Real Christian Love

Love is often trivialized, politicized, and scandalized today. For years, I was reluctant to say much about love, either in my sermons or in my writings. In recent years, however, as I have come into contact more and more with the lonely, the broken, and the struggling, I have had to think more deeply about love. Perhaps some of my own recent experiences have led to a new awareness of the universal need for love. I wrote down some thoughts about love some time ago. I submit them here for the consideration of the readers of this blog, with some revision. If you think they have merit, I would be pleased for you to comment, distribute, and use in any way that seems helpful. Real Christian love is that which loves in spite of anything it might ever discover about the object of the love. No matter what we may find out about another person we love, we continue in our love. That doesn't mean that we agree with everything that person has ever done or that we excuse everything that person mayhave done; but still, we love. It means that we also allow ourselves to be vulnerable. There will be times when real Christian love demands that we reveal more of ourselves than is comfortable for us, more than we anticipated. It will require trusting someone and allowing for the possibility of being hurt. Real Christian love does not require us to arrive at easy compromises with those with whom we disagree just to preserve an appearance of unity. Rather, real Christian love requires us to face our disagreements honestly, be open to change, but stand by our principles if we remain unconvinced, allow the other person the freedom to do the same, and leave the discussion or decision with a sense of genuine love for the one with whom we have differences. Real Christian love requires reaching out to those who are different, not with pity or condescension, but with genuine love and compassion. We are eager to perform acts of kindness and show real love to those with disabilities and those from different racial, educational, or economic groups and classes. Real Christian love requires genuine intimacy in the highest sense. It means that we will share a meaningful fellowship and truly get to know one another. We will share in pain and sorrow; and we will often share at the very deepest levels of human need and emotion. There will be lots of hugs, lots of tears, lots of laughter, lots of friendly, warm chatter that will say to one another, "You are family." Real Christian love will give us the power and the courage to say to others, even beyond spouse or relatives, "I love you." It is no burden to answer a call in the middle of the night to give comfort or consolation to someone when it is done in real Christian love. It is a privilege to weep with someone about whom you care deeply, when it is done in real Christian love. It is also a delight to rejoice and laugh together when real Christian love is at the center of the relationship. Issues of life and death, of spiritual well-being, and of the most intense and personal struggles can be discussed and our greatest fears verbalized with that dear friend. Everyone needs to know the cherished joy and manifold blessings of real Christian love, though very few will admit the emptiness, desperation, and loneliness that come with a life without love. Real Christian love is not just that experience we share with wife or husband, or parent, or child. It should be that kind of relationship we experience with more and more of those we know in our churches and in our world. I would challenge anyone reading this to reach out to someone and extend a warm embrace of real Christian love. Be open to the leading of God as you seek to show the love of Christ to a human being in need of your caring.

Gasoline Prices and Misguided Critics

We are now facing gasoline prices that are over $3 a gallon for self-service regular almost everywhere in the U.S. In many places, the price is $4 a gallon and rising. As with any price rise, some people are convinced that this is "outrageous," or "ridiculous." Of course, the reason they think it's outrageous or ridiculous is because the price is higher than it used to be, and they don't want to pay it. So they have to have somebody to blame. Depending on their point of view, they'll blame and criticize one of the following: They'll criticize the oil companies because they read about the millions of dollars in company profits or the percentage amount of increase in those profits. Of course, those figures don't reflect the percent of profit when compared to the cost of doing business, or what is commonly referred to as the "profit margin." Some will criticize the government for not monitoring and somehow controlling the price of gas. Some of these folks are also convinced that we should make available to the motoring public some of our strategic national reserves of gasoline. Never mind that any kind of law regulating the price seldom works very well--certainly not in the long run--and that releasing national reserves could significantly imperil national security in the event of a global crisis. In addition, such domestic measures would have little impact on the price of crude oil overseas which is a major factor in determining the price we pay at the pump here in the U.S. But the most misguided critics of all are those who criticize the rest of us for driving our cars and thus using the gasoline. I've heard people criticize those who use sport utility vehicles and recreational vehicles for the amount of gas they consume. I've heard people criticize average Americans who drive their cars great distances to work or on long trips. I've heard people criticize almost all of us for continuing to pay the high prices for gasoline--and on and on it goes. If somebody has the money to pay for gas to go in their SUV or RV, more power to them! Why should I be critical of them? And if we stop driving our cars, who will that hurt? Most people do not wish or cannot realistically plan to change their way of life so radically as to stop driving. Some no doubt may have to alter their place of residence or change jobs if the costs are prohibitive. Adjustments may have to be made, just as adjustments are sometimes necessary for all of us. The reasons for the rise in gas prices are many and complex. Previously undeveloped countries are finally coming into the modern world of technology and industrialization. As such, they require more energy usage. Simple economics of supply and demand, along with questions about the stability of the supply, are increasingly coming into sharp focus. Perhaps most significant of all is the fact that we have huge untapped reserves of oil in our own country and off the coasts of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and the Gulf of Mexico which we are prevented from exploring or exploiting by various special-inteest groups and politicians. Criticizing those who use the resources is hardly the right approach to this situation. We have been spoiled by unrealistically low gas prices in this country for generations. And in terms of real costs, accounting for inflation and other factors, transportation in America is still probably a pretty good deal. Perhaps the cost of transportation will reach a point, however, where enough people will put pressure on the politicians, bureaucrats, and special-interest environmentalists that the oil companies will be permitted to utilize the resources already available to us in the western United States and off the coasts of America so that we will no longer be held hostage by the Arabs and other foreign governments, nor have our freedom to travel restricted by those who would undermine our entire way of life.

Evangelical and Reformed

There once was a Christian denomination in the United States called the Evangelical and Reformed Church. Its roots were largely German, and it merged with the Congregationalists to form the United Church of Christ in the 1950's. I have no idea whether it was truly evangelical or reformed; but I would suggest that those are two characteristics that must again be evident in the Presbyterian Church if we are to have a lively, relevant, biblically sound, and theologically accurate witness in the world today. Of course, we need to be evangelical. We need to be going out into the world making disciples, teaching the commands of Christ, bringing people to faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour, the only way of salvation. We need to realize that without Jesus, men and women are eternally lost. In other words, we need to be evangelical in the traditional sense of the word. We must recapture the true meaning and the true passion of evangelical Christianity. We also, however, need to be reformed. I do not simply mean that we need to be always open to change, to reforming our institutions in the light of Scripture, though we certainly must be willing to submit to Scripture as we consider our practices and our ideas. When I say that we need to be reformed, however, I mean that we need again to emphasize the doctrines of the reformed faith, as expressed in those great confessional documents of the Protestant Reformation. If we are Presbyterian, we need to teach and expound again the doctrines of the Westminster Confession and Larger and Shorter Catechism. Let's become familiar with the confessions of Dort, the Belgic Confession, and the other great statements which serve as the backbone of the Presbyterian and reformed faith. And while we're at it, we would do well to learn a bit about how these documents came into being as other teachings were put forth, studied, and then prayerfully rejected by the newly-emerging Protestant churches. By so doing, our evangelism will reflect our commitment to the sovereignty of God in all things. We will reaffirm those Calvinist convictions that made for generations of strong Christians and gave rise to the greatest nation in the world. But more than anything, we will be affirming our reformed heritage, educating our children and future generations of new believers, and refueling our passion to spread the truth of Christ and the good news of salvation by grace alone through faithalone. Until we as Presbyterians become both reformed and evangelical, we will continue to see losses in membership and influence. I would also suggest to those who read this blog who are not Presbyterian that you should see if your own denomination or congregation is giving proper attention to its evangelical mission and its foundational beliefs.