In the Name of Love : The Business of Christian Education LXI

³⁵ And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. ³⁶ “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” ³⁷ And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. ³⁸ This is the great and first commandment. ³⁹ And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. ⁴⁰ On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

Matthew 22:36-40

           

            Jesus was unique.  His presence drew people from all level.  He spoke and people listened attentively.  Some rejoiced and were edified but some felt offended and desired to kill him.  He opened his hands and diseases ran away.  He commanded and the evil spirits thrown out.  He rebuked and the sea and winds obeyed.  He prayed and blessed and thousands of people were fed and satisfied from a few fish and bread.  He called out and the dead came out alive.  He was hailed to the highest honor.  But some people who sat at the place of honors felt threatened.  They did not wish to give up their seats, the seat of Moses.  So they plotted against him.  They conspired to trap Jesus.  Their sole purpose was to eliminate the threat.  And so they sent the smartest to test him in
public hearing.  The first one asked about tax.  But Jesus’ answer stunned them, for they could not find any fault at his answer and yet he satisfied the question.  The second one unashamedly tested Jesus with a question regarding marriage and resurrection.  So Jesus taught them the secret of heaven, of life with God, and of God himself.  Then the third and most cunning question came.  The expert in the Law of Moses, who had been studying and practicing the Law all his life, and thus knew the Law from cover to cover, came forward and tested Jesus with this question: “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”

            Jesus answered with the exact precision and great authority, for this was his own commandment to Moses and Israel.  To their astonishment, Jesus revealed the heart of God’s Law.  He quoted Deuteronomy 6:5 saying: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”  The “Shama Israel” that they had heard so many times over the course of their life was now given a fresh meaning.  The greatest commandment was not quoted from Deuteronomy 5 where the Ten Commandments were.  The “Shama Israel” was the foundation of the Ten Commandments.  To love the Lord is the greatest commandment.  And Jesus did not stop there.  He added another quote from Leviticus 19:18 saying: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  This second greatest commandment summarizes the second half of the Ten Commandments.  And then Jesus concluded that on these two depend the entire Scripture.  Since then the word “love” has been the trademark of Christian life.

                        

            Two thousand years later, the word love and the culture of love is not exclusive to Christianity anymore.  The world also adopts the idea of love.  Especially after the two devastating world wars and the philosophy of hate as sparked by Nietzsche in his thesis of the übermensche.  Genocides have been considered to be the worst crime in human history.  Exclusion is countered by the notion of embrace as wonderfully explained by Miroslav Volf.  Christian value of love has become the standard for ethics in our modern world today.  The expansion of the word love has crossed over the boundary of ethnicity, race, country, territory, and continent.  Particularly the second commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves is the new world standard for ethical living.  People are greatly captivated by this love movement and progressively the world is considered to be getting better after the horrible World War II, which killed around 60 million people over the three years of war.  Christians are glad that finally the world has joined in and adopted the grand idea of loving thy neighbor as ourselves.  However, this success in transforming the world’s ethical culture from that of the jungle law, the survival of the fittest or the powerful reigns, into compassion for all mankind, is not being followed by the remembrance of the first and greatest commandment, which is to love the Lord your God with all you heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  And so only half of the greatest commandments is actually being followed.  Well, isn’t it good already?  That the most significant value of Christian living is being appropriated in the world?  To some extent yes it is good.  But if we are careful in our observation we will find that obeying only half and abandoning the foundational half leads to serious fatal flaw and consequence.

            People in the world remain in the sin of Adam and Eve as they keep their judgeship seat and from there being selective on what to accept and what to reject.  They only accept the idea of love as long as it helps their survival instinct.  But they ignore the first commandment due to its default to acknowledge the one true God.  Their fixation to the second commandment has created an imagination of the ideal world.  While this is certainly better than the world as imagined by Nietzsche or even Hitler, this world filled with loving neighbor is far from perfect.  The missing half proves to be critical in the definition of the ideal world.  Now, the sad part is when Christians also forget the first commandment and thus only perpetuate the second.  The entire mission of God’s kingdom is gradually being swayed to the wrong course.  Upon following the great force of the world in adopting loving neighbor as the ultimate principle of life, the Christian compass has been misleading.  Such Christians have slowly lost their integrity and become saturated with the world’s value.  The word love is now being owned by the world and used by the world at will according to their own definition.  Many Christians in turn adopt the world’s redefinition of love.  The definition of love without the first commandment.  While at first it seems to be amazing because the world is being educated to move away from the culture of hate and war, slowly but sure the true meaning of love is being blurred.  Nowadays, in the name of love people do whatever they want.  Love has become the number one excuse for permitting any conducts even if they are offensive to the Lord God Almighty.

            Let me give you an example.  The observation of Halloween on the 31^st October provides a serious challenge to Christianity.  Over time Christians began to accommodate Halloween into their lifestyle.  As Christian children grew up observing Halloween as there was nothing evil or seriously wrong about it, they then became adjusted to Halloween and it became a part of their life, habit, and culture.  And so, not observing Halloween began to feel awkward as if one was being unfaithful.  Christians then learned the way of the world and celebrated the day of the dead, which for many people in the world was considered the day to worship demons and Satan.  Looking at the children’s Halloween practice the celebration seems harmless.  For kids merely dress in costumes and go door to door for the sole purpose of getting as much candy as they can.  Watching kids wearing cute costumes create happiness in people’s heart.  Today, Halloween is considered the most celebrated children’s holiday in the world, in the western world in particular.  And so, when Christians join in, they cannot merely join.  They have to find a good reason to participate.  For historically it is well known that Halloween is associated with demonic worship and whatever horror.  Christians resort to love as the permitting stamp.  In the name of love, the love of neighbor, Christians then excuse themselves to participate in the celebration of the day of the dead.  A lot of Christians attempt to think through and provide appealing arguments for joining the Halloween celebration.  Love of neighbor is manifested in the effort to evangelize Halloweeners to believe the gospel of Christ.  This is the gist of their argument.  They consider Halloween day as a very good opportunity to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ to the world.  Some even argue that Christians ought to seize this momentum and turn what belongs to the devil as weapon against him.  These proposals and arguments many find appealing.  And so more Christians join in the parade.  The Lord of the Rings by Tolkien provides an important illustration of the futility of any attempt to use the power of evil against itself.  The lure of the evil power is so great that even a great Captain of Gondor falls under its spell.  He speaks of using the Ring of Power to battle Sauron, the devil himself.  Boromir failed.  Tolkien is right when in his story he did not give any chance for the use of the Ring of power for the advantage of the world.  The only way the world is going to rest from the ongoing war is by destroying the power of evil that is encased in the Ring of power.  Christians ought to learn from this wisdom and understand that arguing for the use of Halloween day to battle evil is futile.  The right thing to do is to destroy it.  Many Christians still keep Halloween and even some pastors open the church for the participation in that evil day, believing that they ought to “carpe diem” and thus evangelize the Halloweeners in the name of love for neighbor.  But they have forgotten the first commandment: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”

            Participating in the Halloween can fall into the category of loving thy neighbor as thyself, but it will never fall into the category of the first commandment.  The two commandments should never be separated.  The first commandment especially provides the foundation for the second commandment and thus for the rest of God’s commands in the Scripture.  Halloween is the day dedicated for demonic worship and horror.  All the wild things in the world is let loose in that day.  Some Christian parents join in the defensive together with all the non Christian parents and argue that Halloween is harmless.  The costumes they pick and wear are decent.  They do not go wild and pick and wear nasty costumes of Dracula, werewolf, witches, etc.  They are in fact cute costumes with Disney themes such as princess costumes, fairy costumes, etc.  So, Why not?, they asked.  There are so many reasonable arguments have been written on this, from one end of the spectrum to another.  From the spiritual to the practical.  From the opening the door for occultism to the habitual formation of the children.  The nature of human structure of growth and development provides an even more serious warning of the danger of exposing children to certain practices and observing them in celebration.  God is very adamant to what days and rituals his people ought to observe.  Built in the celebration, observation, and rituals are the force of impression upon children’s memory, imagination, and way of life.  When God instructed Moses to command Israel to destroy the inhabitants of the Promised Land completely, God had in mind the danger of the children of Israel joining in the unauthorized celebration, observation, and rituals.  Israel disobeyed and soon they became tangled in the culture of the land and drifted away from the worship of the Lord God Almighty.  Our growth and development structure is vulnerable to impression and repetition.  Children are much more vulnerable.  Once they are exposed and starting to practice a certain kind of ritual or celebration, it would be difficult for them to unlearn.  How much more if such ritual and practice carry with it some sweet rewards.  In the theory of behaviorism as proposed by Skinner, children can easily be shaped through behavioral practices to become what the teacher wants them to be.  Alvin Plantinga realizes this truth and speaks of the power of behavior in transforming one’s mind and belief.  Plantinga gives an example of bible reading and prayer.  Try to stop reading the bible and stop praying for 3 years, what would you think you will become after the three years?  In the same way, try practicing and celebrating Halloween over the course of your life since you are children, what will you believe?  Will you not believe that Halloween is harmless?  Will you not then become like those Christians who cleverly devise arguments to excuse yourself to join in the Halloween?  So in order to allow your anxiety for Halloween celebration to be relieved you propose in the name of love and evangelism to participate in the celebration of the day of the dead.  And thus the first commandment to love God wholeheartedly is ignored.  Do this for several years, and see what you will believe.  In the end you probably will curse God for not loving the people.  Therefore your love for man trumps your love for God.

            One other thing about the example on Halloween.  It might look cute for kids to wear funny costumes and all, but when they reach teenage years and then adulthood, how would you think your kids observe and celebrate Halloween?  Will they then pick and wear Disney characters or will they choose the more wild and scary costumes?  This is just about costumes.  What about other practices such as the evocation of the spirits?  Will they join in the practice because of peer pressure?  You are opening the door for them.  The door of imagination to the forbidden territory.  At first the imagination seems harmless because it is limited to the weird things.  But over time as your kids grow older, it is very possible for your kids to start exploring the more dangerous imagination.  Because all is integrated into one Halloween celebration, then what defense would you give to your kids when they choose the Dracula, werewolf, murder, witches, and the like kind of imagination?  That they are mere myths?  In the western world where people seldom encounter mystical and spiritual realities, many people are ignorant of their realness.  But if you have ever lived in the eastern world where such mystical and spiritual world are as real as every day activities, you will understand the danger of opening your imagination to such world, and especially opening them to your kids.  Then you will think one thousand times before considering that Halloween is harmless to you and especially to your kids.  Here is when in the name of love, the love of your children will compete with the love of your neighbors.  Will you let your children walk in the path that is leading toward the mystical world that is in every sense of the word against the Lord your God?

            In the name of love people do many things that God despises.  They dare to even quote the Holy Scripture to justify their actions.  In the name of love of neighbors, some religious leaders even dare to curse the Lord their God.  Then they proceed to “create” the god that will satisfy their system of thought and belief.  In the name of love even Christians dare to twist the Scripture for their own purpose.  In the name of love people curse God for laying out in the Holy Scripture that homosexual practice is sinful and punishable by death.  In the name of love some pastors mock God and with lengthy arguments cite Scripture to support their belief that homosexual practice is biblical.  In the name of love Christians throw away God’s Law and hide behind the sublime feeling of love.  They even attempt to define God by the limitation of love as they want it to be.  For them, because God is so loving, then everything is permissible.  They then, in the name of love, advocate for gay marriage, for premarital affairs, extra marital affairs, even participating in the observation of days dedicated to evil spirits, and so on and so forth.

            Now, in the name of love, the love of God, which is the first commandment Jesus spoke of, I urge you to embrace God more than you embrace anything else in this world.  The first question Jesus asked Peter in the process of his reinstatement is: “Do you love me with the highest love more than these (anything else)?”  Would you then, in the name of love, the love of God, say yes I love you God more than anything else?  I pray that you will and do love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind, in the name of love.  Amen!