Recently, the algorithm decided to show me a cartoon where "Jesus" informs a group of Bible-carrying (my guess is that's code for "Bible-thumping") Christians, "The difference between you and me is you use scripture to determine what love means and I use love to determine what scripture means."1
What's the purpose here? First, things like this want people who have rejected traditional Christian teaching to feel encouraged that they are on Jesus' side. Second, it wants you to doubt traditional Christian teaching. No, you're not likely to do that after one cartoon, but if things like this continue to nibble at you, they can work their way into your subconscious and eventually your conscious. For that reason alone, we should stop and address it to ourselves.
But if a friend shares something like this, it becomes an opportunity for more. How do we address something like this? Don't pull out your Bible and whack them over the head. Instead, ask questions.
Why engage? It gives you the opportunity to get your friend to think about this, perhaps even exposing how silly the content in question is. It will also be visible to all of their friends who see the post, some of whom might have found it persuasive.
What questions do we ask? We can always ask some version of "What do you mean by that?" In the case of this cartoon, it would probably look like "What do you think this is saying Jesus did?" Then, "How do you think Jesus did that?" Ask for specific examples.
It's important to clarify what the person who shared this thinks it means. We don't want to answer the claim they're not making. And they may effectively reveal the silliness of the claim on their own.
If they offer any examples, you can try to show how their interpretation is incorrect or doesn't present a full picture. Hopefully you can get them to doubt this characterization of Jesus.
And even if you don't feel capable of or inclined to explain the error of the meme or whatever, you've learned something, they've had to think a little, and you've gotten this aired out for the bystanders. You're not required to argue with them just because you asked them some clarifying questions. You can reply, "OK, thanks for explaining what you meant" and go on with your day.
What if the algorithm shows you this? You should still stop and contemplate this thing. Ask it questions. What does it want you to deny, to embrace, or to laugh at?
You may not choose to respond to whomever posted it, but you should still stop and think it through, if for no other reason than you may come across this idea later, and it's helpful to have already spent some time thinking about it.
If you aren't familiar with the source, you should look up them up. In the case of this cartoon, he's a proponent of "Progressive" Christianity. It's not as well-defined as "Liberal" Christianity, but we still have a fairly good idea what they're about. Liberal Christianity wants to remove the supernatural from the Bible; Progressive Christianity wants to remove anything they perceive as "unloving".
What does it mean to "use love to determine what scripture means"? To answer that, we have to ask, "What is love?" To people of that persuasion, love means totally embracing someone as they are. You cannot "hate the sin but love the sinner" when their sin is part of their identity, so you have to see how their sin is not actually wrong.
What does that mean when we apply it to the scriptures? It's going to vary from person to person. There are those "red letter Christians" who think the words of Jesus are the canon within the canon, and they supersede anything written elsewhere. Jesus, to them, teaches nothing but "love everyone" and "judge not", so anything Paul or Moses wrote that violates those tenets can be disregarded. This position ignores the inspiration of scripture, the actual nature of the gospel documents, and most of Jesus' recorded teachings, but they use this philosophy to justify approving of lifestyles traditionally considered sinful.
This approach probably also describes those who "study" the scriptures until they can prove it doesn't say what it seems to say. "Moses and Paul were only condemning abusive relationships, not loving, consensual ones." How do they know? Either because A) they didn't know about loving, consensual homosexual relationships or B) we're mistranslating the terms they used. If it seems both of those cannot coexist, you're right. The arguments for position A refutes position B and vice versa. The point is, some seek to reinterpret "mean" passages out of the Bible so people can live any way they want, just as they seem to think God intended.
Is that really what "love" means? Of course not. One only has to consider raising children. They would happily live on candy and coke. Baths? School? Boring! Loving your children means giving them what's good for them, whether they want it or not.
But that may sound paternalistic. "We're not children! We know what's good for us." No, we frequently don't. If "love" means letting people do whatever they think makes them happy, that would include letting your alcoholic friend continue to drown himself in booze or watching your sister live with her abusive husband without ever saying a word.
Love means wanting what is best for the one you love. And that very much includes wanting them to realize their sin is sin, God's love is a holy, just love, and they need a savior, all of which gets lost in Progressive theology.
And by thinking it through, you'll be better prepared the next time you run across a Progressive abuse of "love". You may be able to set someone straight, and that might be the most loving thing you could do for them.
1 I'm not going to share the cartoon because it is copyrighted, and I'm frankly not sure how that works.
Image via Pixabay
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