Human and Divine Love

Extract

The subject of love is of universal interest, has engaged the attention of many since time immemorial and will continue to do so. It is of particular interest to Christians who make the claim that God is love. If this be true, as we believe it to be so in faith, then no other subject has comparable significance.

It is for this reason that I am beginning this paper with a brief personal credo which can be stated simply. If Christianity finds itself in a situation in which few are really concerned with its survival and may find it irrelevant to their lives, I believe that in the final analysis this is so because Christianity has failed in one of its fundamental missions, which is to be the catalyst of love in the world. After every possible case for its present demise—such as its internal disunity, its obsolete language and liturgy, its authoritarianism, its pessimism over sexuality, the disarray of its structures, the anachronism of much of its habits and its legalism—have each been exhaustively examined, I believe there is left one enduring and irreducible reason which is succinctly stated by St Paul:

If I have all the eloquence of men or of angels but speak without love, I am simply a gong booming or a cymbal clashing. If I have the gift of prophecy, understanding all the mysteries there are, and knowing everything, and if I have faith in all its fullness, to move mountains, but without love, then I am nothing at all. If I give away all that I possess, piece by piece, and if I even let them take my body to burn it but am without love, it will do me no good whatever.

(1 Corinthians 13, 1-4.)