhood that shaped it.
By Tiana Higgins | Reporter
Gary Long, fourth grade, dove after the fast-moving geckos and skinks dodging around the tropical grounds. The sun beat against his back as he took chase, barely aware of the sheltered mice hiding in the brush by his feet.
All around him laid the expanse of a private Philippine campus, the Bethel Bible College of the Assemblies of God in Valenzuela City. Mango trees 50–60 feet tall towered over seminary buildings and scarcely-occupied dorms. It was the midst of summer and the unsupervised missionary kid was free to roam. Growing up in a foreign country, Long spent most of his time within his own community — a community that did not include the Philippine kids crudely calling out “Hey Joe! You want to fight, Joe?”
“Those experiences go deeply to recognizing how when we haven’t been exposed to a lot of otherness, we think we’re just normal.” — Gary Long, Professor of Theology
As a tall, white American kid, he would never blend in. When Long thinks back on his childhood, he regrets missing the chance to immerse in a culture different from his own and facilitate understanding.
“Those experiences go deeply to recognizing how when we haven’t been exposed to a lot of otherness, we think we’re just normal,” Long said. “There’s no normative, there’s just the hubris of thinking this is normal. The hell it is.”
Long views empathy as the antithesis of throwing grenades at one another. In the Philippines, if he wasn’t one more G.I. Joe, then he was the son of yet another “white savior.” In America, he’s perceived as a privileged white male. His unique experiences as both the minority in the Philippines and a part of the majority in America have led him to take another look at how he approaches others in his personal and professional life.
“His strong empathy displayed is really as insightful as it gets.” — Joel Frederickson, Professor of Psychology
As a theologian whose ultimate goal is to facilitate life-long learning, he aims to have empathy with the otherness of the world in the same way that Jesus did.
“I think that he’s teaching us how to hear other people out,” Molly McFadden, a sophomore student of his, said.
When offered a position at Bethel University in 2000, it was the words of then University President George Brushabar that would uproot him from his position at Wheaton College, Illinois.
“He said he wanted people, particularly in BTS, to have students question everything,” Long said “To have them understand better where they’re coming from and to have them learn how to think, not to tell them what to think.”
Where else can one begin then but with epistemic humility and empathy?
“More active marches and being a part of women’s rights, Black Lives Matter, things like that.” — Gary Long, Professor of Theology
In his personal life, Long externalizes these values by marching in solidarity with the communities where he has no voice, challenging his classes to think beyond what is comfortable and just being there for another. Even if that means dropping everything to rush to Regions Hospital for a friend and father in distress.
“The support from him was needed and very helpful,” Long’s colleague and Professor of psychology at Bethel University Joel Frederickson said. “His strong empathy displayed is really as insightful as it gets.”
Such empathy is so important to him that he even dedicates an entire class day to a brief introduction on the psychology of the amygdala, complete with a colorful comic on the matter. To walk in other’s shoes is to first find a way to fit in them, no matter how tight the shoe fits. Overcoming the limits of his amygdala has been a blessing that opened up his eyes to the harsh realities of the world.
“More active marches and being a part of women’s rights, Black Lives Matter, things like that,” Long said, “which, for me, are deeply rooted in the life where Jesus’ heart would be as he was in his culture.”
The way of Jesus was to hang out with the people no one wanted to be around, to see the person before the sin or the circumstances — to this day, he wishes he had been on the same path sooner.
