I keep returning to this problem at the root of Christianity as it is usually observed and defined...
In the second part of the Fourth Gospel there is a great deal about the need for love as the core of how we should be, and about the very specific love between Jesus and certain specific people - members of his family; Lazarus, Mary and Martha; and the disciples. This is love in a context of intense, prolonged, personal relationships - often between familially-related people
The problem is then scaling-up this personal love. Most Christian churches instruct their members to love everybody; and there are frequent 'claims' of love between those within the church. I know such claims are familiar to the point of stereotypical; but I doubt whether this is even possible (in the same sense that Jesus meant love).
And if it is Not possible really-and-truly 'routinely' to up-scale love from family and close friends, to a specific church, to a denomination, to all Christians, to all the world... then this is a very serious dishonesty or error at the heart of the institutional and social basis of what has usually been termed Christianity.
The love that Jesus spoke-of and lived in the Fourth Gospel seems like a very different thing from the love discussed (as an abstract idea) by so many Christians since that time.
If real love operates at this familial-friendship scale; then real Christianity may be an almost invisible and imperceptible thing. It is possible that most real Christians (followers of Christ) lived and died unrecorded, unknown to history - or even to the people among whom they dwelt.
The God whose love for each of us is so vast, intense and pervasive that it is virtually indescribable is the God who, if we refuse repentance and leave this life in our sins will see us consigned to hell. God's love is not unconditional. It is His very nature but so is truth. To offend against truth is to offend against God which is to offend against His love, and, having rejected His love by rejecting His truth we reject Him. And this is to choose to live apart from him and that, in turn, is to live in torment which is hell.
ReplyDeleteGod's live trumps his truth by way of His forgiveness and mercy. He is almost begging us to repent, accept his mercy and be forgiven. Yet it appears to me that the vast majority of us are unwilling to do this because to do so means having to submit to His truth which impinges on our pride as it puts strict limits on our prideful desires.
@DR - But that isn't how Love is depicted in the Fourth Gospel - nor is it Jesus's teaching there. Love is not indescribable, but (for those capable of it) a matter of direct personal experience.
ReplyDeleteI didn't write "indescribable". I wrote "virtually indescribable". The love of God is so intense, personal and all pervasive that no description in words can encompass it. Since defining or describing ordinary human love is something that poets, playwrights and novelists have been striving to accomplish for just about forever it is not, in my estimation, too much to state that describing a love that makes simple human love seem pathetically weak by comparison is out of bounds.
ReplyDeletePlus, having experienced this divine love I know whereof I speak.
As a personal aside to you I want you to know that I admire your efforts on this blog. I come her regularly and find it often insightful and frequently edifying. Please don't give up the work you are doing. None of us gets it right every time but I think you hit the mark far more often than most.
ReplyDeleteSean Cory
@DR Thanks!
ReplyDeleteDoes Jesus love us all? Then it’s possible.
ReplyDelete@Wm - That doesn't follow. You are saying because Jesus loves us (in some sense of love) then it becomes possible for people to love an open ended number of other people, when instructed; and organisations can be based upon this reality.
ReplyDelete