A Lens of Understanding
Our common knowledge about Christianity, the faith that permeates our culture and has shaped many of our lives, provides us with understandings we can apply in our attempts to understand other world religions. It is like a reducing glass that sharpens as it condenses our field of vision.
First, we recognize that Christianity has many faces. There are three major groupings of Christianity: Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, and Protestant. For example, the Catholic emphasis on sacrament and Apostolic Succession through the Pope contrasts with the Protestant emphasis on the Word of Scripture and the individual blessings of the Holy Spirit. And each major group has a multitude of diverging sub-groups with Protestantism being the most heterodox. For example, within the Protestant tradition there are latter day Calvinists who maintain unyielding doctrines of predestination and human depravity juxtaposed to contemporary Unitarian Universalists who are creedless eclectics loosely bound by freedom and optimism. All world religions, more or less, have a range of practices and beliefs within the faith tradition's overarching framework; these varied practices and beliefs can appear divergent.
Second, the degree to which the so-called faithful practice their varying forms of Christianity also ranges widely. Most Americans are casual or cultural Christians at best. Church attendance continues to decline generally , yet swells annually at the high holy days of Christmas and Easter.
Most American Christians know little about the fine matters of theology, doctrine, and dogma, yet they value a belief in God, often using the words Lord, God, and Jesus synonymously; the importance if not power of prayer, especially for public events; and hold to an afterlife for believers. Yet more enthusiastic Christian variations, engage their followers so much that they follow a separatist lifestyle, one signature being the home schooling of children to keep secular evils at bay. The faith of the faithful, in Christianity as in all world religions, ranges from total devotees who separate from the world to the predominantly secular whose religion is so worldly as to be unconsciously cultural.
Third, Christianity is an historical faith that has a chronicle of origins and evolution. Christianity is more historical than most other world religions, in the sense that its origins are related to specific events and persons, especially Jesus and his crucifixion. The religion of Jesus, which might be seen as "pure" doctrine, is not the religion about Jesus, which is cultic, and often at odds with the teachings and life of Jesus, as recorded in Scripture. It is often said that Christianity—the religion about Jesus—is the creation of Paul, the early, influential Christian who was a Greek-infused Jew. Over two thousand years of influence on Western culture, Christianity not only shaped civilization, it was adaptive to and frequently a co-conspirator with monarchs and politicos. In this regard, we are familiar with the insight that early Protestantism was congenial to the rise of the emerging modern nation station, the middle class, and capitalism. All world religions operate in a dynamic secular arena and transform to the influences of that secular over time.
A world religion is a complex—a phenomenon that is a diversity and a convergence, a cause and effect, a soaring ideal and a hypocritical reality. To adequately wrap our imagination around the dimensions of a world religion is a daunting undertaking. As a practical strategy, in this series on core and great spiritual truths of various world religions, I'm recommending that it is possible to see and grasp within each faith an essence, a core spiritual truth that transcends as well as animates the various forms of the great world religions.
I begin this seminar on the essentials of seven great world religions with the three Abrahamic and Semitic religions. These three Semitic religions obviously share a great deal. The Torah and other books of Jewish tradition became the Old Testament of Christian Scripture. Jesus fulfilled Jewish prophecy. Islam accepted Moses and Jesus as prophets who preceded the Seal of the Prophets, Muhammad.
Jewish Sources of Christian Love
It's reasonable then, that when we now look at Christianity's notion of Love, we necessarily look to its source in Judaism, even before we go to the authority of Jesus, for the most obvious of reasons: Jesus was a Jew. Jesus' teachings were a magnification of the Jewish sense of a merciful and loving God whose interest lay in Israel's best interest. Despite numerous transgressions and unfaithfulness, God never abandoned Israel but was steadfast in the promise (covenant) to be Israel's God. It's helpful to understand Jesus' teachings on love in this light.
Huston Smith in his classic primer of world religions, The Religions of Man, wrote:
"The only way to make sense of Jesus' extraordinary admonitions as to how we should behave toward our fellow men is to see them as cut to fit this understanding of the God who loves man absolutely without pausing to calculate his worth or due. We are to give to others our cloak as well as our coat if they need it—why? Because God has given us what we need. We are to go with others the second mile—why again? Because we know, deeply, overwhelmingly, that God has borne with us not only for a second, but a third, and a fourth, and a fifth. Why should we love not only our friends but also our enemies, and pray for those who persecute us? Jesus' answer is explicit: 'So that you be sons of your Father who is in heaven, for he makes the sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust... You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect." (Matt. 5-44-45, 48)
Christian love with its source in the teachings and practices of Jesus has its origin in the
Jesus' Genius Regarding Love
A cogent and clear expression of Jesus' teaching about love occurred when he was tested by a lawyer also a Pharisee who asked, '"Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?" Jesus replied, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second I like it. 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets." (Mt. 22:34-40)
Following Huston Smith's line of reasoning in understanding this passage, love is predicated on love of God because God loves humankind—here are related doctrines of covenant, election, and responsibility that are all part of Judaism's formation. We love God because God first loves us. And why should we love our neighbor? By implication it's because God's love for us shows the way. And on a psychological level, because we know love—that is, God loves us—we know our own worth: we love our self and grow confident and strong. This economic statement—it not only establishes the two greatest commandments, it links them as similes—the "second" is like the "first"—is incredibly rich. Gratitude and veneration of God seamlessly turn into self-love and an ethical imperative to love others.
I have long thought that the sentence "You shall love your neighbor as yourself," is the most compelling and intriguing statement in the New Testament. It contains permission to love—and think of the implications of this 2000 years ago, in addition for us today—to love one's own being. It's actually a given, this self-love. (What does it mean, really mean to love one's self?) And it is an admonition to love others for egalitarian and empathetic reasons.
Contrast Jesus' genius answer to the lawyer's question to the similar but very different admonition of the "golden rule," to do unto others as you would have done to you. That is merely quid pro quo—you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours. But to love someone else expecting nothing in return is an incredible spiritual leap. Add to this the assertion that all the laws and all prophecy rests upon this tripartite love—of God, of self, of others: we are ultimately loved, we are worthy and can love our selves, and we are loving of others.
On this level of Jesus' teaching, the notion of love isn't terribly complicated, though it is terribly rich. When we seek an explanation of how Christianity managed to spread so far and quickly, in Jesus' generation gaining a foothold in all the major places of that region, we come to this profound notion of Love. The resurrection wasn't anything particularly novel. Dying and rising gods in ancient mythology were legion. And Jesus was only a minor figure in an obscure part of the Roman Empire. What swept up the ordinary and oppressed people was Jesus' core message wrapped up in being loved and in loving—the power and way of Love. The good news that quickly spread and eventually resulted in the largest religion in the world was centered in the spiritual notion of love that energized the converts and whose subsequent demeanor/behavior persuaded new converts.
The Practical Challenge of Love
The zealous persecutor of Christians, smitten blind on the "road to Damascus" by the Holy Spirit, Saul of Tarsus who became Paul the Apostle, the architect of Christianity, composed one of the most compelling statements of Christian love as recorded in the New Testament book, 1 Corinthians. (Some argue that these words about love weren’t unique to Paul; that he may have “borrowed” them.)
"If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, by have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have ... but have not love, I gain nothing.
"Love is patient and kind love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, endures all things.
"Love never ends.... So faith, hope love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love."
Now there are many who bristle at these exquisite words, knowing that Paul's love didn't, for example, extend to women. I agree that Paul, especially in comparison to Jesus, practiced love imperfectly. Paul's words are poignant precisely for his failures, because in his failures we see history's and our own failures.
For me that is precisely the challenge that the rich Christian notion of love presents to us. It is an inspiration and aspiration. Awakened to its possibilities, we are continually reaching: Do we accept, realize, and live the gifts and graces of being that have been given to us? Does that love give us a full sense of self—self-assured, strong, confident, not jealous or resentful of others, in league with its power to redeem? Are we loving of others in respect of their worth and in empathy, because they are gifted and graced as we are? Do we love Nature in its parts and in its Unity? Do we use the power of love to heal what is broken and to transform what is conditionally evil?
There are few themes that have engaged the Western psyche over the millennia more than love: erotic love, sensual and esthetic love, mother and father love, "brotherly" love, romantic love, spiritual love, self-love and on and on. We wonder: are all these aspects of love, or are there defining, discerning qualities of genuine or authentic Love.
The Power of Love
I think one of the ways of discerning authentic spiritual Love relates to its effect, because deep Love is a power. I like how Anne Morrow Lindberg once expressed it:
"People talk about love as though it were something you could give, like an armful of flowers. And a lot of people give love like that. They just dump it down on top of you, a useless strong-scented burden. I don't think it is anything you can give...love is a force in you that enables you to give other things. It is the motivating power. It enables you to give strength and freedom and peace to another person. It is not a result; it is a cause. It is not a product; it produces. It is a power, like steam or electricity. It is valueless unless you can give something else by means of it."
Here Ms. Lindberg is speaking relationally, but this power of Love translates even into mega-events. Christianity's success, in origin and over time, certainly relates to the spiritual power of its core value—Love. Love's power has also been applied in relation to Jesus' perceived method of non-resistance, that is, not answering evil with violence rather following a way of Love to transform evil. This was the way followed by Dr. King in the greatest social reform movement of the 20th century—civil rights for American blacks. This organized movement was aggressive, but it wasn't violent, especially in the face of violence against it. As a model, Dr. King and his Civil Rights cohorts drew from the successful lesson of Mohandas Gandhi who first in South Africa and later in India devised a political strategy he called the "science of love." Mr. Gandhi found his inspiration first in Hindu scripture, specifically the Bhagavad-Gita; however he also took inspiration from and found consonance in Jesus' teaching. If you want to understand the mega-power of love, you can ponder the successes of the great non-resistance movements of the 20th century, paradoxically the most violent century of all time.
I also recommend that you look at the power of Love in your own experience and muse about how, when you are in league with that power, you are a creator. I think Ms. Lindberg was on target: "Love is valueless unless you can give something else by means of it." Actually, this liberal giving of Love is one of Love's telling signatures.
A closing affirmation comes from A. Powell Davies, an influential 20th century Unitarian minister. "Love is what we need. To love and to be loved. Let our hearts be open; and what we would receive from others, let us give. For what is given still remains to bless the giver—when the gift is love."
Walt Whitman expressed Mr. Davies' insight even more succinctly: "Love is to the lover."
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