For better or worse, there are not too many things you can get a room full of Christians to agree on. Nevertheless most of us1 would agree that God is love and that Christians are commanded by Jesus to love one another and also to love our enemies. All sorts of churches, across the theological spectrum claim to love God and love people.
But details matter. We should ask questions, of others and of ourselves. What does it mean to love, both theologically and practically speaking? How do we love God in our actual lives? How do we love one another, in the real world, in real time, in real life? What does this look like in particular, practical ways?
Here’s where we run into difficulties. You and I may have different meanings of what love is and how love is best expressed.2 Some of us believe that God’s love is inclusive, non coercive and freely given without an expected response. Others of us believe that God’s love is freely offered but requires a particular response and changes on our part. Some of us believe that loving others means, in part, non judgmentally accepting people as they are. Others of us believe that the most loving act we can do is to inform people when they are in error so they can amend their ways and live better lives.
And these are not the only options. There are many variations in belief and practice besides these. There are all sorts of clarifying questions we can ask. Does non judgmental love mean that no one can be corrected? Does it mean that any sort of behavior or actions are okay? If I think loving actions mean correcting people, are there times when I should ignore some behaviors? If I correct your error in behavior or attitude or action and you don’t change your ways, what should my response be? Things get complicated, very quickly.
Here is a simple example of how our understanding of love can result in very different actions. Parents decide to spank or not to spank their children based on their understanding of how love should be expressed in a parent child relationship.
Understanding Christian love as an individual in personal relationships is difficult enough, but what about churches? How does a church show their love for God and their love for others? Some believe Christian love is best experienced through personal salvation and a particular kind of relationship with Jesus. Others believe God’s love for the world requires them to work for justice. Some excommunicate or disfellowship people, understanding this to be a loving action. Others do their best to be a community for everyone.
What about love outside of Christian communities? What about companies? What does love look like for a business? Or a city? Can a nation act in loving ways? Should a nation act in loving ways? What does that look like?
In my quest to understand how to be a Christian, the reality that different Christians had different understandings of God’s love and our responsibility to love others was confusing. Whose beliefs were the correct ones? In practical terms, my persistent question was always, what do I do? How should I act? It’s all well and good to have a carefully thought out belief system (I’m all for that) but those beliefs need to result in actual real world actions and habits.
It seems to me that using love as a guiding orientation is too big and too poorly defined to really be helpful in the complexities of daily life. Sometimes, it’s helpful. Other times understanding what the loving thing to do is hard to discern. There may not be agreement between people about what love requires us to do in certain situations.
What can we do? Is there a framework, a way of living, based on loving God and people that might be more helpful, practically speaking? One that is adaptable to various life situations? One that works for individuals and communities? I think there is. I’ll be doing some writing about it in the coming weeks.
- I say “most of us” because there is always someone…. In addition, we might not all agree that this is the “primary attribute” of God. In other words the most important thing about God. Some would say that God’s sovereignty is primary. Or God’s holiness. Or righteousness. ↩︎
- A big thank you to my Saturday Morning Book Group (Yes that’s our name) for helping me think this through. ↩︎
Conversation in Faith 