A religion that’s a little of this, a little of that.

ECLECTIC ə'klɛk.tɪk adjective. Belongs to no recognized school of thought or organized religion. Selects such doctrines and beliefs as they wish, from various religions and schools.

[Eclecticism i'klek.ti.siz.əm noun.]

One of the more popular platitudes you’ll hear among conservative Evangelicals is “I don’t have a religion; I have a relationship.” By which they don’t actually mean they’re irreligious… although many are. For the most part they do to to church, read their bibles, pray, and try to be good. What they mean is they reject dead religion—namely rituals which mean nothing to them. My point is they do so have a religion; there are plenty of things they do which reveal they devoted themselves to Jesus. Any pagan can see it—and they should, ’cause if there are no such signs, any “relationship” we claim to have is gonna suck, if it’s even there at all.

In comparison, your average pagan insists they truly have no religion. They don’t pray regularly, if at all. They read no holy books regularly, if at all. They never set foot in a church, temple, or mosque—except to attend weddings, funerals, recitals, 12-step meetings, christenings, go to the polls (’cause in the United States sometimes places of worship are used in elections) and to watch the rare Christmas pageant. They don’t do religion, period. You do—’cause you adhere to a particular pastor, church, denomination, or creed; and you pray and read and do Christian things.

But John Lennon songs notwithstanding, plenty of pagans do so have a religion. They do pray, read holy books, go to places of worship (or places where they worship), and base their behavior and good deeds on their spiritual beliefs.

It’s just they may not recognize they have a religion, ’cause it’s not an organized religion. They’re not a member of any organization which tells ’em what “the proper beliefs” are: They figured ’em out on their own, and now believe various things about God and spirits and the afterlife. True, their beliefs aren’t always consistent, and don’t always come from one particular source: Some of their ideas were borrowed from Christianity (i.e. God is love, Jesus was nice to everybody), and some from Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Beatles albums, Oprah videos, inspirational quotes, internet memes. Some even invented their own ideas, all by themselves, ’cause they’re such deep spiritual people.

Properly, they’re practicing eclecticism. They just don’t know the word for it.

Organized-yet-disorganized religion.

The human brain is designed to recognize patterns. Even when there’s nothing actually there. Hence really sloppy “logic” and conspiracy theorists.

This is why structures appeal to us so easily. Even the messiest people have some kind of structure to their chaos. They love it when one belief fits neatly with another. It’s why theology is so popular with certain Christians: They love when all their God-ideas connect like a divine jigsaw puzzle. They’re quite sure God, ’cause he’s perfect and true, should inspire a perfect and true belief system. That’s why they struggle so greatly with Christianity’s paradoxes, like the trinity. Makes ’em bonkers.

It’s also why a lot of humans prefer eclecticism. To them, Christianity is too paradoxical: They can’t wrap their brains around Jesus being God, yet totally human. So they decide to ditch one idea or the other: Jesus isn’t really divine, or “divinity” gets reinterpreted as something we can achieve by being really, really good. Or Jesus isn’t really human; he’s an avatar. Whatever simplifies things in their minds: They like a belief system which which doesn’t make taxing, inconvenient demands on their brains and lives.

And if they don’t wanna change any (or much), and wanna feel good about themselves, preferably their belief system is something which is already consistent with their existing behavior.

I’ve listened to pagans describe their belief systems. They’re quite detailed. Some are pretty clever! Often they’re more consistent with historical Christianity than they realize. (Or even wanna recognize. They much prefer to imagine they’re unique.) They often admit they’re not as good as they wanna be, or oughta be. And maybe it’s not even be possible. But they figure God makes up the difference—because grace ain’t that foreign a concept, y’know.

So they won’t join a church, follow a specific guru, or try to be a guru themselves. They just believe what they believe. They’re quite proud of the fact they put together their own system. They feel it works for them; it’s why they’ve no interest in becoming anything else. They don’t wanna be Christian, Hindu, Scientologist, Bahai, or anything—they’re fine as-is. Try to fix ’em, and you’ll alienate them.

Yeah, it’s a pride thing.

I once had an algebra student who invented his own shortcut for solving polynomial equations. Used it all the time. Used it even though I told him, more than once, to stop it… because it doesn’t work. It never got him the correct answer.

Why’d he insist on using it regardless? Because it was his.

It might’ve worked once, so he assumed it’d work every time. I never saw it work though, and couldn’t convince him of it. Even though he kept flunking papers and exams… and eventually the class. But he didn’t care that it didn’t work. Just like any inventor whose beloved gadget keeps breaking down, but he won’t stop tinkering with it, and keep using it anyway. Unlike this hypothetical inventor, my student never fixed his formula, nor swapped it with one from the book or the internet or anywhere.

No, the boy wasn’t rational. But since when are humans rational?

And when it comes to religion, people can be even less rational. Because to them, religion isn’t about what’s true: It’s about what feels good. They confuse “spiritual” with emotional, so if it makes ’em feel something, especially something good, it must be spiritual. Reason and logic and truth doesn’t make ’em feel good, so they ditch those things in favor of feel-good religion.

This is why eclecticism is so popular. An eclectic’s religion (even though they hate calling it religion) feels great. Because it’s all their favorite beliefs, makes ’em feel good about themselves, and it’s theirs. It’s their possession, their baby. Doesn’t matter if it’s utter bulls---: They make excuses for all its inconsistencies, justify anything immoral in it, and fights anyone who dares tell ’em they’re wrong.

So if I dare tell them, “Well according to Jesus…” they object. Jesus, as they’ve reimagined him, teaches no such thing. He believes as they do. Christianity is wrong; Christians are hypocrites; the bible is neither historically accurate nor infallible; they know Jesus better than any Christian. Don’t you touch their baby.

So before you share Jesus with ’em, you gotta wait till they finally give up on their beloved system. Which may not happen for a mighty long time. They gotta have a crisis of faith first. The Holy Spirit has to shake ’em hard enough to leave a crack wide enough to climb in. Till then they’re the walls of Jericho. Keep marching.

We Christians need to be careful lest we turn into eclectics. We don’t get to make up our own beliefs. We gotta follow Jesus. He determines our beliefs; he’s right and we’re not. I regularly butt heads with Christians who come up with ideas they’re sure is better than anything 20 centuries of Christian thinkers ever came up with. (As if the Holy Spirit never inspired anyone but them… least of all me.) Simply put, they’re an eclectic disguised as a Christian, and they’re following their own path instead of Christ’s. Watch out for such people.

Praying like “St. Francis” did.

You know how when you’re praying in a group, and the prayer leader says something really profound which you wholly agree with, and you can definitely say amen to that?

Rote prayers are the very same way. It’s someone else’s prayer, but you’re agreeing with the prayer… and some of ’em just nail it. It’s precisely what you wanna tell God. So go ahead and borrow their words. They don’t mind. God doesn’t either.

One of the more popular rote prayers floating around out there is “the peace prayer of St. Francis.” Which, let’s be honest, was never actually written by Giovanni Francesco di Bernardone of Assisi (1181-1226), the Catholic layman-evangelist who founded the Franciscan order. True, those of us who know about Francis’s life can certainly imagine him saying stuff like this, but just like a whole lot of popular internet quotes, ’twasn’t him. The Italians call this la preghiera semplice/“the simple prayer.” I don’t find it all that simple, but it’s still a good one to pray.

I prefer translating these things myself, so I took this from the original French. That’s right, the original French; not Italian like Francis spoke, nor the vulgar Latin which medieval Catholics used to communicate. The prayer was anonymously published in December 1912 in the Catholic magazine La Clochette, as Belle prière à faire pendant la messe/“Beautiful prayer to say during Mass.”

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there’s hatred I’ll place love.

Where there’s offense I’ll place forgiveness.

Where there’s discord I’ll place union.

Where there’s error I’ll place truth.

Where there’s doubt I’ll place faith.

Where there’s despair I’ll place hope.

Where there’s darkness I’ll place your light.

Where there’s sadness I’ll place joy.

Oh Master, I don’t seek to be comforted as much as to comfort,

To be understood as much as to understand,

To be loved as much as to love.

For it’s in giving that we receive.

It’s in forgetting that one is found.

It’s in pardoning that we’re pardoned.

It’s in dying that we’re raised to eternal life.

’Cause we wanna do as Jesus does.

There’s a lot of similarity between the St. Francis prayer and “John Wesley’s Rule,” another popular rote prayer attributed to the wrong guy. Seriously; Wesley didn’t write this prayer either. (And you thought misattribution was a recent thing.)

Do all the good you can

By all the means you can

In all the ways you can

In all the places you can

At all the times you can

To all the people you can

As long as ever you can.

Yet another nice way to stretch out “Love your neighbor.” Mk 12.31, Lv 19.18 If you were looking for any loopholes, Wesley’s rule stitches most of them shut.

Basically the St. Francis prayer is about trying to minister to others, trying to spread the Spirit’s fruit instead of throwing poop like a monkey. As humans do. It’s about how we oughta act on God’s gifts, rather than just pray they happen, while we sit by passively and wait for God to reprogram or smite sinners. It’s about how we oughta use the fruit the Spirit gave us, rather than store them up for a rainy day… whenever that comes.

The purpose of the Spirit’s gifts are to pay ’em forward. This prayer helps us adjust our attitudes so we’re reminded we’re meant to share, not hoard. Give, not just receive.

So when you’re at a loss for words with God, pray this prayer.

Love your enemies.

Luke 6.27-31 KWL

27 “But I tell you listeners: Love your enemies. Do good to your haters.

28 Bless your cursers. Pray for your mistreaters.

29 To one who hits you on the jaw, submit all the more.

To one who takes your robe and tunic from you, don’t stop them.

30 Give to everyone who asks you. Don’t demand payback from those who take what’s yours.

31 Just as you want people doing for you, do likewise for them.”

Whenever preachers and ministers talk about how Jesus taught us followers to love our enemies, most of the time you can count on ’em to tell us Jesus wasn’t kidding. He really does expect us to love our enemies. It’ll be hard; sometimes darn near impossible. But Jesus said to do it, so we gotta.

Most of the time. Some of these preachers aren’t all that fruity. Hence when they preach about love, they don’t use the proper definition as spelled out in 1 Corinthians 13. They substitute conditional love and tough love.

“When Jesus told us to love enemies, he didn’t mean we should love-love them. The sort of love he meant is ‘to want what’s best for somebody.’ So that’s how he meant for us to love them: We should want the very best for them.”

And sometimes they really do want the best for those enemies: They want ’em to repent, and if not do a full 180° and befriend us, at least stop being so awful. They want ’em to be good. Love doesn’t delight in doing wrong, 1Co 13.6 so this wish sorta falls under the proper definition of love.

And sometimes they don’t. “The very best for them” means their comeuppance. Bad fortune. Getting arrested, beaten, evicted, fired, humiliated, injured, insulted, rejected, ruined. Best thing for ’em… and mighty entertaining for us. Revenge fantasies just can’t help but seep into many people’s discussions about enemies.

Revenge fantasies even seep into when we do strive to love our enemies, and behave towards ’em in Jesus-approved ways. We like to imagine being good to them, in spite of their dickishness, really burns ’em up inside: They want us to feel bad but it’s not working. They want to provoke us—an old bully’s technique, ’cause when we fight back, it makes ’em feel justified in doing even worse things to us—and dangit, it’s not working! So even grace gets reimagined as a form of revenge. Like in the old T-shirt quote, “Love your enemies. It really pisses them off.”

Heck, we even find this sentiment in the bible.

Proverbs 25.21-22 KWL

21 If your hater is hungry, give him bread. If thirsty, give him water to drink.

22 You pile embers on his head this way; it’s how the LORD repaid you.

(There’s this novel interpretation going round which claims the ancients used to help neighbors start cooking fires by bringing embers from their own fires—carrying them in a pot, which they put on their heads. Supposedly this verse is really about blessing your enemies, not sticking it to ’em by being good. But there’s no historical nor archaeological evidence for any such thing in ancient Hebrew culture; if they brought fire to neighbors it was with tongs or in a lamp. Ancient commentators knew of no such practice, and uniformly interpreted this saying as a curse, not a blessing. And this new interpretation doesn’t grammatically work either: If I carry embers to neighbors on my head, I’d pile embers on my own head, not theirs. Unless I’m giving them their donated embers back… and how does that bless them?)

Anyway. For those of us who recognize our revenge fantasies are unhealthy and wrong, but don’t really wanna love our enemies, often we’ll reinterpret love to mean passive acceptance. In other words tolerate our enemies. Leave ’em be. Distance ourselves from them. Stay away lest we’re tempted to take revenge, or lest they’re tempted to do more awful things to us. I’ve heard many a preacher say, “Love and forgive your enemies… but this doesn’t mean you need to have anything more to do with them. Don’t take revenge; don’t do anything. Just leave them to themselves. You’re not their doormat.” Love is apathy.

Of course all this redefinition means people are dodging the clear and obvious meaning of “Love your enemies.” ’Cause we don’t wanna love our enemies. ’Cause they’re our freaking enemies: Somebody needs to smite them! Either God needs to do it, or God needs to deputize us: They need smiting!

Loving your abuser.

I was abused as a child. If you’ve never been abused—or you have been abused but never really loved your abuser—this is gonna be hard to understand.

Obviously an abuser is an enemy. By the very fact they abuse you, they’re your enemy. They don’t want what’s best for you; they might claim to love you, but you’re a possession and little more. Love doesn’t abuse. Our culture correctly recognizes this, and many Christians wholly agree with the idea abusers are enemies. (Even when these very same Christians get abusive.)

Now imagine a woman whose boyfriend beat her senseless. Yet after she left the hospital, she went right back to him. Even defended him when he was arrested and put on trial for beating her. The rest of the world recoils in horror: “How could she possibly? What’s wrong with her? Where’s her sense? He beats her! Doesn’t she realize he’s an enemy?”

Well no, she doesn’t. Because she loves him. She fell in love with him despite the beatings. She finds it easy to forgive what most of us would consider unforgivable. We’d toss him in prison, and joke about how the convicts will probably beat him even worse, and maybe rape him a little. Whereas she’d turn the other cheek.

That’s what loving one’s enemy looks like. Even though she may not realize she’s loving her enemy; when you love ’em they’re not so easy to recognize as enemies.

Other abuse victims don’t love their abusers, and never did. They’re fully aware their abusers are enemies; it’s why they plot revenge, or seek a form of “justice” which hurts the abuser. They can’t possibly imagine forgiving their abusers, or establishing any real relationship with ’em. If you suggest they forgive their enemies, they’d tell you to go f--- yourself; how dare you suggest any form of grace towards their enemy.

When Jesus spoke about loving one’s enemies, he was teaching Galileans who’d lived under Roman oppression for the last half century. The Romans didn’t follow any kind of due process: If you got in their way they’d smack you, if you talked back they’d stab you, and if they thought you were a criminal they’d flog or crucify you. If a soldier decided to bully you for fun, or just to show off his might, he easily could; your life was in his hands. Romans were some of the worst kind of abusers. But you gotta love them.

Loving one’s enemies looks exactly like the abused woman who goes back to her boyfriend. And if this offends you… well that’s normal. It’s probably how Jesus’s listeners took it when he first started talking about turning the other cheek.

Y’see, grace isn’t fair. True forgiveness feels utterly contrary to human nature. Treating our foes better than they deserve—much like forgiving an abusive boyfriend—feels kinda foolish, stupid, and outrageous.

Human nature feels more like Lemékh described it in Genesis:

Genesis 4.23-24 KWL

23 Lemékh says to his women, Adá and Zillá, “Listen to my voice, Lemékh’s women; give your ears to my saying.

I killed a man for injuring me, and a boy for bruising me.

24 If seven people die in revenge for Cain,

seventy-seven die for Lemékh.”

We often say human nature seeks eye-for-eye reciprocity, but that’s not even close: Human nature seeks satisfaction. We take revenge till we feel satisfied… and some people are never satisfied. We don’t trade bruise for bruise, insult for insult: We kill people who insult us, or kill their whole family in revenge. Simeon and Levi ben Jacob murdered an entire city because its prince raped their sister; Haman wanted to wipe out every Jew in the Persian Empire because a single Jew wouldn’t bow to him. Human nature is to overkill.

The LORD had to legislate the whole eye-for-eye thing, Ex 21.24 which is a significant improvement on what we humans usually do in response. And still Jesus expects better of us.

That’s why “Love your enemies” irritates even the most devout Christians: When people forgive like a woman going back to her abusive boyfriend, our culture immediately figures there’s gotta be something wrong with this woman. She has really low self-esteem, or figures she can’t do any better, or figures she doesn’t deserve better. She must be a masochist who enjoys abuse. Our culture never factors love and forgiveness into the equation. It’s so foreign to the way humans think. Sadly, foreign to the way most Christians think too.

’Cause that’s how the world works. That’s how human nature works. We don’t love enemies. The near-universal response to such an idea is to rescue that woman, whether she wants it or not; and kill (or at least take vengeance upon) that boyfriend.

Love—actual love—doesn’t want revenge. When my dad beat me, either with a belt, a stick, or his fists, I admit there were times I wished I could beat him back. But those revenge fantasies wore off. Love puts thoughts of revenge away. It’s why police, whenever they try to arrest wife-beaters, often find themselves attacked by the beaten wife herself: She doesn’t want vengeance upon her abuser. She loves him.

Do bear in mind I’m in no way excusing abusers. Spouse-beaters, child-beaters, child-molesters, any abusers, need to go to prison for the sake of society. When I find out about such behavior, I never keep it to myself, no matter how much people beg me: I call the police. As one should. There are, and should be, legal consequences for abuse. I have no problem when abusers suffer them. I never want people to go back to their abusers for more. Christians are meant to remove suffering from the world, not look the other way.

But at the same time, forgiveness of one’s enemy is entirely right and Christlike. That’s loving your enemies. Don’t let them hurt you. Do love them.

No, it’s not easy.

The Epicurean Paradox: Why is there evil?

A reader wanted me to tackle the Epicurean Paradox, as it’s called. Yeah, why not.

Epicurus of Athens (341–270BC) was the founder of “the Garden,” a philosophy school. He’s a materialist and empiricist; he believed the gods didn’t involve themselves in human affairs; he believed the purpose of philosophy was to promote peace and tranquility and alleviate suffering. Over the centuries “epicurean” evolved into a synonym for “foodie,” which is weird ’cause Epicurus preferred simple meals. He wrote more than 300 works on all sorts of subjects, but we only have three books and various random quotes.

The Epicurean Paradox is one of those quotes. For all we know Epicurus didn’t even come up with it; it was a popular ancient meme with his name attached, much like the Prayer of St. Francis. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it predates Epicurus; somebody had to have thought of it before him.

In any event Christian philosopher Lucius Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius (ca. 250–325) quotes the paradox in his book De ira Dei/“On God’s Wrath,” in which he critiqued the non-foodie Epicureans of his day. My translation:

Epicurus said God either wants to eliminate evil and can’t; or can, but doesn’t want to; or neither can nor wants to; or can and wants to. If he wants to and can’t, he’s weak—which fails to describe God. If he can but doesn’t want to, he’s jealous—which is equally alien to God. If he neither can nor wants to, he’s jealous and weak—therefore not God. If he can and wants to, which is the only proper conclusion… God, where are you? Lactantius 13.20-21

It’s obviously not an exact quote, ’cause Lactantius’s comments—“which fails to describe God,” “which is equally alien to God”—wouldn’t be part of the meme. Anyway, the gist of it worked its way down to Scottish philosopher David Hume, who put it this way in his 1779 book Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion—placed in the mouth of his character Philo.

Epicurus’s old questions are yet unanswered. Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able? then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? whence then is evil? Hume 10

Clearly Hume never read the source of the Epicurean Paradox, ’cause Lactantius actually does answer the old question. Which I’m now gonna quote from the Ante-Nicene Fathers translation, “A Treatise on the Anger of God Addressed to Donatus,” ’cause I don’t feel like translating the whole of it.

For God is able to do whatever he wishes, and there is no weakness or envy in God. He is able, therefore, to take away evils; but he does not wish to do so, and yet he is not on that account envious. For on this account he does not take them away, because he at the same time gives wisdom, as I have shown; and there is more of goodness and pleasure in wisdom than of annoyance in evils. For wisdom causes us even to know God, and by that knowledge to attain to immortality, which is the chief good. Therefore, unless we first know evil, we shall be unable to know good. But Epicurus did not see this, nor did any other, that if evils are taken away, wisdom is in like manner taken away; and that no traces of virtue remain in man, the nature of which consists in enduring and overcoming the bitterness of evils. And thus, for the sake of a slight gain in the taking away of evils, we should be deprived of a good, which is very great, and true, and peculiar to us. It is plain, therefore, that all things are proposed for the sake of man, as well evils as also goods. Lactantius 13

So for Lactantius, God can but doesn’t want to, not because he’s evil, but because he’s gonna teach us to fight evil alongside him, and that’s good. I like his answer. It’s not my answer, but it’s a darned good one.

But it’s an answer which won’t work at all for people who don’t believe in God, like Hume. Or who don’t think a relationship with God is even possible, like Epicurus. Or don’t even want such a relationship with God, like many pagans. They just want evil and suffering to stop already; they don’t wanna fight it; and they’ll preemptively dismiss any answer to the problem of evil and pain which involves God at all. My answer definitely won’t work for ’em.

Additions to the paradox.

So there’s this meme of the Epicurean Paradox on the internet, in which someone turned it into a flowchart. I don’t care for its design, ’cause I’m a graphic artist and I can definitely make it easier to read and follow. Looks like yea:

A redditor’s version of the Epicurean Paradox. Reddit

Like Hume, the person who created it doesn’t appear to have read the source of the paradox, ’cause it doesn’t end with “God, where are you?” It adds a few more steps.

The Epicurean Paradox part begins with the premise, “Evil Exists,” then asks, “Can God Prevent Evil?”, “Does God know about all the Evil?”, and “Does God want to prevent Evil?” These are not quite Epicurus’s questions; neither in Lactantius nor Hume’s versions. Not sure where the flowchart-maker got ’em. But after asking these three questions, it goes to “Then why is there Evil?” Which isn’t the question we put at the conclusion; it’s the very question we’re tackling. It goes up top!

I studied logic, and of course we learned to make flowcharts. Proper flowcharts reduce questions to binaries: They’re questions which can only be answered with a yes or no, a true or false, or otherwise only two options. (And not false binaries, where there’s actually a third option, but we neglected to include it ’cause we’re either being sloppy… or deceptive.) “Why is there evil?” is far from binary. The flowchart-maker only provides us three options, and there are way more than just the three. And when you have a question with dozens of possible answers, you don’t use a flowchart! You use a brainstorming chart.

Epicurus’s conclusion wasn’t “Why is there evil?” but “God, where are you?” And that’s where the flowchart goes all the way away from Epicurus. Now we get into its maker’s three rejected theories as to why evil exists:

1. IT’S A TEST. To which the maker objects an all-knowing God shouldn’t have to test anything, since he already knows the answers.
2. IT’S SATAN’S FAULT. To which the maker objects an almighty God should destroy Satan.
3. ANY OTHER REASON. To which the maker objects an almighty God should’ve dealt with those reasons too.

And the maker also threw in some arrows so we can just go round in circles with these questions all the live-long day, till frustrated.

Y’know, all these additions to the paradox were actually dealt with by the paradox. Dealt with better and more efficiently.

My answer.

But enough with leaving you hanging, ’cause you probably want to know how I’d answer Epicurus.

And if I were answering Epicurus directly, I’d have to deal with some other things first. Namely that Epicurus was deist: He believed in God (or, being an ancient Greek, gods), but believed they didn’t interact with humanity. Evil exists because God might want to vanquish it, and be able to vanquish it… but he simply doesn’t intervene. He stays out of things and leaves us be. Functionally it’s the same as nontheism.

So the paradox isn’t really a paradox. I mean, it appears to be when you believe God is good, God is mighty, and God intervenes: If that’s so, why isn’t he intervening? But if you don’t believe God intervenes, or if you don’t think there’s any God there to intervene, the “paradox” simply explains the way the world works: God’s not part of the equation, so stop dwelling on it (or, for that matter, religion) and live your life.

To answer Epicurus, first I gotta show him God does so intervene. Otherwise he’s gonna look at my every potential answer as me, sputtering out inadequate arguments because the world clearly doesn’t work like my religion teaches me.

But to answer Christians who wanna know why evil exists in a good God’s universe, here y’go: God wants to eliminate evil, and can. And is.

Our problem, and the skeptics’ problem, is God isn’t eliminating it like we’d eliminate it, were we God. We’d do it faster. We’d smite evildoers harder. We’d be a lot more wrathful, a lot less subtle, a lot less gracious. We wouldn’t bother to try to save every human we possibly can first; we’d figure they weren’t worth saving. Like the dark Christians love to point out, everybody deserves hell, and we’d happily, recklessly throw them all into it so we could get our way. Much like the ancient Romans would indiscriminately crucify everybody till they finally got peace.

In eliminating evil, we’d do all sorts of evil. And because we think we have a handle on God (and we don’t really) we project a lot of our motives and means upon him, and want him to get all wrathful and smitey like we would, and fret when he doesn’t. Doesn’t he care about evil like we do?

Of course he does. But the way he’s chosen to defeat it is through love. And because we humans suck at love, we assume love is too passive for our tastes. We much prefer vengeance.

At the very end of God’s process, evil will be gone. Everything evil did, will be undone. Death will be undone. Tears will be wiped away. All things will become new. Those of us who trust him, know this era is coming. Those of us who don’t, are trying to create it already (and inadequately) through laws and peer pressure… and any other means than love. Or they’ve given up and presume God’s left the building, or isn’t there.

And they’re probably not gonna like my answer either. Oh well.

The two loves.

Two verbs in the New Testament get translated “love.” They’d be φιλέω/filéo and ἀγαπάω/aghapáo. They’re synonyms like “boat” and “ship,” or “couch” and “sofa,” or “Christ” and “Messiah”—they’re the same idea, with maybe a little different nuance, but not enough to make a big deal over.

But some of us wanna make a big deal over minor things, so of course people are gonna insist there’s a major difference between them. Aghapáo is related to the noun Paul and Sosthenes defined in 1 Corinthians 13, ἀγάπη/aghápi, KJV “charity.” That’s the sort of love which God is, 1Jn 4.8, 16 and therefore it’s gotta be of an infinitely greater quality than the other sort of love, the noun φίλος/fílos, KJV “friend.” Therefore aghapáo has gotta mean “to love like God would,” and filéo has gotta mean “to love like a friend would.”

Fine. Let’s say I agreed with this deduction. So… shouldn’t we love our friends like God would? And doesn’t Jesus consider his followers his friends? Jn 15.15 If we’re loving one another properly, in the way Jesus expects and instructs us to, should there be any functional difference between filéo and aghapáo?

And for the most part the ancient Greeks didn’t see any functional difference between ’em either. C.S. Lewis did, and in his book The Four Loves he went on and on about the differences he saw in those concepts. But having studied Greek for a few decades now, I’m pretty sure he just used the slight differences in nuance to riff on his own ideas about love.

The ancients used fílos and filéo to talk about familial, relational love. Like between family members; it’s why our American city of Philadelphia (named for the church of Φιλαδέλφεια/Filadélfeia in Revelation) is nicknamed “the city of brotherly love.” Thing is, a sovereign’s closest allies became known as his fílë, “friends.” Jn 19.12 True, the familial love is supposed to be unconditional, whereas the “love” for political allies is nearly always conditional, so political “love” is hardly a synonym for aghápi. It’s fair to say the political usage may have tainted the word a bit, and it’s further tainted by its use in a lot of compound Greek words:

• Φιλάργυρος/filáryiros, “loves silver” or “loves money.”
• Φίλαυτος/fílaftos, “loves oneself.”
• Φιλήδονος/filídonos, “loves hedonism.”
• Φιλόνεικος/filóneikos, “loves to fight.”
• Φιλοπρωτεύω/filoprotévo, “loves to be first.”

But at the same time it’s found in compounds with positive connotations:

• Φίλανδρος/fílandros, “loves men,” particularly “loves [one’s] husband.”
• Φιλανθρώπως/filanthrópos, “loves people.”
• Φιλόθεος/filótheos, “loves God.”
• Φιλοξενία/filozenía, “loves strangers,” i.e. hospitable.
• Φιλοσοφία/filosofía, “loves wisdom.”
• Φιλόστοργος/filóstorgos, “loves family.”
• Φιλότεκνος/filóteknos, “loves children.” (And not in a creepy way.)
• Φιλόφρων/filófron, “loves the mind,” a synonym for “friendly.”

You don‘t find as many compounds made of aghapáo, which is part of the reason you won’t find as many variant definitions for it in an ancient Greek dictionary. But as I said in my article on love, you will find lots of definitions, for both words, for the ancients pulled them every which way, exactly the same as present-day people do with our word “love.”

The result was filéo and aghapáo overlapped a lot. So much so, it’s not wholly correct to insist they mean different things. They don’t really. When the authors of the bible used aghapáo they meant love; and when they used filéo they meant love. Not a different love; not a lesser love. They’re synonyms.

But what about Peter and Jesus in John 21?

When preachers touch upon John 21, in the story when Jesus asks Simon Peter whether he loves him, most of the time they point to Jesus’s three questions, and try to match ’em up with Peter’s three denials of Jesus on the day Jesus was killed. That, they imagine, is what makes the passage so profound: Peter denied Jesus thrice, so Jesus expects Peter to declare Jesus thrice. ’Cause that’s how karma works: Peter’s gotta earn his way back into leadership.

Rubbish, as anyone who knows Jesus can tell you: Jesus doesn’t make us jump through ridiculous hoops before forgiving us. We don’t have to undo three sayings with three other sayings, as if these are magic incantations we have to undo. That’s not how grace works; that’s not how any of this works.

And if you learned a little Greek, or if you have a preacher who learned a little Greek, they’re quickly gonna point out the real issue is Peter and Jesus were using two different words for love. Peter was using filéo; Jesus aghapáo. Jesus wanted to know if Jesus loved him, and Peter was only willing to say he liked him. So Jesus, ’cause he’s kind, came down to Peter’s level and asked him if he liked him, and it kinda broke Peter’s heart because it highlighted his own sense of unworthiness.

And that’s also rubbish. Because like I said, filéo and aghapáo are synonyms, so Peter’s response isn’t properly interpreted “I love you but I don’t love-love you.” You’ll notice the bulk of our English translations (CSB, ESV, GNT, KJV, ISV, MEV, NASB, NET, NIV, NKJV, NLT, NRSV) deliberately, intentionally do not make any distinction between filéo and aghapáo, and translate ’em both “love.” The translators know what they’re doing. There is no real distinction.

At the same time it is relevant that Jesus and Peter are using two different words here. The problem isn’t that Peter is claiming a lesser love and Jesus is trying to get him to go for more… and then gives up and settles for Peter’s lesser love. They’re using synonyms. They’re both talking about the same level of love and commitment and friendship and devotion. So if you’re gonna translate it so they’re using different words, the words had better mean the same thing. That’s what I went for.

John 21.15-17 KWL

15 So when they ate, Jesus told Simon Peter, “Simon bar John, do you love me more than these others?”

Peter told him, “Yes Master, you’ve known I’m wholly devoted to you.”

Jesus told him, “Feed my lambs.”

16 Jesus told Peter a second time, “Simon bar John, do you love me?”

Peter told him, “Yes Master, you’ve known I’m wholly devoted to you.”

Jesus told him, “Pastor my sheep.”

17 Jesus told Peter a third time, “Simon bar John, are you wholly devoted to me?”

Peter grieved, for Jesus told him the third time, “Are you wholly devoted to me?”

He told him, “Master, you’ve known everything. You know I’m wholly devoted to you.”

Jesus told him, “Feed my sheep.”

Peter wasn’t trying to weasel out of anything, like he did when he denied Jesus. That was a major mistake, Peter knew it, and knew Jesus forgave him and accepted him again. (Jesus had appeared to him multiple times by now, y’know.) And now that Jesus was alive again, Peter was sure he wasn’t gonna blow it again.

And then he kinda blew it again, ’cause he kept using filéo when Jesus wanted him to say aghapáo. Because sometimes we don’t want synonyms. We wanna be on the very same page, using the very same words. Diversity is important, but sometimes unity is, and that’s what Jesus wanted at this time. ’Cause shepherding Jesus’s sheep is a big, big deal.

But if Jesus expected Peter to have aghápi instead of fílos—because, as undereducated preachers claim, they’re two different words—he’d have demanded Peter quit waffling and love him, exactly the same as he commanded all his students to love one another. Jn 15.2 Instead Jesus was fine with the synonym. Peter was wholly devoted to him, after all.

Do a word study on these different words for “love” in the New Testament, and you’ll quickly see they’re treated as interchangeable. True, filéo tends to get used when the authors write about loving things we shouldn’t… but then again so does aghapáo. People igápisan darkness rather than light; Jn 3.19 Paul complained Dimas agapísas this present age when he shouldn’t, 2Ti 4.10 and John warned Christians not to agapátë the world nor the things in it. 1Jn 2.15 If aghapáo only ever refers to godly love, it’d make no sense to use it to talk about ungodly love; but that’s not how the ancients used it. How they shoulda used it falls back on Paul’s definition in 1 Corinthians, and we should use it that way too. But don’t read that definition into every use of aghápi and aghapáo in the bible. Our culture’s loosey-goosey definition of love works just fine, in most contexts. For both words.

“Love is a verb.”

From time to time you’re gonna hear a preacher claim love isn’t a noun, but a verb.

dc Talk singing “Luv Is a Verb.” Yeah, this was the state of Christian hip hop in the ’90s. Sad. dc Talk

Largely I blame dc Talk’s 1992 song “Luv Is a Verb,” in which they looked up love in a dictionary and were apparently gobsmacked to discover yep, it’s a verb.

Pullin’ out my big black book

’Cause when I need a word defined, that’s where I look

So I move to the L’s quick, fast, in a hurry

Threw on my specs; thought my vision was blurry

I looked again but to my dismay

It was black and white with no room for gray

Ya see, a big V stood beyond my word

And yo, that’s when it hit me, that luv is a verb

Lots to pick apart there.

• Other Christian songs can talk about the death and resurrection of Christ, the atonement of humanity, the forgiveness of sins, and salvation itself, in one verse. But dc Talk needed the entire first verse to talk about using a dictionary. It’s not a deep song, yo.
• Seeing as dictionaries list many common definitions of the word “love,” there’s plenty of room for gray. So what is there to be dismayed about?
• Didn’t hit him that love is a verb till he saw the V, meaning “verb,” in its listing. So… he never used the word as a verb before? As in “I love this audience”? “I’d love another taco”? “I love Jesus yes I do, I love Jesus, how ’bout you”?
• Apparently the dictionary’s the absolute authority when it comes to parts of speech. Not so much spelling; they kept using “luv.”

But enough mocking a 28-year-old Christian hip hop oldie. The song’s about how love is a verb, and we Christians oughta exercise Jesus-type love. But nowhere in the song does it say, “Love’s a verb, not a noun.” It never denies the nounhood of “love.” It only reminds us the word’s also a verb, and therefore oughta be practiced.

Leaping from “Love is a verb” to “Love is a verb, not a noun” is adding an idea to the song which isn’t there. You know, like we Christians too often do with bible verses. Next we wind up defending our additional ideas instead of the original text, utterly lose the point of the original text… and forget to be Christlike while we’re at it, which is a whole other article.

Yes, love is a verb. And a noun. It’s both. Elevate both.

You’re gonna see both in the bible.

Those of us who’ve studied biblical Greek, as well as those of us who’ve maybe cracked open a Strong’s concordance and dictionary, know Greek has both noun and verb forms of the word.

• The noun, you’ve likely heard of. It’s ἀγάπη/aghápi (which Americans tend to transliterate agape). It appears 116 times in the New Testament.
• The verb is ἀγαπάω/aghapáo, “to love,” which appears 143 times (142 in the Textus Receptus).

Basic grammar review: A noun is a person, place, object, or concept. Jesus is a person, the airport is a place, robots are objects, strength is a concept. Now, none of those four items are passive. Jesus, the airport, robots, and strength, all act. As does love. Love has patience; love behaves kindly. 1Co 13.4 Still a noun though.

When Paul and Sosthenes wrote 1 Corinthians, they used the verb aghapáo twice, but the noun aghápi 14 times. Nine of those times are in chapter 13, where they defined it:

1 Corinthians 13.4-8 KWL

4 Love has patience. Love behaves kindly. It doesn’t act with uncontrolled emotion.

It doesn’t draw attention to how great it is. It doesn’t exaggerate.

5 It doesn’t ignore others’ considerations. It doesn’t look out for itself. It doesn’t provoke behavior.

It doesn’t plot evil. 6 It doesn’t delight in doing wrong: It delights in truth.

7 It puts up with everything, puts trust in everything,

puts hope in everything, survives everything. 8A Love never falls down.

Note they defined love using verbs, not adjectives: How it behaves, not what its characteristics are. English translations tend to use adjectives, like the NIV’s “Love is patient, love is kind,” 1Co 13.4 NIV because English doesn’t have convenient one-word verbs for μακροθυμεῖ/makrothymeí, “has patience” and χρηστεύεται/hristévete, “behaves kindly.” My translation tried to avoid adjectives because the apostles didn’t use ’em.

And again: Just because we define aghápi with verbs, doesn’t make it a verb. Same as defining a noun with adjectives doesn’t turn it into an adjective.

Preachers wanna emphasize the active nature of love. As we should. But come on people, “love” is also a noun.

Love gone askew.

Whenever we claim love’s not a noun, we reveal two things.

First, and the most problematic of the two: We’re letting pop songs determine our belief systems.

That’s not a new problem; it’s a very old one. Music, especially for people who love music, gets into our heads really easily. As do the lyrics. People are regularly surprised to discover they actually know all the lyrics to pop songs—they can even sing along to it!—even years later. Those words managed to worm their way into our subconscious.

Sometimes that’s neat… and sometimes that’s disturbing, because there are a lot of things in our subconscious which we’ve grown to unthinkingly accept. Advertisers definitely take advantage of this, and try to make sure we’ve heard their slogans and catchphrases so they can influence us to buy their product.

When a Christian pop musicians write a bit of fluff, hoping it’ll get played on K-LOVE and sell a bunch of downloads, they’re generally hoping the same thing: They want the music and lyrics to be catchy, and make you want to listen to it even more, and buy it and play it on your phone or iPod all day long. And you might. But same as any pop song, those words’ll get in you… and influence you in unexpected ways.

I’ve already written on problematic worship music. I needn’t go into that again. I should just remind you to take those subconsciously-memorized lyrics out of your subconscious and take a good hard look at them: What are the musicians saying? And is it good stuff?—or is it really bad theology, which needs correction before it leads you in the wrong directions?

Second, and importantly: In our haste to talk about how love is active, we’re a little too quick to dismiss other things which are also love. It’s important for love to be a noun.

Certain teachings from the scriptures, from Jesus himself, require us to possess love, and hold onto it ’cause it’s important:

• “The love you have with one another will prove to the world you’re my disciples.” Jn 13.35
• “Remain in my love.” Jn 15.9
• The Holy Spirit fills our hearts with God’s love. Ro 5.5
• Nothing is meant to separate us from God’s love. Ro 8.35, 39
• Our love oughta be sincere, Ro 12.9 do no evil, Ro 13.10 and build people up. 1Co 8.1
• We should pursue love! 1Co 14.1

When we don’t possess love, we might perform some of the same acts which love does. It’s possible to act patiently, or pursue truth, even when there’s no love involved. But here’s the problem: When we act without love, we botch things. 1Co 13.1-3 We do ’em for corrupt, self-centered reasons. Like a criminal patiently waiting for his evil plans to unfold. Or a person researching the truth so she can use it as a weapon. Reducing love to a verb doesn’t take our motives into account, and our motives can be totally depraved. We need to possess love in order to act in love.

Lastly, God himself is love. 1Jn 4.8, 16 And God may be almighty, but he’s no verb.

Prayer instead of wisdom.

We see this happen all the time, but the current COVID-19 outbreak is just making it more obvious: We got Christians who ignore science, ignore all medical and professional and government advice, ignore commonsense… because they pray.

They have access to the Almighty, and he can stop every potential bad thing from happening to them. “No weapon formed against me shall prosper” and all that. This being the case, it’s okay if they ignore safety warnings. They got faith. You should have faith like they do.

Bluntly, no you shouldn’t. They’re fools, and that’s not faith. It’s wishful thinking.

Faith is based on a trustworthy person or thing, and Christian faith is of course based on Christ Jesus. Faith is based on evidence, He 11.1 and that evidence is God’s word, whether it comes from the scriptures, from God’s prophets, or from the stuff he tells us when we pray. (All of which oughta jibe with one another.) If it’s not based on any of those things—if it’s based on knowing God is almighty, yet he never said he’d use his almightiness and do stuff—y’got nothing. You might call it faith, and plenty of people will agree with that misrepresentation, but again: It’s wishful thinking.

Did the Holy Spirit say he was gonna defend us against this particular disease? Actually, specifically, personally tell us so? Or did we start with a preexisting desire, and now we’re just appropriating bible verses regardless of context in an attempt to defend ourselves?

TV preacher Kenneth Copeland cursing COVID-19. I know this disease is awful, but I still say there’s a lot more rage in this guy than we oughta see in fruitful Christians. Now This News

Are we actually following Jesus? Or are we hoping, with just the right combination of proof texts, maybe we can get Jesus to follow our lead? If we shout like an angry televangelist, and curse the disease in the LORD’s name, maybe we can obligate the LORD to follow our will, instead of praying we follow his.

I hope you see the difference. One path is wise, and uses prayer correctly. The other is stupid and presumptive.

And we got a lot of stupid Christians out there. The Holy Spirit told ’em nothing when it came to this outbreak. Not that he has nothing to say; they never asked! They just presume he makes them immune—hence all the “No weapon formed against me…” quotes—and continue through life incautious and oblivious. Like a child who never learned to not follow the candy-bearing stranger into the unmarked white van. (Which is why so many Christians are so quick to fall for ridiculous, unproven “remedies”… but that’s another rant.)

For those Christians who think prayer is an almighty substitute for wisdom, caution, planning, patience, study, or for using your brain in general: Obviously it’s not.

Prayer is not a magic cure.

Prayer is talking with God. That’s all. We talk to him; he talks back. We ask for stuff; he says yes or no or “Wait” or “Do this for me first” or “No, you do it.” He grounds us, teaches us, corrects us, and encourages us. It’s like any healthy conversation with the wisest being ever.

Conversely prayer is not a ritual we perform which grants us holiness, good karma, or magic powers—including the power to fight disease. If any power follows prayer, it’s the Holy Spirit who grants it, not prayer in and of itself. Praying doesn’t grant you immunity; the Holy Spirit does that. Praying doesn’t cure illness or banish evil spirits; the Holy Spirit does that. And that’s assuming the Holy Spirit wants to do that. If he hasn’t told you he’s doing that, it’d be stupid to presume.

But of course a lot of Christians are totally presuming. They want that; they can’t imagine why the Holy Spirit wouldn’t want it as well.

If they ever bothered to pray, it’s all been unidirectional. The Spirit told them nothing. (Or maybe he has, but they weren’t listening.) Nonetheless they got out in front of him, and are claiming immunity. They’re screaming “Begone, coronavirus!” like an enraged televangelist, as if the Holy Spirit empowered them to do this; again, without first consulting him. They have no evidence this’ll come to anything. Their “faith” is based on nothing.

Well, other than the belief they prayed, so that’s something.

But that’s karma-based thinking, and God’s kingdom runs on grace. God doesn’t grant us superpowers because we pray. God acts when we trust him to do the right thing, regardless of what we might think is “the right thing,” because frequently he’s got way better ideas than we do.

And until you know what God’s ideas are… it’s best to follow basic commonsense. Like washing your hands, standing 2 meters (or 6 feet) apart from other people, covering your nose and mouth, staying home as much as possible, and prioritizing the weak and the sick over wealth and materialism. And certainly over your favorite politicians’ political priorities.

Likewise any other ailment. If you cut your hand, do you wash out the wound, or do you ignore basic first aid and pray super hard that God’ll keep you from infection, and maybe miraculously make the cut disappear? It’s freakish that Christians will immediately resort to Neosporin and Band-Aids when it comes to small injuries, but when it‘s heart disease or cancer or something else just as life-endangering, they’ll actually postpone surgery or chemotherapy and claim prayer will fix ’em. Unless God definitively answers their requests with yes, no it won’t. And even if God does plan to supernaturally cure ’em, he may want us to go to hospital just so he can cure us right in front of the nurses and doctors, and give their faith (or doubts) a massive jolt. Don’t presume one way or another! Do the commonsense thing. And pray; never stop praying.

Likewise any other safety precaution. Put smoke and carbon monoxide detectors in your house! Wear your seat belts! Don’t dive into the shallow end of the pool! In general, use your head, and don’t figure prayer will make up for common stupidity. That’s not what it’s for. It’s to talk with God, and the fact Christians persist in common stupidity kinda reveals they aren’t really praying as much as they claim: If they had that much interaction with the wisest being in the universe, you’d think some of that wisdom woulda rubbed off by now.