Let There Be Love

by Editor · July 9, 2017

This month 50 years ago, The Beatles released their classic hit song “All You Need Is Love”, which promised that love is the answer to our personal, societal and political troubles.

Today, as it perhaps already was in 1967, the word “love” is at risk of overuse, to the point of banality. Its true meaning, and power, needs to be reasserted.

In the English language “love” is used to describe different types of affection. In the terminology of the Beatles song, and in the application of the word in the socio-political context, we refer to the Greek word agape.

Agape, the Christian writer CS Lewis wrote, is “a selfless love that is passionately committed to the wellbeing of others”. But to truly pursue the philosophy of love — of agape — takes courage and strength.

Pope Benedict XVI, in his 2005 encyclical Deus caritas est (God is Love), taught that love can change the world, a sentiment that coincides with the Beatles song.

When Christians are a sign of God’s love for humanity, our love will change the world and reawaken hope that goes beyond death, Pope Benedict said in a commentary on the encyclical.

There is a danger of seeing love as a weakness, its proponents offering themselves to be ideological punching bags, especially in an age when political discourse is increasingly predicated on hate-filled partisanship.

But to truly pursue the philosophy of love — of agape — takes courage and strength.

A Palestinian boy stands outside his house at a refugee camp in Gaza City, Gaza Strip. (CNS photo/Mohammed Salem, Reuters)

Love Demands Action

Love demands concrete action. Christian liberation theology — from Martin Luther King Jr to South American Catholic priests in the 1970s to Archbishops Denis Hurley and Desmond Tutu — understood that.

Love must provoke legitimate anger. Jesus himself gave an example of that when he overturned the tables in the Temple. This was, among other things, a profoundly political act against the exploitation of the poor. It was, by way of being an act of solidarity with the vulnerable, also an act of love.

The Church, Pope Benedict said in Deus caritas est, “has to play her part through rational argument and she has to reawaken the spiritual energy without which justice, which always demands sacrifice, cannot prevail and prosper”.

The terminology of love, in the sense of agape, can be applied to hold to account politicians and even business.

For example, when a government perpetuates the lie of “austerity” to reduce services to the poor (and middle classes) and at the same time cuts taxes for the elites, it must be accused of acting contrary to the principles of love.

Let’s Agape

For Christians and all people of good will, love — agape — should be the measure of our politicians, more than party political loyalties or ideology. When politicians are lacking in love, we must ask what or whom they are serving?

Love must compel us to challenge the dictatorship of profit, of corruption, of economic policies that do not serve the greater good.

Love must compel us to challenge all unjust discrimination and other failures of social justice. Love must compel us to be engaged in the protection of the most vulnerable, be it the unborn child or the homeless person sleeping in a doorway.

Pope Benedict’s encyclical took its title from the beautiful words in the First Letter of John: “God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him” (4:16).

The early Christians, tradition holds, became exasperated with John’s relentless admonition to love one another. In today’s society St John’s exhortation remains as counter-cultural as it was then. All Christians are called to a personal conversion as part of a counter-revolution to greed, anger, injustice and violence.

“Love of God and love of neighbour are thus inseparable, they form a single commandment,” Pope Benedict XVI wrote.

Concretely that means that no Christian can claim to love God and at the same time be indifferent to those on the margins. No Christian can claim to love God and at the same time support government policies or business practices that disadvantage the vulnerable further.

Oscar Romero said: “Let us not tire of preaching love; it is the force that will overcome the world. Let us not tire of preaching love. Though we see that waves of violence succeed in drowning the fire of Christian love, love must win out; it is the only thing that can.”