Category: Love

Loving Our Neighbors During a Corona Virus Outbreak

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We live in trying and interesting times. In the midst of enormous political and social polarization in the United States, we are now dealing with the announcement of a global pandemic. The reactions have ranged from virtual panic and hoarding of toilet paper to mocking and distrust.

Yesterday, a group of people I gather with once a month under the auspices of Reasons to Believe, a ministry that blends science and faith. We were live with Anjeanette (AJ) Roberts, who is a research scholar with RTB.

Timing was perfect. AJ is a virologist. She studies viruses for a living. She was one of the small group of people who studied the SARS virus in the early 2000’s at the National Institute of Health. SARS is a coronavirus, the same type of virus as COVID-19, the one we are dealing with now. She was on the ground floor of dealing with SARS, so she is in a unique position to provide wisdom and guidance.

I took notes as best I could yesterday and will pass on what I was able to capture in them. The facts are the facts, but how we respond to them is more important than the facts, themselves. As Christians, we need to be guided by the commands of our Lord to love one another, to love our neighbors.

Politics has a way of creeping into and tainting everything. We should not allow politics to color the facts or affect how we follow the clear direction of Scripture. Jesus is the way and the truth. We should not ignore truth in favor of political agendas or deviate from the way, which involves taking up our crosses and following Jesus, loving others as He demonstrated his love for us.

With that said, which is my paraphrasing of the guidance AJ Roberts gave us at the end of her presentation on the current state of COVID-19 in the world and in the US, I will summarize the facts she presented as best I can recall them. It’s important to note that the landscape is rapidly changing as the virus spreads around the world and in the US. In fact, she said the situation is changing on a daily and even an hourly basis.

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Finding Humility and Civility in Loving the Truth and Loving Others

The shades of grey are difficult to navigate, no doubt, but it isn’t all black and white. Life isn’t that simple.

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I am finding some solace today in the increasingly polarized world in which we live. I can always find some balm in humor! Over the last half decade or more, I have stepped outside the political fray psychologically, taking a seat in the audience and observing the circus. I vacillate from horror to sadness, but there is always humor to which I can turn for solace.

Today, someone posted on Facebook an article with the following clickbait headline: No one blamed Obama during the 2009 swine flu pandemic that killed over 12k! Killer headline, right? It didn’t take another poster to find this gem: Trump in 2014 said Obama was ‘a psycho’ not to immediately cancel flights into the US amid Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

I have not checked the facts, by the way. Does it matter anymore? Doubt everything. That’s just easier!

I have been meaning to “collect” a bunch of articles and memes in pairs that are the exact opposites of each other. For instance, one article might say, “Trump beats up little girls!” While, another article might say, “Hillary Clinton approves of beating up little girls!”

When I start looking for these supremely ironic pairings, I begin noticing them often, but I haven’t found the energy to do the collecting. Democrat says, “Scientists have proven the world is black”; Republican says, “Scientists have been debunked: the world is white.” Each posting is made with the certainty of inalienable truth.

Most people respond with hearty signals of knowing acknowledgment, replying according to the identities and protocols of their particular form of group think. Though one or two brave souls might dare to post rebuttal, this modern ritualistic dance on social media is practiced to perpetuate and strengthen what we already think, gaining the knowing approval of the people “who matter” in a series of empty triumphs over the time and energy it takes to be candid and introspective about truth.

The truth is that there is plenty of rebuttal to be found if one is simply looking for it. For every black, there is a white. It’s easy, of course, to get lost in the myriad shades of grey. And, perhaps, that’s the real problem of modern (postmodern) people. We fear getting lost and sucked down in the shades of grey. If we can “rise” above that gravitational force of contrary facts, virtually skimming the surface lest we get sucked under the waves, we can maintain our preferred position.

Might I dare suggest another course? The shades of grey are difficult to navigate, no doubt, but it isn’t all black and white. Life isn’t that simple.

That isn’t to say that truth doesn’t exist in a postmodern world. Truth is still truth. It just isn’t as simplistic as we prefer it to be.

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For She Loved Much

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The story begins with a prominent community leader inviting Jesus to a party at his house.  (Luke 7:36) Jesus went, of course, because that’s what Jesus did. He didn’t refuse anyone who gave him an invitation.

Jesus was most often found on the streets, in parks or local cafes engaging in small groups with impromptu crowds, but he was equally comfortable in larger, more formal crowds at churches, colleges and public meeting halls with politicians, priests, academicians. Jesus wouldn’t refuse any request to meet and be with people wherever he went. So Jesus went to the party.

Jesus had risen quickly to popularity. No one really knew that much about him, where he came from or what his credentials were, but anyone who was anyone knew about him by now. Many people wanted to meet him. He would be a draw to Simon’s party.

Of course, people alternately loved him or hated him. Few people were neutral about Jesus. Some people hung on every word he spoke, while others questioned everything, wondering what his intentions were, skeptical of everything he said or did.

We don’t know much about the particular party to which Jesus was invited or the host of the party, other than this name, Simon, and the fact that he was a prominent man in the community. One of the few things we really know about the party is the scandal that took place there.

Simon was a well-known leader in his community. His home was open to friends and neighbors. He was generous with his prominence, wealth and lifestyle. He loved to entertain. Inviting Jesus would be a hip thing to do, given the grass roots popularity  of Jesus.

Inviting Jesus might would be viewed as scandalous by some of Simon’s peers, but he considered himself to be different than them. He fancied himself more open-minded than that. He wasn’t afraid of a little controversy.

But Simon wasn’t at all ready for what would happen next. While his home was an open invitation to friends, colleagues and neighbors, no one who was not of a particular type would dare, surely, to enter those halls dedicated to showing off the influence, prominence and wealth to which Simon had attained. People who had not attained, or at least aspired to attain, a certain stature certainly wouldn’t think of it…. or would they?

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The Observation of an Atheist Historian: What Makes Christianity Stand Out Among World Religions

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The radical quality of the love of Jesus stands out over and above all other examples. I have written on this before (the Christian expression of the Golden Rule compared to other religions). Most other world religions express some concept of the Golden Rule, but not in the way that Jesus did.

Other world religions state the Golden Rule in a limited way, such as not doing things to others that you would not want them to do to you. It’s the idea of refraining from doing evil. Under that concept of the Golden Rule, we simply need to avoid doing evil to our neighbors. There is no compulsion to do good to them. Ignoring your neighbor would be perfectly acceptable on this less golden iteration of the principal.

Most major world religions do not express the Golden Rule positively, as Jesus did: do unto others what you would have them do unto you. In this statement of the principal, doing unto others is an affirmative duty. Simply refraining from doing them evil is not the concept of the Golden Rule expressed by Jesus.

Jesus made this clear in the parable of the Good Samaritan. The parable begins with a man who was robbed and left injured on the road. A priest and Levite (the priestly cast of Judaism) walked by the man on the other side of the road, ignoring him, while a Samaritan (an outcast to Jews) crossed the road to tend to the injured man. The good Samaritan was the example of the person who demonstrated love for a “neighbor” because he didn’t just ignore the injured man lying in the road.  The idea of the Golden Rule that Jesus expressed includes an affirmative duty to do good.

To be fair, some religions come close to an affirmative expression of the Golden Rule, which I affirm in the previous blog piece, but there is one additional expression of the Golden Rule that stands alone: that is the concept of loving even our enemies and doing good to those who intend evil toward us.

I think of these things as I pause from listening to Douglas Murray in a discussion with Esther Riley on the Unbelievable? podcast with Justin Brierley, the host. (See Douglas Murray and Esther O’Reilly – Christian Atheism and the search for identity. The video is embedded below.)

Douglas Murray, an atheist and openly gay man, makes the observation that most Christian tenets can be found in other cultures, save one: that is the principal that of loving and forgiving even our enemies. Loving and forgiving our enemies is the ultimate statement of the Golden Rule.

Even when we have enemies who intend to do us harm, and even when they actually do us harm, Jesus says, “Forgive them.” The conversation got into some recent examples of that expression of love and forgiveness that I will explore.

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The Difference Is In What We Do

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These were the words I read this morning when I opened my Bible app:

“So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.” (Galatians 6:10 ESV)

As I think about this exhortation from Paul, I realize that our faith is meant to be manifested in doing good. It also occurs to me that, maybe, we have gotten the emphasis wrong.

I can understand how it happened. Common people didn’t have the Scripture to read for themselves. The church had gotten corrupted by power and wealth. Priests sold indulgences and turned faith into a religion of required observances and superstitious piety.

John Wycliffe and others made Scripture available to the common people, and Martin Luther and the people he inspired rediscovered the that salvation is received by faith. It’s a matter of grace, not of works, lest any man boast.

These things were inspired by the Holy Spirit at the time, but we always flirt with the danger of settling into religious ruts that prevent us from appreciating and considering the whole counsel of God. Western Protestantism has tended for centuries to accept the stuffy air of an academic, heady faith that gets too little exercise in the “good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them”.[1]

This is the progression: We are “saved through faith”; this is not our own doing; “it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast”.[2] But we can’t stop there. We have to realize the truth of the very next statement: “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”[3]

We are saved by faith, not by works, in order for us to do the good works God prepared for us to do.

We are saved by faith, not by works, in order for us to do the good works God prepared for us to do.

Paul’s words in Galatians and the entire thrust of Scripture suggest that the hallmark of Christian faith is the good that we do that flows out of the salvation we received by faith.

Continue reading “The Difference Is In What We Do” →