Love Notes

by Bill Love

Will Campbell was once asked to define Christianity in 10 words. He said, We’re all bastards, but God loves us anyway. He was told by the questioner, That’s only eight; try again. I’m willing to overlook his coming in under budget and accept those eight words.

It has also been my experience personally and professionally that I and others do not need much elaboration on the first part of the statement. Those of us who know we fall short of God’s intention carry that knowledge as a burden. We scarcely need reminding. We have a greater need to know that it’s not the end of the story. (I doubt that those who don’t know they fall short will be convinced by someone’s calling us bastards.) I find comfort and hope in knowing that God loves me and us anyway. It’s that love that I depend upon

In my Statement of Faith before my new presbytery, I tried to state my faith in those positive terms. One of the questions I got from the floor was, When you say … , do you mean… . I don’t remember the phrase he picked from my statement, but his substitute seemed to be a statement worded in the most severe terms about human sinfulness. I didn’t find a lot of grace in his restatement or even in his question.

I wondered why my stating my faith in my words wasn’t acceptable and why he seemed to need me to state my faith in his words. The emphasis was changed, and God’s love was missing. I thought about questioning him about his restatement. I also thought that the point of his question was not dialogue. He did not seem to be in search of an adventure in faith discovery but of doctrinal safety.

I have been ordained for 26+ years and served in 15 other presbyteries. My ordination had not been local option; my orthodoxy had been approved by those presbyteries and demonstrated in my ministry. I believe that the questions said altogether more about the questioners than they did about me and my faith. The questions that followed were not much of an improvement.

C. S. Lewis wrote, Perfect love, we know, casteth out fear. But so do several thingsignorance, alcohol, passion, presumption, and stupidity. It is very desirable that we should all advance to that perfection of love in which we shall fear no longer; but it is very undesirable, until we have reached that stage, that we should allow any inferior agent to cast out our fear. [C. S. Lewis, The World’s Last Night, The World’s Last Night and Other Essays, 109]

It seemed to me that doctrinal purity was an inferior agent being used to cast out fear. Personally, I don’t think it’s up to it. I tend to agree with William Sloane Coffin, who wrote, … the integrity of love is more important than the purity of dogma. [William Sloane Coffin, The Courage to Love, 8]

The last question was about who gets into heaven and who doesn’t. Again, I doubted that dialogue was the point. I simply quoted from John 14. Who’da thunk it? A liberal who can quote scripture. That ended the questioning.

As for who gets into heaven, that’s a management decision. And I’m in sales.

Bill Love is interim senior pastor at Claremont Presbyterian Church in Claremont, CA.