The Trouble With Christian Love

If you’ve followed my blog before, you know I tell it like it is. And in the spirit of that, I’m going to lay down a hard truth:

Christians are some of the worst hypocrites of all.

Too many of them claim to love God but act as if He doesn’t exist. Their lifestyles are greedy, promiscuous, and adulterous. They divorce as often as non-Christians do. They habitually and shamelessly sleep around, get pregnant, and have abortions to try to undo their mistakes. They know what the Bible says about homosexuality, and they practice it, anyway (and as a man who has unwanted same-sex desires and has seen how monstrous they are, I am ashamed and furious at my generation’s blithe acceptance of the gay lifestyle).

They say they love God, but they deny Him by the things they cherish. They want what the world wants: fame, money, power and status. They’re arrogant, conceited, egotistical, narcissistic and self-absorbed, and they will trample on people to get what they want (I’m looking at you, Jesse Morrell and Mario Brisson). Like the RINOs we have in America—Republicans who claim to be conservative and Constitutional but vote and legislate like liberal Democrats—the Christian world has CHINOs: Christians in name only. These people claim to love Jesus but disobey Him to His face, preaching Christian clichés in public while acting like the rest of the world in private.

But there’s a subtler, more insidious danger than blatant hypocrisy and superficial professions of faith—and that danger is Christianity.

Think about it: Christians are commanded to love God and love others—Matthew 22 couldn’t be any clearer—but if they’re loving others just because the Bible says so, there’s no heartfelt affection nor genuine concern for others’ well-being. If a Bible verse is the main reason they show any consideration for God or humanity, that love isn’t really love—it’s just compliance. They have no interest in others’ joys nor concern about others’ distress; their love is an obligation, a heartless duty, and there’s no heart nor humanity about it.

Fortunately, there’s an antidote to hypocritical or compliant love, and it’s not Christian love. It’s real love. We are creatures made in the image of God—creatures who are so precious to Jesus, He went to the Cross for them. Each and every human being is someone special, and our lives are of inestimable worth; no one matters more or less than anyone else, and worldly achievements and worldly status will never dilute or concentrate our royal blood. If we don’t take these ideas seriously and let them change our hearts, every gesture of love will be empty and meaningless, and our lives will be full of hypocrisy or bullying or insincerity.

If you’re a Christian and you make it a practice of sleeping around, or getting drunk, or bullying others with the Bible, you have no business calling yourself a Christian. You are unworthy of that label, and you’re giving a bad name those who are worthy. And if you’re one of those people who love others because you’re taking orders, knock it off. You’re as transparent as a pane of glass, and your love is as fake as a wooden nickel. Instead of disobeying your own Bible or blindly following orders, do something better for your sake and the sake of everyone around you:

Be real.

In Defense of Edmund Pevensie

After finding Tumnus’s grotto in shambles, the children look for someone to rescue him. Instead of finding a hero, they find a robin leading them on, and Edmund seizes an opportunity to plant seeds of doubt in everyone else’s heads.

“Have you realized what we’re doing?”

“What?” said Peter, lowering his voice to a whisper.

“We’re following a [robin] we know nothing about. How do we know which side that bird is on?”

“That’s a nasty idea. Still—a robin, you know. They’re good birds in all the stories I’ve ever read. I’m sure a robin wouldn’t be on the wrong side.”

“If it comes to that, which is the right side? How do we know that the fauns are in the right and the Queen . . . is in the wrong? We don’t really know anything about either.”

“The Faun saved Lucy.”

“He said he did. But how do we know?”

A little backstory here. When he first came to Narnia, he fell in with the White Witch and agreed to lure his siblings to her house so that he could rule over them and stuff his face with Turkish Delight, and even though he’s realizing what the Witch is about, he wants to lure his siblings to her house, anyway.

Obviously, he’s the bad guy here, but you have to admit he’s making valid points. For one, no one knows what Narnians are good or bad, or what “good” and “bad” are like in this new world. For another, Peter’s logic is grossly flawed; just because robins are good in other stories doesn’t mean they’re good in this one.

But because Edmund is still the bad guy, we can’t trust anything he says (until the other Chronicles, at least). Thus, a lot of people will associate skepticism with his bad behavior. When faced with a Christian claim, they might think, “I’d better not ask, How do you know? I just need to believe whatever Christians say.”

If C.S. Lewis heard you say that, he would probably agree with you. As he said in The Abolition of Man, education doesn’t necessarily enlighten or humble people, but can justify bad behavior.

Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil.

But Lewis never seemed to talk about another danger: combining education with unquestioned belief. Even if you learn the ins and outs of science, history, literature, and philosophy, and be as reasonable as the dickens, you could still be badly wrong. Plus, if you make a special case for your beliefs and hold them above scrutiny, you won’t be smarter or more pious—you’ll just be a zealot, and you’ll prove that the unexamined faith is not worth believing.

Unfortunately, Lewis doesn’t seem to agree. Take this scene from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, where Ramandu’s daughter has just laid out a feast and Edmund wonders if he’s being lured into a trap.

“[W]e have had a lot of queer adventures on this voyage of ours and things aren’t always what they seem. When I look in your face I can’t help believing all you say: but then that’s just what might happen with a witch too. How are we to know you’re a friend?”

“You can’t know,” said the girl. “You can only believe—or not.”

Did you catch that? Edmund is not only being rational and logical; he’s being wise. He’s learned from his past mistakes, and he’s trying to avoid another trap.

But what does the girl do? Nothing.

And what does Aslan do to help ease Edmund’s doubt? Nothing.

Instead, they let Reepicheep put his ass on the line for Edmund. No, seriously, he’s willing to risk a horrific death by poisoning at the hands of a stranger, and no one’s stopping him.

“Sire,” he said to Caspian, “of your courtesy fill my cup with wine from that flagon: it is too big for me to lift. I will drink to the lady.”

Folks, I know the word “skepticism” probably makes you think of agnostics, atheists, and God-haters. I get it. But skepticism is a good thing. It allows us to challenge questionable ideas and place faith in good ideas. Without a reasonable doubt, we’d believe whatever we hear, and we wouldn’t be curious enough to push past the boundaries of our understanding.

More importantly, skepticism is a Biblical virtue.

Only simpletons believe everything they’re told! The prudent carefully consider their steps.

Proverbs 14:15

Test everything that is said. Hold on to what is good.

1 Thessalonians 5:21, the motto of this blog

Dear friends, do not believe everyone who claims to speak by the Spirit. You must test them to see if the spirit they have comes from God. For there are many false prophets in the world. This is how we know if they have the Spirit of God: If a person claiming to be a prophet acknowledges that Jesus Christ came in a real body, that person has the Spirit of God. But if someone claims to be a prophet and does not acknowledge the truth about Jesus, that person is not from God. Such a person has the spirit of the Antichrist, which you heard is coming into the world and indeed is already here.

1 John 4:1–3

But when authors like Lewis make a bad character act skeptically, they’re compelling the audience to associate skepticism with evil and malevolence, and they’re encouraging blind faith and thoughtless obedience.

Fortunately, many people will read between the lines and realize Lewis is propagandizing, and most will treat Narnia as the fairy tale it is. Unfortunately, many won’t. Many will take it seriously, and they will think the words “How do you know?” are a sin or a temptation from Satan.

But that’s why I started this blog six years ago, and that’s why I’m resuming it now. By pointing out these glaring errors in Lewis’s theology, I might be able to raise awareness of them and help people enjoy Narnia more cautiously.

And if that makes me an Edmund Pevensie in your estimation?

I’ll take that as a compliment, thank you.