False love and true


The love that is the Christian ideal is, of course, not self serving but self sharing, self giving and at rare times even self sacrificing. It has as its object the good of the other.

The worldly counterfeit of love is by turns self serving and self debasing. One person lords it over another and the other capitulates. Sado-masochism is an extreme representation of this interpersonal dynamic. Its lesser forms are still diseased, for humankind was never meant to interact this way, which is not God's way for us. Dominance-submission may be well enough for monkeys, and a pecking order for chickens, but we should be of better understanding.

The wrong view of love is responsible for many features of today's world. It explains, for example, how feminists can get the idea to shout "oppression!" when faced with church customs and institutions that, rightly used, honor and shelter women rather than exploiting them. In the false love, one is either exploited or exploiter. One is either lording it over or knuckling under.

This, the reader may ask, relates to my subject of Christian unity how, exactly? I would say that in churches where the worldly idea is in play there is nothing for modern day reformers to work with. Unity is going to call many people to a bit of self sacrifice in power, prestige and pubic honors, and people who cannot operate that way will be useless in the quest for one church.

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