Love is the Answer

 From his birth in Bethlehem to his death on the cross, Jesus was surrounded by conflict and rejection. He was born in a stable. Mary and Joseph had to flee to Egypt to save their child from being killed.

When Jesus began his ministry, he was opposed and persecuted by the religious leaders for three years until they had him executed on false charges.

His country was occupied by brutal Roman soldiers. The Jewish people were divided into religious and political factions. There were religious legalists, violent freedom fighters, and corrupt collaborators who worked for the Roman occupiers.

In this chaotic environment, Jesus loved people, cared for them, practised and taught forgiveness, and loved his enemies.

The world we live in today is catastrophically chaotic. 

Our environment is stressful. There are conflicts in families, communities, and Facebook groups because of different political or religious views, gender identity, and all kinds of difficult issues. 

We see Jesus as a role model in the Bible. He also lived in an extremely stressful time. He loved Jews and non-Jews, Roman officers and cared for prostitutes. 

Paul was a true disciple and also a wonderful role model. He loved and respected men and women, slaves and intellectuals. 

There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Gal 3:28 NIV

In the lives of Jesus and then Paul, we always see kindness. Of course, kindness was not always possible. Jesus and Paul could also confront people, but they wanted to treat everyone with kindness as much as possible.
 
Kindness is often lost in this day and age. So many people are overwhelmed by stress and hurt. Rejection has become an epidemic. So many people are rejected, and then they become increasingly defensive. 

Many people hate themselves. How can they love their fellow human beings?

The antidote is not culture war, but kindness and love.

In the daily news and on social media, we see war, culture wars, hatred, and violence, murder, and corruption over and over again. Of course, we often react with outrage, but then we are in danger of becoming habitually horrified.

Do not fret because of those who are evil or be envious of those who do wrong; 
for like the grass they will soon wither, like green plants they will soon die away. 
Trust in the LORD and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. 
Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Ps 37:1–4 NIV

… “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’” Lk 10:27 NIV

The antidote we need is not culture war, but love. You cannot love God without receiving God's love.

This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 
Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 1 Jn 4:10–11 NIV

But if you hate yourself, you cannot receive God's love, nor can you love your neighbour. 

We need spiritual therapy. Think of beautiful memories. Thank God for people who have loved or helped you. Don't let the horrors of this world take away the blessings God has given you in your life. 

Social Justice. Social Gospel or Antisocial Gospel

 Some Christians preach a social gospel. 

• They are mainly concerned about helping the poor, the sick and the disadvantaged. 

• They support progressive political parties. 

• They want laws that give women equal rights and equal wages. 

• They want to help refugees and racial minorities.

  On the other hand, they are often rather vague about the afterlife. They avoid talking about the eternal judgement of God.
  
  Then there are some Pentecostals, conservative evangelicals and fundamentalists who focus almost exclusively on biblical teachings about eternal judgement, personal salvation leading to eternal life, biblical teachings on sexuality, marriage and bearing children.
  
  Do I believe the Bible comes from God? Yes.
  Do I believe Jesus is the Son of God who paid the penalty for my sins on the cross? Yes.
  
  For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. Jn 3:16 NIV
  
  For God took the sinless Christ and poured into him our sins. Then, in exchange, he poured God’s goodness into us! 2 Cor 5:21 The Living Bible, Paraphrased
  
  Do I believe in a social gospel? No. The Good News of Jesus is eternal life.
  
  Where will you spend eternity? This is the most important question to answer.
  
  Do I believe in a social gospel? No. But I also do not believe in an antisocial gospel.
  
  Jesus taught that we need forgiveness of sins to go to heaven, but He was also intensely concerned about caring for suffering people in this life.
  
  Jesus healed sick people because he felt such compassion, that it turned his stomach. He did not demand that they repented of sins to be healed, but of course he was grieved when they were healed but did not repent of sins.
  
  Conservative Christians who only care about eternal salvation and strict moral codes are partly right but also seriously wrong.
  
  Progressive Christians who care for people in need are partly right but often also partly wrong.
  
  Jesus taught the essence of the Law of God in two commandments.
  
  Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’
  
  The second is this: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” Mk 12:30–31 NIV
  
  If you love other people as Jesus does, you will want them to believe and go to heaven, but people will not believe you love them if you do not care about their earthly needs.
  
  When people see conservative Christians only talking about moral codes and eternal judgement, they often conclude that Christians only talk about love but don’t really love.
  
  Christian missionaries in India preached to a community about salvation for years, but without result. When the Christians organised a project the provide the community with clean water, many Hindus became Christians.
  
  When Christians support huge tax concessions for very rich people but oppose government programs to provide affordable health care, many people conclude that conservative Christians should not be taken seriously.

Chaos on earth but what about Eternity?

 I am so concerned about justice and freedom. I think that is right. God called Martin Luther King, Konrad Adenauer, William Wilberforce, Harriet Tubman, Nelson Mandela, Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, feminist leaders and many others to resist tyranny.

Freedom, justice, merciful provision for the poor, sick and needy are so important, but in the end we all die. What happens then?

Democratic freedom, fair wages, health care and welfare for retired people are important in this life but in other world, these things no longer count.

Some Christians are obsessed with wealth and national greatness and others are concerned with welfare for the poor and needy, but in the next life the alternatives are quite different.

All the tension and chaos in our world is distracting us from eternal realities.

Where will you spend eternity?

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Jn 3:16 NRSV

War on Empathy

 There is a war on empathy. Incredibly rich businessmen and politicians are building empires as democracy trembles. In ancient Rome, constitutional government was trampled by a succession of ruthless emperors. In our time, we are seeing self-centred despots attempting to replicate this process.

In the 1960s and 70s we saw rapid advances in racial and gender equality, but it appears that the old ruling classes and would be emperors have had enough. The empire is striking back.
Of course no empire can endure long without a religion.

Vladimir Putin understands this well. He has abandoned communist atheism and embraced the flagship of the old Czarist Empire, the Russian Orthodox Church.

Capitalist predators in the US and elsewhere have joined forces with conservative authoritarian Church leaders. Imperial rulers must have economic and military power but they also need priests.

Hard line conservatives have always resisted racial integration and gender equality, but the tide of history was against them.

But when the human rights activists shifted their focus to gay rights, same sex marriage and unrestricted abortion, the old conservatives saw their chance to seize the moral high ground and turn back the clock 100 years.

Civil rights, racial desegregation, gender equality, fair wages, and universal health care became the targets for the new rulers. Social justice was supposedly not real justice, if justice mattered at all. Mercy and empathy were redefined as weakness.

A great nation with a strong economy became the only thing that mattered. Even the working classes voted for this. Who wants high inflation and mass unemployment?

If the wealthy become even wealthier, they will naturally create a wealthy country which would be good for everyone. So we are told. It is called trickle down economics, except that the trickle is often a very meagre trickle.

Then Christian preachers come to the aid of the rulers.

Jesus said we must love our neighbour as ourselves, but some preachers tell us Christian love is only a personal matter, and nothing to do with politics or governments.

If we only narrowly focus on the New Testament, we can reach this wrong conclusion. However, Jesus was a Jew in Israel. The Old Testament has a great deal to say about legal justice and the responsibility of government to care for the needy.

Then we are told that God’s laws for the Old Testament theocracy do not apply to modern secular governments. It is true that Christians are not subject to the laws of Moses, but the Old Testament laws express God’s principles of law and justice.

Of course we should not execute adulterers, but the Old Testament prophets strongly condemned financial greed and the neglect of the poor. If we isolate politics entirely from God’s clearly expressed ethical principles, we are not applying Christianity to every part of life.

So should the churches try to take control of governments? The historical examples of this have often been horrible. Think of the worldly hypocrisy in Rome after the Emperor Constantine became nominally Christian. Think of the Spanish Inquisition.

The new rulers are telling us that empathy is weakness. Very prominent church leaders are teaching this as a supposedly Christian doctrine.

Of course empathy can have bad consequences. A prostitute comes to a church looking for help. A naive Christian couple take her into their home and the young woman steals the husband’s affections and he leaves his wife.

A woman in a strong missionary organisation studies prostitution for her PhD. Then she becomes a prostitute herself.

These stories are not made up.

Jesus was known as a friend of sinners, but he did not sin. Not everyone can share the gospel in a bar or a brothel, but some Christians can and do so without sinning themselves.

Is Empathy a Sin? Are Empathy and Compassion different?

 “So what is the problem with empathy today?” he asks. “We are, in fact, told to weep with those who weep, but that assumes those who weep have a reason for weeping that is in line with God’s revelation.” James White. Conservative US Pastor.

So are Christians only allowed to feel empathy for innocent victims of sin or sickness but not for people who are suffering because of their own sin? This sounds like phariseeism to me.
Jesus showed empathy for sinners.

Jesus showed mercy to the woman caught in the act of adultery in John Chapter 8. Was this merely a cold judicial decision? Hardly. Jesus was accused of being a friend of sinners. He did not embrace their sin but neither did he lack feelings of compassion.

John Piper is an enormously influential conservative US pastor. He and his followers go so far as to talk about the “sin of empathy” … So if a promiscuous homosexual or prostitute is dying of aids, should we judge or love? Jesus did not condone sin but he always demonstrated heartfelt empathy with suffering people.

Hard line conservative preachers play clever games with words by trying to distinguish between compassion and empathy.

They play similar word games by saying a man must love his wife but she must respect her husband. As if love respect were quite distinct things. If you love your wife and you do not respect her, your love is not real.

Many Christians latch on to the statement that empathy is a sin, and the theological word games get forgotten. They become coldly judgemental and compassion fades away.

The horrific results are plain to see in culture and politics. Aggressive bible believers enthusiastically support government policies that deny affordable essential health care to poor people in a very rich and powerful country.

An American pastor preached on the Sermon on the Mount.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Mt 5:3 NIV

Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Mt 5:7 NIV

The conservative culture warriors in the congregation were not impressed, but the pastor reminded them that these were the words of Jesus.

The reply was shocking. “But this doesn't work any more.”

American conservative fundamentalism has become so corrupted by self righteous culture warfare that it is sometimes hard to tell if it is any better than extreme post Christian liberalism.

What did Jesus say?

“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. Mt 5:13 NIV

Then many will fall away, and they will betray one another and hate one another. 

And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray.
And because of the increase of lawlessness, the love of many will grow cold. Mt 24:10–12 NRSV

Lawlessness certainly undermines natural as well as Christian love, but harsh self righeous legalism is no less destructive. We can see this illustrated in the way Jesus denounced the pharisees.

If you teach that empathy is a sin, you are teaching doctrines of demons. You are in danger of being condemned as a false prophet.