This is the fourth of an irregular series, where I reflect
on something seen online, usually through a post on Facebook.
About a week ago I saw this picture, and it has been
percolating in my mind. As I have
thought about it I have come to a few conclusions about the beliefs of the person
who wrote it. I haven't been able to ask
them any questions and may have their intentions wrong, but this is what I came
up with.
First, the author doesn't care much for the concept of
organized religion. The three listed
groups account for 62%
of the world's population, and that is without including Hinduism, which is
twice as large as Buddhism.
Second, the author has what might be called a lowest common
denominator for religion. For the
author, religion, at its most basic level, is about "LOVE," which is
emphasized by placing the word in capital letters. According to my Webster's Dictionary,
'religion' is "The service and worship of God or the supernatural." My knowledge of Islam and Buddhism is very
limited but, as a Christian, I would say that what Jesus did on earth, the
whole of his life, was most definitely about the "service and worship of
God." Everything that Jesus did was
rooted in his relationship with God.
And third, because of this lowest common denominator view of
religion as being solely a matter of love, the author holds that there are no
differences between religious groups in the world. As long as we are all practicing love then we
are serving God rightly, and therefore anything else we might do in our
religious practice is a misrepresentation of the intentions of the founder of
our faith tradition.
As a Christian, and as a pastor, I'm going to say that what
sounds like a good thing, to ground our life in love as a universal value, is
actually a bad thing. It offers us
something, that is actually nothing, at the cost of everything.
Love, as a universal value to guide our relations with
others, the people in our families, our friends, the people we don't like at
work, and people groups through the world, is not in itself a bad thing. There are many ways in which our
relationships with others are strained or broken and life would be better all
the way around if we could improve our relationships, all relationships, with
love.
But the Christian is called to live in the present with
eternity in view. We can't just let love
for others in the world be the only way we direct our love. The first place we need to direct our love is
towards God, a God who in the work of His Son, Jesus, has already given us a
love that is so wonderful as to be fully beyond our understanding.
Jesus himself teaches this directly in Matthew
22:36-39, saying:
“Teacher,
which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You
shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and
with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a
second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
To settle for the world's version of love means missing out
on the love of God that was uniquely given in His Son, Jesus.
Jesus was most definitely a teacher of love, but it was a
love that was always grounded in God the Father as his primary relationship, a
love that led him to cross, to give his life for the redemption of
sinners. A love described in John
3:16-17 like this:
“For God
so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes
in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not
send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the
world might be saved through him."
This, is love, a love that means everything.
Scripture quotations
are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by
Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All
rights reserved.
