On Love, Life, and the Purported Hereafter.
I posted a TikTok a couple weeks ago that happened to pick up some traction on Instagram. Truth be told, when this happens, I usually classify it as chaotic good; I like knowing that my content is reaching enough people who feel compelled to send it to enough people who either relate strongly to it, or recoil in horror – for how dare I be so heartless as to call a spade a spade?
The TikTok I’m referencing followed a trend that exvangelicals by the tens of thousands picked up on, wherein a mashed-up version of The Little Mermaid’s Under the Sea and R.E.M.’s Losing My Religion plays along to folks’ recounting of the catalyst that led them to abandon their theism. Mine in particular nods to the realization I had that any “loving parent” – a Heavenly Father™, if you will – who requires your love and devotion in exchange for salvation is actually nothing more than a narcissistic abuser.
Well, friends, the Christians did not like this one bit—cue the pearl-clutching—and as I watched one particular Christ-follower squirm at my suggestion that their god is an abuser, I got to thinking about love as it commingles with and relates directly to Christianity.
A brief pivot, not unrelated:
Since my mother’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis and our ensuing discovery of the havoc she’s managed to wreak online as it commingles with her victimhood to elaborate scams, my sisters and I have taken control of her online presence. This doesn’t mean we’ve taken away her autonomy – just that we can see what she’s doing, and work to mitigate any damage she inadvertently causes or falls victim to. As such, I’ve had the absolute delight of seeing what goes on in her Facebook account; and while her DMs are largely filled with gaming-related spam, there exists the odd conversation with old friends from decades past.
Wholly boring though these conversations usually are, I’ve stumbled upon a number of them that dabble in transphobia, bigotry, and the stigmatization of mental illness. I’m not trying to throw my mom under the bus, here, so let me make it clear that the instigators and perpetrators of these conversations are a small handful of particular friend of hers, who hold Certain Opinions about various groups of marginalized people, if you catch my drift. And yes, before you ask, these particular people are card-carrying members of the Christian church! Wow! What a coincidence!
So as I scrolled through harmful interaction after destructive conversation, as I observed virtue signaling and armchair diagnoses, I found myself asking those same questions about love – specifically that which prides itself on being rooted in Christ.
We can agree, I’d think, that love itself can manifest as a feeling or an action, but that as an entity that we utilize, pull from, and invest in, it is ultimately both. There’s the emotional component, which is the self-serving bit—we can feel love, we can enter into love, and from that we can reap all levels of benefits borne from marked upticks in dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin. And then there’s the actionable part, which is the bit that pours out of us, that churns the emotional into the tangible, and gives unto others.
Put simply, the love we have and hold is twofold:
Love, the feeling: wherein you feel deep affection for me when you think of me; you hold a special place in your heart for me, because you carved it out, because you wanted to keep me close.
and,
Love, the action: wherein you put in the work necessary to make sure that I feel loved; you meet me where I am—physically or metaphorically—to sit with me, hold space for me, and work to ensure that whichever of my needs you’re able and willing to meet are met.
So as I ponder Christian love, both as I dig deep to rifle through the Relationship Rolodex of my mind, and as I observe Christianity as an institution and the way its members are called to move through the world, I find myself coming up short. What I mean, really, is that I’m wholly unconvinced that Christian love—the real meat of it, the deep-down, quietest, truest parts of it—is love in its purest, most selfless form.
Now, of course, I’m not about to discount our individual humanity as our respective shortcomings influence and affect our most sincere efforts to show and be love. While Christians will profess God’s love as the pinnacle of goodness and perfection, they will acknowledge their own brokenness, sinful nature, and inability to achieve that agape love that Jesus embodies. I’ll be the first to acknowledge that, too. I’m not suggesting that Christians have an obligation to love better than any of the rest of us; nor am I suggesting that I myself or anyone else has cornered the market on how to love best of all.
We’re all just doing what we can based on what we know.
But when I see the things that I do – either in Facebook DMs, on greater social media, or out in the wild, time and again I see the same thing: that the worst offenders, the greatest oppressors, and the most fervent bigots are those who align themselves with Christ. I was raised in the Christian church; so understand that I’m not talking out of my ass when I say that I know a thing or two about how Christians are called to live and love in this world—so why is it that those who purport to design their existence with Jesus as the model are so consistently the same people who take personal offense at those who live or love in a different manner than they do? Why do they consistently prove themselves to be the very people who condemn deviation from their personal norm, as though all the rest of us are called to do as they do? And what, I beg to know, about moving through the world in that way, shows itself to be love in any form whatsoever?
In a religion where cisheteronormativity and patriarchy rules, where their one true god negates the existence of thousands of others, I have such a hard time finding the Christians who see and acknowledge the real harm. These people do absolutely exist, of course—some of my closest friends and chosen family are Christians who speak out against the social injustice, bigotry, and oppression that shrouds Christianity—but they are the few who condemn the hatred of the many.
So what I’m chewing on, really, is this:
Is Christian love truly selfless, or is it merely that which paves their road to personal salvation?
This is an honest question; not one I’m asking rhetorically, or one I feel equipped to answer. I think it’s deeply personal.
And am I the only one who sees the parallels here between this hands-off kind of love and the Christian penchant to secure their place in heaven?
Is the proselytizing, for example, for their benefit, or is it for ours? Is it because they want us next to them in the afterlife, or is it because they want to assure their god that they’ve done the work, to show him exactly how devoted they’ve been to his cause?
Anyway. It occurs to me that the manner in which we love is, at least in some way inevitably, a direct byproduct of what we believe. And I think I’ll be mulling this over for eons to come.