Love: the Foundation for all Relationships
There is a certain anti-legal strain in Christian thought. Jesus accepted the validity of the Jewish laws. However he encouraged people to emphasize the intent behind the law, and to focus on their motivations. He summarized the law as love for God and for our neighbor. Thus much of Christian practice is focused on finding ways to show love for our fellows.
At its best, Christianity has been characterized by helping people. This ranges from the personal to the institutional. At the personal level, Christians should help others. This includes direct help for friends, and participation in more organized activities such as soup kitchens and help for the homeless. At the institutional level, Christians have been active in creating hospitals, schools, and other institutions to help people.
What is Christian love?
The term "love" in English covers many things, including erotic love, love between parent and child, brotherly love, etc. Christian love can be modeled on love between parent and child and brotherly love.
We are told to love everyone, particularly enemies. It's useful to start by looking at what this does NOT mean. It does not mean that we will like everyone. Love is not primarily an emotion, although it often involves the emotions, and is supported by them. It is primarily a commitment to care about someone.
Jesus' teachings are largely a description of what love means. However the briefest description is from one of Paul's letters:
Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love is based on our status as fellow children of God. This means that there is at least potentially a close spiritual bond between all of us. It is a reflection of the fact that God loves us, and is an expression of Christ's love active in us.
It is also based on honesty and justice. While Christians are eager to forgive, Christian parents are called on to exercise discipline, and Christian churches to first counsel with and then if necessary exclude those who are openly immoral. These requirements call for a balance that it is often hard to achieve.
Forgiveness
One of the strongest themes in Jesus' teaching is forgiveness. He certainly intends us to forgive each other as individuals. But he was often speaking of the community. In his community there were a number of people who were looked down upon. These included tax collectors, who were regarded as collaborators with the Romans, and prostitutes, whose sin is obvious, but apparently also many ordinary people who didn't have the time and resources to carry out all of the commandments that some considered essential. Jesus spent much of his time with these people, reassuring them of God's love. However the people who are shown as responding to him are also shown as repenting of their sins. A tax collector who followed him vowed to return anything he had fraudulently taken fourfold.
Jesus seems to have accomplished what most of us find nearly impossible: He seems to have accepted everyone on their own terms, but also inspired people to change their lives for the better, without appearing to be judgmental in the process. Christians try to capture this with concepts such as "hate the sin but love the sinner", and "tough love". A more traditional description is to say that Christianity must balance Law and Gospel. I'm afraid that these attempts are not always successful.
Christians are called on to forgive enemies, both Christian and non-Christian. This forgiveness is intended to benefit both parties. In many cases it may win over the other person, and restore (or establish) a relationship with them. However even when it does not, forgiveness is important. Bitterness and resentment are two of the more destructive emotions.
A number of Christians believe that this requirement prohibits all war. Christians should be able to come up with better ways to deal with conflict. Most Christians agree with this in principle, but feel that there are times when they don't know any other way to defend innocent lives against attack. At any rate, peacemaking is a priority among Christians. A number of groups are now starting to encourage members to study conflict resolution and peacemaking techniques explicitly. The "peace churches" such as the Mennonites and Quakers have been among the leaders in developing or documenting these techniques.
Deeds and Rules
All Christians acknowledge that Christian ethics should be founded on love. However there have been a number of debates about the best way to do this. One of the best-known disagreements in this Century is over "situation ethics". A number of people argued that Christians should not become tied up in rules. Instead, they should act in any given situation as love would dictate. A number of examples were given of difficult situations in which traditional ethical rules would produce the wrong decisions. A more recent version of this approach was a document on sexual ethics produced for (but rejected by) the Presbyterian Church (USA). It suggested relaxing most of the traditional sexual rules, in favor of a standard that they called "justice love", which seems to have been a somewhat revamped situation ethics.
This approach has not been well received. There are two reasons. The first is grounded in basic Christian realism about human psychology. Difficult ethical decisions, particularly in sexual matters, tend to occur at times when people are not in a position to make carefully considered choices. It is far too easy for situation ethics to become license to be motivated only by immediate feelings.
There is also a realization that love can be shown in structures as well as in individual decisions. The commitment between husband and wife, parent and child, friend and friend establish the contexts in which we work. They allow us to share confidences, and bare our selves. Decisions can't be made from moment to moment in isolation.
However if this is to happen, rules must be used properly. Rules are intended to protect people, not to make life miserable.
[The title of this section, and some aspects of the discussion, are based on Paul Ramsey, Deeds and Rules in Christian Ethics.]
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