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We also know that one can give a cup of water to a child or visit someone in prison out of love and THIS is the same to Jesus as giving Jesus a cup of water or visiting Jesus in prison. When we love others this is the same as loving Jesus. It IS, in the name of Love, an embracing of Christ.

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So perhaps "love," in Jesus’ claim “they will know you are my followers by your love” is to be understood as a "confirmation" of and not the "indication" (I hope I explain this clearly) of the gospel we proclaim. That is, love and good works are not to be understood theologically apart from the mission of the Church to proclaim Christ. As we proclaim Christ, as we share his story with our neighbors and friends, our love, kindness, and good deeds testifies to the genuineness of our proclamation. No one single act of love, no series of acts of love in fact, can declare to the world that we are Christ’s apart from OUR declaring that we are Christ’s. Love comes in to confirm this."

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Long and short of it, things that are done in genuine, radical love DO NOT have to be done in the name of Christ. Things that are supposedly done in Christ's name or by his people MUST BY NECESSITY be grounded in love (of God AND neighbor)


Tom asked this question:

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What unique, indispensable role do you think Christ, or a relationship to Christ, plays in a life of love?

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My answer: Christ is the ONLY WAY that people can truly become the BODY of renewed humanity (which is the ESSENCE of what it means to be Christlike, right) Living a life of love isn't what life is about, biblically. Living a life TOTALLY CENTERED AROUND GOD AND GOD'S UNSURPASSABLE LOVE is what life is about. See the important difference?

So...

Is it possible for non-Christians to love? Yes. Is it possible for some non-Christians to love while being CONSISTENT with their own worldviews? Yes. Is it possible for non-Christians to love as the GATHERED RENEWED PEOPLE OF GOD UNDER CHRIST? Nope.

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With the love and torture thing, LOVE is central to who we are IN BEING THE PEOPLE OF GOD UNDER CHRIST. It is not definitive of being the people of God. Christ is that. The love and truth of God is exemplified in Christ. To the extent that people DON'T ACKNOWLEDGE Christ, they are not God's people. (This is NOT saying that they are not loved or impressed upon by God) Lack of love (as contextually as that's understood) is to be seen as heresy...but we have to think about WHY we don't like heresy in the first place. At base, heresy is thought to take one away from TRULY being a part of the community of God by fostering wrong ideas about the God around whom the community centers. But we have to get the "centers" straight! Christ is the center for the Church, not "love" For example:

One person says that God is one Being of pure love who loves all humanity, and exemplies this love in many ways, but denies EVERYTHING about Jesus being God and being FROM God. Another person TRULY believes that Jesus IS God and the Son of God and that he has received divine mercy from God in Christ, but has a truly dysfunctional understanding of love and grace that she exemplies.

WHO IS THE GREATER HERETIC???

You will answer this one according to the CENTER (innermost concentric circle) that YOU identify with. From my perspective, I believe that the BIBLICAL (read: apostolic) position would say that FORMER is more heretical. Why? Because they would probably say that one idea is MORE EVIDENTIAL of you not being in the People of God than the other. As Paul readily understood, the children of God CAN ACT like the children of the devil...and must be corrected accordingly. But at least they WERE the children of God by their confession and he could rely on THAT to tell them to act like what they really are AS the Body of Christ. The main problem with being unloving is NOT just being unloving per se, but simply by being unloving they are living under the OLD, DEAD SELVES and not as the RENEWED people of God whom they are. THAT'S why the things not done in love are "nothing" to those who are in the Body.

So what is to be said? Heresy lies on LEVELS. And biblically, the PRIMARY heresy is undermine the divine Christ Work in its essence. Within a community of believers, it's heresy to act outside of love. This is simply because to the extent that a member of the Body acts WITHOUT love, that member is acting AGAINST it's Head. So what should be done with "heretic" along the second line of thinking? Accountability WITHIN the Body context! Accountability is key because, as it's best, it PRESUPPOSES intimate relationship. But it also does something else. It NATURALLY helps deal with the "we/they" issues that have been emerging here. And it ties DIRECTLY into what it means to be a BODY of believers. The thing is that sometimes this accountability may lead to EXCLUSION, but it doesn't BEGIN that way. Check your Bibles.

Tom asked:

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Looks like the discussion now is moving on to the question of a) whether or not there is a universal “WE” which EVERY believer in Jesus Christ is to identify with, and b) what events (Crusades, racism, etc.?) constitute this universal (within the Church that is) “We.”

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Let me do this by example. Doc said:

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Two years ago a bunch of Christians (the "we") came up from Louisiana (as I recall) to target a predominately gay congregation and march around it with very hateful signs (etc…"God hates fags"). I publicly pronounced: "that kind of vicious behavior has nothing to do with the Jesus I believe in and with what Christianity is all about." I distanced myself from it, not because I think I’m better, but because I want to hold up the truth of what Christianity is about against this grotesque distortion. I think there is a context where THIS SORT of separation needs to be made, with this motive. It was healing and helpful to many people.

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What if Doc would have IDENTIFIED with those Christians as members of the Body in that they may have been (in misguided fashion) trying to uphold what they felt implicitly denied Christ's headship, and mourned in "WE" fashion for their behavior (which goes on all the time)...and then condemned their actions in "THEY" that strongly DENIED the essence of who they were as the new humanity? Is it possible that this could have been even MORE healing?

In short, the universal "we" is the Church, the ones who follow the Head.


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Short thing on Inclusivism and/or Universalism:

I think that post-mortem evangelism is the most consistent method of reconciling this. This allows the true definition of Christ's Body to exist while opening vistas to current non-believers. See, I believe that the biblical take is that salvation is based upon choosing for Jesus and His Work. And postmortem evangelism allows for this consistently.


Tired and busy,

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What unique, indispensable role do you think Christ, or a relationship to Christ, plays in a life of love?

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Iconoclast: I don’t see any difference. Unless, of course, you are saying that one can live a life of love while being self-centered rather than God-centered. I don’t believe this is possible by the very definition of “love” – seeking the benefit of another at a cost to oneself.

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Meph: From what I'm understanding this is generally what's being said about it. The Church is constituted by the people of God who arrange themselves aroung Christ as Head of the Body. Simply put, the Church is a center-arranged people with Christ as center.

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Lack of love (as contextually as that's understood) is to be seen as heresy...but we have to think about WHY we don't like heresy in the first place. At base, heresy is thought to take one away from TRULY being a part of the community of God by fostering wrong ideas about the God around whom the community centers. But we have to get the "centers" straight! Christ is the center for the Church, not "love"

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Tom asked this question:

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What unique, indispensable role do you think Christ, or a relationship to Christ, plays in a life of love?
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My answer: Christ is the ONLY WAY that people can truly become the BODY of renewed humanity (which is the ESSENCE of what it means to be Christlike, right) Living a life of love isn't what life is about, biblically. Living a life TOTALLY CENTERED AROUND GOD AND GOD'S UNSURPASSABLE LOVE is what life is about. See the important difference?

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Amen!

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Meph developes his post much further. Let me just interject here that I'm hesitant to sign on even at this point. So leave me out of the "I think that all parties here would pretty much agree..." And I'm guessing that Meph might want himself out too.

In the quote above three sentences have verb/verb-phrases that center on Man, rather than Christ and the Holy Spirit: "people...constituted"; "people...arrange themselves"; "people...center-arrange." The church is far more that this.

What's there can allow for a definition of a church as being merely a MORAL SOCIETY. A society in which the moral behavior of Christ is canonized as the behavioral-center and those who constitute the center-arranged society are the church. THAT does not cut it.

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Point noted and acknowledged. I hear what you are saying. Perhaps it would have set better if I'd have made the "arranged" thing as passive more than active to get that reflection better.

Thanks,

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Love is an action one takes to help another at a cost to oneself.

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Tom, what do you think of this logic:

Jesus says plain as day that a good tree CANNOT bear bad fruit and that a bad tree CANNOT bear good fruit. He also said that He is the vine and we are the branches AND that we will know them by their fruit! Thus, if someone is producing good loving fruit they must be a good tree, which is really a good branch, which is really connected to the vine of Jesus Christ – whether they know Him as such or not.

thanks,
Iconoclast

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Iconoclast-

I don’t have a problem with the logic per say. It’s that the terms don’t seem unequivocally clear. Context has a lot to say about how we’re to understand what’s being said here. Who is Jesus talking to? What’s the point HE is making to THEM? It seems a bit difficult to expect to be able to construct a straightforward syllogism from the text, or rather, one could construct a syllogism but still not have a clear answer to OUR contemporary question because Jesus may have intended this text to answer a different question.

So the logic is fine. But the terms, referents, and context may not permit us to assume it answers our question so unambiguously. You still have to unpack the passage and relate it to Jesus’ immediate occasion before attempting to bring it to bear on the question we’re asking today.

Clear as mud eh?

Tom


"Every saint has a history and every sinner a future." Oscar Wilde

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Person A actually loves like Christ but does not believe that this Jesus that those Christians keep talking about is really the Son of God, and person B truly believes that Jesus IS God and the Son of God but does not actually do things out of love.

You then suggest that Person A is the greater heretic.

Is this a fair portrayal of what you are saying?

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Try this. Jesus is the stumbling block at which they take offense. God being incarnated in man. Jesus BEING God, the Son of God, and WORSHIPPED as God. My person A is mired in this...and refuses to accept Jesus on those terms.

In this, yes, Person A IS the greater heretic (biblically speaking), in my view.



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Mephi

It appears to me that some people want to take the route of saying that Christ (being God) IS love, while others want to distinguish Christ from the LOVE that He displays. For those who believe the former, to LOVE is to be unified with Christ and to the extent that one opens oneself up to love, that one is opening himself up to Christ. For the latter, to say that Christ (God) is love is more to describe God's essential existence than to equate God with love, such that demonstration of love can NOT be directly linked to telling unity with Christ.

Iconoclast

This is not the logic I am using. I do NOT hold to the former and EQUATE God with Love. God IS Love but Love is NOT God. God is love is NOT an “if and only if” equation.

My logic is based on my understanding of the fundamental problem with humanity. The fundamental problem is that in the fall we separated from God (disunity with God) because we set ourselves up as the center of our own life. We stole the knowledge of good and evil and became our own god, our own judge. There are only two possibilities here: we are either in unity with God as the center of our life or we are our own center and source of life (the Bible calls this “death”).

And notice how I am defining “love”. The definition is critical to the understanding of this logic. Love = seeking the benefit of another at a cost to oneself. My argument is that this very act is in itself a denial of ourselves as the center. To the extent that it is NOT a denial of ourselves as the center of our own life then it does NOT fit my definition of love.

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What I hear you saying is this:

The act or disposition of loving ENTAILS denying ourselves as the center.

From my perspective, you are using this in a COLLECTIVE sense in light of the Fall. You are not using the above sense in terms of OTHER HUMAN BEINGS or IDEALS being the new center. Like denying oneself as center automatically lets God be the center. Essentially, your definition entails a denial AND an affirmation. We deny ourselves (humanity, creations) as the center and, at the same time, AFFIRM God as the true center. And because God is love, affirming this true center allows us to participate in this love.

I now see more clearly what you are saying. You do not fit into my first category, but the second. But, I'd say with your particular ideas employed, the impact is practically just like those of the first category. Let me explain. From what I see, you are acting as if the denial and affirming are BOTH made at the same time in the decision to love. For example, when an atheist decides to "love" and place others above himself, he is UNBEKNOWINGST TO HIM "really" choosing to make God his new center. This doesn't seem right. It's appears to me akin to my redefining air as "God" and then saying that everyone who breathes is a believer. (I'm not saying that you are attempting to pull the wool over anyone's eyes or anything like that. Please understand that. ) And that's how, for all intents and purposes, you may be practically EQUATING the decision to love with affirming God as center such that the decision to love is seen as becoming unified with God. God-centeredness is EQUATED with a person deciding to value SOMEONE or SOMETHING higher than the self.

As I see it, your logic would be correct if people who made decisions to love were COGNITIVELY AWARE that they were removing CREATION (and humanity within) as the center and placing God back on that throne. But I seriously doubt that this is the case, many times. When certain humanists, atheists, or agnostics exhibit love, they aren't thinking about God at all, but their FELLOW HUMANS. In short, their outlooks never really transcend CREATION to latch onto God as the center. They may expand their view significantly (ie moving from anthropocentrism to a more ecological awareness) but that's STILL placing Creation in the center. This is what I think is essential about the allegiance to God in Christ. One who understands what the Kingdom of God is and what the Church is CANNOT make the mistake of placing any aspect of Creation on the throne of one's heart.


Going back, I believe that I understand your definition and use of love, in context to your understanding of the Fall. However, I find it problematic for the reasons above.



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Mephi

The ecclesiology is grounded on LOVE. That is, to the extent that one participates in love, which is said to ONLY emerge from and be linked to God, one is, more or less, in unity with God. Both views are constructed such that their respective understandings of Christ are inseparable from love. And both views relativize CONFESSIONS to the "spirit" of the thing...LOVE.

Iconoclast

A father went to his first son and asked him to take out the garbage. He said “yes” but did not do it. The father went to his second son and asked him to take out the garbage. He said “no” but then went ahead and did it. Which son did the will of his father?

What is God’s will for us? What is His command? It is to love one another.

Those who actually DO the will of God are His children.

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Check it...

Mat 22:34-40
Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

Now many people try to use Gal 5:14 to assert that in loving each other as human beings we DO love God at the same time...

The entire law is summed up in a single command: "Love your neighbor as yourself."

But Starkman hit this well. Contextually, these intimations are stated by BELIEVERS. So the vertical relationship is largely ASSUMED. Like I said in my post above, one can love human beings WITHOUT regard for God, but there is NO WAY that one can fully regard God without loving.

I cannot see how someone who DENIES God's revelation in Jesus can be IN GOD'S WILL, with respect to the 2 greatest commandments.


Holla,


PS: Al and Shenaya, I preciate the kudos. Blessings.

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Person A actually loves like Christ but does not believe that this Jesus that those Christians keep talking about is really the Son of God, and person B truly believes that Jesus IS God and the Son of God but does not actually do things out of love.

You then suggest that Person A is the greater heretic.

Is this a fair portrayal of what you are saying?

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