The Absurdity of Christian Love

Jesus, I have questions.

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.”

1 Corinthians 13 1-3

Christianity is a love-based faith. That’s not mere hyperbole, nor Hallmark-card pabulum. Love truly is central to the Christian life, but it’s hard for us to grasp what that means, or to understand how it can be more than high-minded pabulum.

For one thing, love itself is hard. Christ’s teachings were always demanding and radical. But it’s also true that those lofty Christian ideals have been twisted or reduced in many ways, by shills and ideologues, and even makers of Hallmark cards. It’s a commonplace that “love is all you need,” but that message has become elastic to the point of uselessness. And yet. Most of us aren’t quite ready to let go. We still want to live in a love-centric universe.

I say “most of us” because there do seem to be at least a few people who take an impish pleasure in voting against love, usually casting a vote instead for what I think of as “nature most foul.” The pagans. The fascists. The self-appointed Nietzschean supermen. I’ll get back to that crowd in a future essay.

For now, I’ll just note that I’m pro-love. Let’s hang onto it. I mean we could just give up and let the robots lead us into a pitiless, reductive, will-to-power universe, but that doesn’t much appeal. I say, let’s stick with Jesus and all his lofty, universalist commands.

In that spirit, I will now embark on a series of essays loosely organized around the theme “give love a chance.” I’m moving back now to some of the themes I touched on months ago when I wrote about “The Pandora’s Box of Christian Love” and why “Sex is Not Safe.” This will run us into questions about identity and obligation. It’s clear that human beings need loves and attachments to thrive, as well as a sense of self, so what’s the right way to build those things? How does that “healthy sense of self” connect to obligation and commitment? That in turn forces us to think about our badly-eroding social fabric, and what might help to repair it. Finally, I’ll consider the question: can we recapture the good and healthy elements of a Christian worldview without repeating past mistakes?

There will be some history and philosophy. Carl Trueman, Josef Pieper, and Plato will all be mentioned. Plenty to look forward to for this Month of Love!

At the outset though, especially given the many new subscribers (welcome!), it seems fitting to restate the purpose of this Substack, and briefly recap what we’ve already done.

Christendom Reborn is dedicated to exploring the thesis that Christianity, far from fading or becoming obsolete, is in fact in the process of being reborn in a revitalized form. That hope is partly rooted in real, positive developments that I see all around us, which in my view are under-noticed and inadequately celebrated. But I also think it’s important to grasp that Christianity is an extraordinarily resilient faith, with a proven capacity to preserve a tradition-rooted dogmatic and liturgical core while adapting to new political and cultural circumstances. That resilience, I contend, can best be understood with reference to three structural features of Christianity that I refer to as its “dynamic keys.”

The first of these is an immensely rich philosophical tradition that has enabled Christians to answer new questions as they arise, without either “losing contain” or spiraling into fundamentalism. This past summer I did a multiple-week series on Christian philosophy, explaining how I think it achieves this, and why I think it is, if anything, emerging from its early-modern doldrums with a fierce new relevance.

The second “dynamic key” is a political tradition that demands some separation between God and Caesar, forcing Christians of every age to reckon with what that might mean. This past month has largely been dedicated to exploring the theory that modern political conservatism, particularly in a broadly fusionist form, offers a sturdy template for working through those questions in a contemporary context.

I am by no means finished with either philosophy or politics. I have plenty more to say about both. In particular, I’d like to say more about contemporary philosophy, and more about Christian political history. But right now I think it’s time to spend some time with the third “dynamic key” of the Christian tradition. I could give it some august title like “a celebration of human dignity” or “a robust Christian personalism.” But maybe it’s best just to say: “it’s about love.”

As I noted in my “Pandora’s Box” post, the early Christians (developing Jesus’ teachings with some help from both Jews and Greeks) preached the audacious message that all human beings, however lowly, were immensely precious, utterly unique, and personally beloved of God. This was highly disruptive to the Roman social order. It’s rather disruptive, in fact, to any social order, because social orders depend on roles, hierarchies, fixed obligations, people “knowing their place.” The best way to achieve that is by teaching people that, “you’re the sort of person who is meant to fill this particular niche.” Optimally, you persuade them that it is in their nature to fill that role. They were born for it. It’s in their blood. They owe it to the ancestors, perhaps.

There are different ways to spin it, but for the sake of social stability, most societies historically forged strong connections between their understanding of nature, tradition, social approval, and personal thriving. Do The Thing (whatever that implies for you personally) and you can enjoy social respectability and proper pride. Also we’re pretty sure you’ll be happy in that life because, well, look at you!

Christianity is not anti-nature but it does ask a lot of potentially annoying questions. Is it really in the slave’s nature to serve and the king’s to rule, or is that more a reflection of historical happenstance? Even if tradition really is reflecting collected wisdom about human nature (which does happen!), we have to reckon with the awkward reality that human beings have a transcendent destiny far beyond their earthly one. So maybe we’re all supposed to become Socrates eventually, or better than? Nature is still good in the Christian worldview, because God made it. But it may turn out (spoiler: it does) that it’s hard to assess a person’s temperament, gifts, and particular potentialities based on characteristics that are readily ascertainable from the day of their birth. And even when we are filling our proper, God-given roles, we’re still meant to transcend them at some point.

So where does that leave us? Confused. That’s where it leaves us.

By the way, lest we forget, Jesus also taught that “the last will be first” and that “tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you.” And, nota bene, we’re supposed to pick up our crosses and follow Him (potentially for a long, weary way), but remember! We must remain “like little children” if we want to inherit heaven. It’s best to bear in mind that he who “does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life” can’t be Jesus’ disciple, but you must still honor your father and mother, keeping in mind too that the Pharisees are vain hypocrites because they give their money to religious causes instead of supporting their parents.

Is it impious to note that there are some real tensions here? It’s trendy now to blame “radical individualism” or “the cult of autonomy” for the social chaos of our time, but go read the Gospels. Then ask yourself: is this a clear picture? Should we really blame Foucault for confounding our sense of the natural, or is it Jesus’ fault? The Lord really is quite cryptic at times in his discussions of obligation and identity.

I’ve already thrown some shade at postmodernism, Marxism, the usual baddies, but let’s be honest for a moment. Christians broke the old world. We shattered the pagan hierarchies, abolished the castes, outrageously insisted that every person is a unique individual with a glorious, transcendent destiny. It created a lot of mess, and it is in a very real sense our mess. So maybe it’s time for Christians to man up and take some responsibility.

I’m just one woman, but I’ll do what I can. Starting Thursday with a closer look at “nature most foul.”