“Where is the love?” Dean wants to know. And he
rightly assumes that since we don't see much, we must be near the End and in middle of the great and final apostasy of Christendom.
Unfortunately, where we should expect a broad sociological study on the lack of
love around the globe in Christian circles, the only evidence we get from Dean
of a lack of love is...his personal experiences in the 60s and 70s verses his
experiences today.
We agree with him when he writes that “This love is nearly extinct in Christendom
today”. But it is regrettable that he chooses anecdotes over data when it
comes to “proving” that there is a lack of this in the church as a whole and
worldwide.
Either way, it is refreshing to know that Dean
has not assumed that “love” in the Biblical sense means personal sentimentality.
His definition of the Biblical agape,
is correct. We just don’t understand why it takes him 17 pages to define the
word. He really must learn to say more with less!
What exactly is agape, or “love”, as it is translated? The NT tells us:
You shall love your
neighbor as yourself (Matthew
22:39).
We read such passages and tend to assume at
once that “love” means what it does to us in modern times —in this case, a
mushy sentimentality that never says a harsh word and never steps on the toes
of others. The same word is used in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7:
The question at issue: how is all of this
actually worked out in practice? Does agape
mean not confronting others with error or sin? Do we need a deep relationship (a
“25 ton bridge” as one friend calls it) to relate to a person and to correct
them?
On the surface this is an obvious answer, since
of course the writers of the NT were constantly confronting others on various
errors, even people they obviously could not have known well (even if we
assume, wrongly, that they related on modern, individualist terms). It takes a “politically
correct” stretch to argue otherwise.
But there is a more moderate view: We can
confront, but can only do so politely. Well, that too is obvious to answer,
given the many abrasive comments given by the Lord and by Paul to their
opponents (i.e., Pharisees, the Galatian “Judaizers”) and even to fellow
believers (like Peter and the “Satan” quote) who went awry. Indeed, rhetorical
analysis of Paul's letters indicates that he used some very sharp rhetorical
tactics which would have seriously shamed his opponents and even his readers.
The answer is found in one of two places:
1. The NT teaches but does not act out agape;
2. We are not really understanding what agape means.
And as it happens, the social science data
tells us that #2 is the way to go.
A key difference in understanding the meaning
of agape is to recognize that our
culture is centered on the individual, whereas ancient Biblical society (and
70% of societies today) are group-centered. What is good for the group is what
is paramount. Hence when the NT speaks of agape
it refers to the “value of group attachment and group bonding” [Malina and
Neyrey, Portraits of Paul, 196]. Agape is not an exchange on a personal
level and “will have little to do with feelings of affection, sentiments of
fondness, and warm, glowing affinity”. It is a gift that puts the group first.
With that in mind, what of the passage which
tells us to “Love your enemies”? How is this reconciled with places where the
Lord calls the Pharisees names, or Peter “Satan”? How is it reconciled with
where Paul wishes emasculation on his Galatian opponents (Galatians 5) and
shames the Galatians with his rhetoric? How is it reconciled with even
confronting others with sin and error, for that matter?
Given the definition of “group attachment”
above, it may be best to understand agape
as a parallel to another known concept of today —not love, but tough love. For
the sake of popular culture awareness we will allude to perhaps the most famous
example of such “tough love” known today— the New Jersey high school principal Joe Louis Clark (whose
story was told in the movie Lean on Me)
who cleaned out his high school and made it a safe place for those who wanted
to learn.
Clark was no soft sentimentalist. He kicked
those out of school who disrupted the learning of others. He used physical
compulsion to do it as needed. He used a bullhorn to get people's attention.
Is this agape?
Yes, it is. It is the Biblical form
of agape in which Clark valued what
was best for his students as a whole versus what the individual wanted.
Now consider this understanding in light of,
for example, the Lord's confrontation with the Pharisees and others. It will
take a complexity of emotion we find foreign, but conceptually, it is certainly
possible to love one's enemies, and yet also attack them; and the same for
one's disciples or allies. Like Clark's disruptive students, the Pharisees were
a threat to the well-being of others; so likewise Peter when he made his error.
They spread deception and falsehood and kept others from entering the Kingdom
of God with their deceptions; or else led people down the wrong path and away
from spiritual maturity.
In such a scenario, not only is it right and
proper, for the sake of agape, to
confront and confront boldly; it may be the only responsible thing to do to
keep the “disease” or error from spreading and afflicting more souls. (In the
ancient world, and even today, insults and polemics were a way to shame and
discredit an opponent; see here.)
So agape
does include verbally attacking and discrediting one's opponents, or
confronting other believers, when they are in the wrong. The Lord speaks to
these men not as his enemies, but as enemies of the truth. There is no
indication that he speaks to them as personal enemies, for all of his comments
reflect their deception of others; the personal relationship between the
parties does not even come into the picture. They were enemies for the sake of
the Kingdom of God.
By comparison, one would hardly suppose that
Matthew 5:44 would restrict one from joining an army and fighting in a war
against a Hitler or a Stalin. This becomes a case of having agape for the greater number, and
generally innocent, at the expense of the lesser who are guilty. The Lord's
situation with the Pharisees and others attacked was very much in this
category, since their actions imperiled the eternal fate or the spiritual
maturity of others.
One may reply, “But what then of the example of
the Good Samaritan? He was kind to an enemy”.
He was kind to a personal enemy; the man was
not spreading lies and deceiving others. Here is food for thought: If the Lord
had been attacking a Pharisee, and the man had suddenly clutched at his heart
and dropped to the ground, would agape
have us give the Pharisee CPR? Yes, it would. We are thereby making the man our
“neighbor” and extending the hand of welcome into our fellowship.
From there what happens? The Pharisee may keep
on his attacks against the truth
after he recovers; if so, he is still an enemy for the sake of the Gospel and
one to be publicly addressed in disparaging terms. But if he drops to the
ground again we will still work to save him. Our modern society has lost this
ability to distinguish between sin and sinner; it is often assumed that to
attack the position is to attack the man.