WWJD, Love is Love and Virtues Gone Mad
Do you remember the WWJD wristbands, so popular in the 90’s and early 2000’s? The acronym stands for “What Would Jesus Do?” and was meant to remind wearers to regularly ask themselves this question as they went about their daily lives.
Whether these bands had a positive impact on how people lived or were simply part of a trend, the question remains critically important especially in the context of our current society's perspective on sexual morality - particularly during what is known as "Pride Month." What do you think?
Would Jesus participate in pride parades? Would Jesus wave the pride flag?
This question was recently addressed by Rev. Michael Coren, an ordained minister based in Toronto. In his article, published by the Toronto Star, he confidently stated, "What would Jesus Christ do? Simple. He’d wave the rainbow flag and march in the parade."
His statement and the article imply that you must either fully support the LGBTQ community and Pride or you are judgmental and unloving.
Rev. Coren continues by saying, "If we study it, the theology is entirely clear, which may surprise some people. Jesus doesn’t refer to what we now define as homosexuality (a word not coined until the 19th century), and lesbianism is never mentioned in the Old Testament. When St. Paul writes on the subject, he condemns straight men using boys for sex — usually in pagan initiation rituals — and not people of the same gender having loving relationships."
Throughout the remainder of the article Coren continues to push back upon the historically orthodox view of not only human identity and sexuality but even that of the nature of sin. What Coren puts forth here isn’t new.
Many take this approach when their understanding of Biblical truth runs into a cultural definition of what it means to be loving. The incongruence causes them to attack any prohibition that the Bible has on the subject rather than take the time to ask if their definition of “love” is correct. They attack a proper hermeneutical interpretation of passages dealing with sexual immorality, making claims that amount to a “we know better now” concept. This, of course, is all done in the name of compassion and fighting injustice.
In the book “Orthodoxy” written in 1908, G.K. Chesterton makes an observation that speaks accurately to our current cultural moment. He says, “The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone. Thus some scientists care for truth, and their truth is pitiless. Thus some humanitarians only care for pity, and their pity (I am sorry to say) is often untruthful.”
The virtues have gone mad…what a statement! It hits home because this dichotomy of truth and love describes so much of what is missing when people affirm the LGBTQ+ community. The virtue of Christian love is not separate from other Christian virtues like self-denial, repentance, obedience, holiness, and a love for truth.
The dangerous error of those who affirm the behaviour of the LGBTQ+ community in the name of Christ is that they think that they can love people more than God does. The “love” that they claim to have ends up untethered to any moral framework that could identify right from wrong. This love doesn’t know how to recognize what is required for the flourishing of humanity according to God’s good design.
You cannot love people more than God does.
Here’s what I mean. Think about the phrase, “Love is love”. You may seen this statement in an advertisement or heard it shouted by those protesting for the “freedom” of the LGBTQ+ community. It sounds like a trendy or noble statement, but I dare to suggest to you that this statement is deceptive and destructive. Besides being a statement of circular reasoning, it is also a statement that erases any objective morality if followed to its very end.
If love is love, how can we know if love does good or harm? Does love do what is right or wrong? What the proponents of this ideology miss is that they are making a case for subjective moral reasoning. In that world there are no boundaries at all. History has proven that we won’t thrive in a world without boundaries. Love must be tethered to something more concrete than affirmation. Love must be tethered to the truth.
In 1 Corinthians 13, the church leader Paul defines all love’s distinctives, by the influence of the Holy Spirit. He states so clearly in verses 4 to 6, “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.”
So there is a “love” that is not love at all. This counterfeit love isn't rooted in a clear framework of reality. Love without boundaries becomes destructive rather than beneficial. We know that God is love and that we are called to love, but we desperately need to understand is that there are instances where the sentiment of love can actually be sinful. For such a big statement like that, we need to ask, “At what point does love become sinful?”
In 1 John 2:15, the Apostle John answered this question for us:
"Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him."
This love for the world does not refer to a love and value for creation, nor does it mean that we aren’t to love mankind. In this portion of Scripture John is speaking to a spiritual and cultural system that is in opposition to God and His kingdom. John is saying that our love can be sinful when it is directed at the wrong object or when it is coming from the wrong source.
1 John 2:16 goes on to say, “For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world.”
John uses a very inclusive word for what is not from the Father in this oppositional kingdom. He says, “ALL!” Not some, but all. This is why it is so important for us to guard our hearts and examine our perspectives according to the Bible and its genuine interpretation. If we aren’t diligent in this, we can end up thinking things that are in opposition to God’s thoughts, all the while believing that we are representing Him well.
Finally, love can turn into something sinful when it produces the wrong outcomes. Verse 17 says, “And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.”
The sobering reality is that all of the offerings of a worldly system will lead to destruction. If we continue to give our affection and passion to this system, it will lead to our demise. It. breaks my heart when I see so many churches and confessing followers of Jesus compromise on the truth that makes love flourish. When they affirm and celebrate what God calls immoral, they sentence people to drown in the waves of immorality, refusing to throw them a rope.
As the people of God, when we ask the question, “What Would Jesus Do?”, we need to take a good look at the examples recorded in the Gospels. There we see that Jesus befriended and spent time with a wide variety of people, but He never affirmed a sinful lifestyle. Though we may be misunderstood, we are called to be a separate and distinct people, a shining city on a hill, with arms wide open so that those caught up in sexual brokenness can hear the Good News of redemption, freedom and true love.
Don’t allow your heart to get caught up in a truth without love, but be just as diligent to avoid accepting a love with no truth.