Many churches and Christians focus almost exclusively on loving their neighbour, giving very little time to loving God. They set up all sorts of projects to help people – foodbanks, homeless projects, clean water projects, education projects and so on. These are all excellent things, but of themselves, they’re not particularly Christian things and sometimes it can appear that the church is essentially a secular charity – Oxfam with a light spiritual veneer.

‘The most important one,’ answered Jesus, ‘is this: “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” The second is this: “Love your neighbour as yourself.” There is no commandment greater than these.’ (Mark. 12:29-31 NIVUK)

Getting Things the Wrong Way Round

If you wanted to sum up how you should live, then Jesus’ summary of the law above is pretty helpful.  We remember this summary each time we take communion to remind ourselves of the standard that we’ve failed to meet and why we needed Jesus to die for us, so we could be forgiven (we’re not saved by keeping the law!). If we have trusted Jesus’ death and received his Spirit, then we’re aiming to live this life of love for God and neighbour.

I was reflecting on these words recently as it struck me that many of the problems we face in today’s church are because we get these commands the wrong way round in terms of importance. Many churches and Christians focus almost exclusively on loving their neighbour, giving very little time to loving God. They set up all sorts of projects to help people – foodbanks, homeless projects, clean water projects, education projects and so on. These are all excellent things, but of themselves, they’re not particularly Christian things and sometimes it can appear that the church is essentially a secular charity – Oxfam with a light spiritual veneer.

In the 21st Century, this becomes especially obvious, because our culture does not define love in Christian terms. So truly Christian love of neighbour means something radically different to the love of neighbour of which the secular world approves. For example, for the Christian, love of neighbour will mean, at the most foundational level, telling people they are sinners who need a Saviour if they want to spend eternity with God rather than in hell. In the secular world, by and large, it is offensive to suggest someone is a sinner, even more so if you suggest there may be negative consequences to that. In fact, it is much more likely that people will feel that affirmation rather than condemnation is loving and even the most careful explanation of why God says something is wrong is seen as judgemental and condemning.

We would see that around the debate on sexuality and transgender. To suggest that God might say there is something wrong with someone’s lifestyle and actions is simply seen as condemning. We would also see it around living in a multi-faith society. To suggest someone’s religion is wrong is seen as arrogance and lacking in a loving cohesive spirit.

So what happens when many churches and Christians focus exclusively on ways of loving neighbours of which the surrounding culture approves? After all, no-one minds if you support a foodbank or an education project, but almost everyone gets jumpy if you support an evangelistic project! In doing this, these churches and Christians are either hiding their true convictions or they are changing their convictions – lining up with the convictions of the world rather than the convictions of their God.

[Editor’s note: This article is incomplete. The link (URL) to the original article is unavailable and has been removed.]