Posted on by Abe Austin

Deeper Love- Summary

Over the past few days, I’ve discussed the possibility of being a Christian and holding fast to the commandments that God has given me but also having love for those who choose to live a different lifestyle. In this final post I will attempt to summarize what I have gone over, and the errors that those who suggest love for another has to include acceptance of their decisions run afoul of.

Love and Disagreement)

The first issue is that no one actually believes this. Everyone knows that you don’t support everything that a loved one does. In my last post I gave the example of drunk driving. Any decent, moral person knows that drunk driving is wrong and would perhaps feel compelled to have a serious talk with a loved one who was repeatedly pulled over for it. But does that mean that now they don’t love that person anymore? Of course not.

The only difference is that pretty much everyone agrees that drunk driving is morally wrong, while other lifestyle choices not everyone agrees on the morality of. That’s fine. Perhaps what I call morally wrong you do not. Perhaps you think I am mistaken in being opposed to certain behaviors. Perhaps I will one day learn that you were objectively correct when I meet my Savior and he tells me that I was wrong, and I will have to confess that it must be so. So be it. But even if I have a wrong judgment today, it is a non-sequitur to suggest that that has anything to do with my capacity to love someone in the meantime.

Let me ask you this. Does my “morally wrong” opinion prevent you from loving people like me? If not, then you already know that the point I am making here is true. If it does, then you are projecting your own inability to love onto others.

A Solid Foundation)

Another error is that of believing that love is one and the same is acceptance, or that acceptance is a necessary component of love. These are two separate qualities, the first having been defined exhaustively in the gospels, the second only declared a virtue in modern culture. There is no compelling argument that I have ever heard of that acceptance is essential for love.

In fact, the scriptures show an example of love given to those that you do not accept. The purest love, God’s love, is said to be given to us “while we were yet sinners,” (Romans 5:8). He loves us even when we are still in opposition to Him. That’s why His love for us is so sure and transformative. Because He gives it to us wherever we are, motivating us to come to Him wherever He is. He loves us as we fall short, while defining for us exactly what it is we are falling short of.

And each disciple is called to do the same. I will love you, even when I believe that you are wrong, because God has shown me that even the wrong can be loved. This is true love, this is unconditional love, this is love that loves no matter what. This is what God calls us to. Not to abandon our principles to appease our neighbor, but to be stalwart on our principles, loving from the solid foundation of God’s word. That is the love that God has shown to each of us, so that is the love that I will try to emulate as well.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Deeper Love- Love Without Acceptance

An Unfounded Assertion)

Yesterday I discussed some of my issues with the question, “How can you say you follow Jesus and his commandment to love everyone, while also not accepting members of the LGBT community?” And for today’s discussion, we can even drop the parts about Jesus’s teachings and religious belief. Leaving us the more general assertion that if you do not accept someone’s sexual or gender identity, that you do not love them.

This assertion is built upon the assumption that love = acceptance. That assumption is everywhere in our society today, but nowhere have I seen it justified. Love and acceptance are clearly two different concepts, with two different meanings entirely, so why would we assume that they were equivalent, or that one was the necessary component of the other? It is not immediately apparent to me that this is the case, and I have never seen any argument, let alone a convincing one, that such a claim is logical.

Love Defined by Whom?)

And how can we determine whether someone has genuine love for another person or not? A spouse might say that she loves her husband every day right up until she serves him divorce papers. A father might struggle to ever say that he loves his children, even though he sacrifices for them every day. Is not the man who feels the love most qualified to know that it is really there? How can we tell a person that there is no love in his heart, when we do not personally feel what stirs within him?

I believe that when people suggest that love = acceptance, what they really mean is, “I can only feel loved if you accept me.” What they are describing then is not an inability for love to be sent by the lover, but an inability to receive it by the loved. Such a plain admission is unlikely, because usually in these conversations there is an intention to place the problem in the other person, but requiring acceptance says more about the person who demands it than the person not providing it.

If a person is unable to receive love unless special, personally defined criteria are met, then the solution is to examine what walls they have built up on their own side, to ask, “What is wrong in me that receiving love does not come naturally?” Just as if I find that I really am unable to love a person while fundamentally disagreeing with them, then the solution is for me to examine what walls I have built up on my side, to ask, “What is wrong in me that giving love is not natural?” If both of us will work inward, rather than at the other, then we will achieve the shared goal of love being given and received.

Posted on by Abe Austin

A Loving Relationship with Christ- False Comforts

Twisting the Love of Christ)

There are a number of false doctrines relating to our relationship with God that are taught in the world today. There are those that say God does not exist and there is no absolute moral truth, so we may do whatever society will allow. There are those that say God does exist, and we must obsess over every shortcoming, trying to attain perfection on our own. But it is not as though unbelief is always paired with moral depravity, and belief with moral legalism. There are also those that mix the two in strange ways.

One example that I have seen repeatedly are so-called Christians who live in or support direct violations of God’s commands, and when challenged on that incongruity say something along the lines of, “Jesus loves us, no matter what we do.” Because they know Jesus loves everyone, they are sure that he accepts everyone, and to suggest otherwise is a hateful suggestion that he really doesn’t love anybody.

In short, they conflate love with acceptance and twist the gospel message. It is a difficult issue to disentangle, because they actually do have a correct understanding of the nature of Christ, but a terrible misunderstanding of what that actually means in regard to our salvation.

Roadmap)

In the course of this study, I am going to try and correct this confusion. I am going to start by acknowledging the points that the morally liberal Christian gets right but then show where they go astray. I will use scriptures to establish what the correct conception of our relationship with Christ is, and the signs by which we can gauge how aligned we are with those truths.

My purpose in doing this is not to be cruel to those who invoke the love of Christ incorrectly. To be frank, I do believe that they need to be awoken to the pain and guilt of wrong actions, but not because I desire ill for them, but because for all of us this is the first step to true healing and joy. I seek to dispel the palliative lies, only so that we can live in the healing truth.