Love One Another
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July 1, 2023
Sitting at the gate, I see the allure of love. Last month I wrote about the power of love, using Tom Oord’s latest book to form the basis of the post. [1] To be sure, the place to begin in developing a theology of love is in the nature of God. But just as God’s love did not remain in God, so too God’s love must not remain in us. The very nature of love includes its being shared in word and deed. Beginning with the power of love has led me to stay focused on love, this time to consider the allure of love.
Doing so, my thoughts begin in lament. If I were forced to name one failure of Christianity and of the Church, I would say it is the failure to love. In both real and imagined ways, many in the world perceive us to be among those expressing the mean-spirited climate of the age. Given the nature of God is love, in each person of the Trinity, what indictment could be worse than our failure to love? [2]
Yet, I continue to see some Christians pushing back with a defensiveness which lacks love and ends up only adding to the perception. Instead of rejecting and judging them,, the “nones and dones” are prophets to whom we should be listening. When we do, we hear them commending the power of love, and the lure of love when it is manifested. This should be a no-brainer for us as Christians, and that’s why it is a mega-indictment when it is not. The day of pushback is long-over. The way forward is to hear the indictment and take it seriously.
Moving into this line of thinking, I came upon two books I did not know about, even though both authors are familiar to me. The rest of this post is in relation to them.
Dallas Willard has been an influential mentor to me through his books. But I only recently came upon his book, "The Allure of Gentleness." [3] It could have been titled the lure of love because that is what it is about, particularly as it pertains to sharing faith with others. Working his way through many of the hard questions people are asking today, Willard wrote that how we respond to the questions is more important than the answers we offer, because we are remembered more for our spirit than our substance. For Willard, the response had to come through gentleness.
Along the same lines, I came upon bell hooks’ book, "All About Love." [4] Written to an even wider audience than Willard’s book, hooks sends the same message, “Turning away from love we risk moving into a wilderness of spirit so intense we may never find our way home again. I write of love to bear witness both to the danger in this movement, and to call for a return to love.” Sadly, we have entered that wilderness as a society … and far too much as the Church. Not surprisingly, a growing number of people are saying “No thank you” to our witness.
All this came together for me in a recent conversation with my friend, Paul Chilcote. He taught evangelism for decades in schools all over the world. I asked him if the evangelism of the first Christians was like much of ours today (i.e., elicit conviction of sin from people, persuade them to believing “saving” doctrines about Jesus—complete with witness plans and a “sinner’s prayer”), and in an instant he said, “No.” So, then I asked, “What was the evangelism of the first Christians?” Again, without hesitation he answered, “the witness of love, among Christians for one another, and through them to the world.”
In that moment I remembered that when Tertullian sought to persuade the emperor not to kill Christians, his main proof was, “see how they love one another.” I am not a student of Roman culture to know what it had or what it lacked. But when Tertullian made the case for valuing Christians in the empire, he did it based on their love. Love stood out, and was commendable. The power of love turned into the lure of love. The highest witness then….the highest witness still.
[1] Thomas Jay Oord, ‘The Death of Omnipotence and Birth of Amipotence’ (SacraSage, 2023).
[2] David P. Gushee, “Christianity Without Love” Baptist News Global, 5/1/2023.
[3] Dallas Willard, ‘The Allure of Gentleness’ (HarperOne, 2015)
[4] bell hooks, ‘All About Love’ (Harper, 1999).