because we love the brethren.”—1 John 3:14
Thus far in our discussion we have considered the nature of love, the development of the needs of the individual, and the objectives of love in calling persons into being. Now we turn to a discussion of the lover, or of the person or persons who are the instruments of that love, such as parents, teachers, ministers, and every man of whatever function. We shall also consider the nature of the relationship in which healing and reconciliation take place, and consider some of its resources.
The Power of the Personal
The doctrine of the Incarnation, which underlies the whole Christian life, is really the doctrine of the personalization of love. By it is meant the embodiment in man of the life of God Who is love. The Incarnation makes this life personal, and persons, therefore, are of primary importance to its existence and its meaning. In each generation the Christian is called upon to reaffirm his faith in the power of persons living in relation to God and man.
Our own generation has a special need for a reaffirmation of the personal because of our preoccupation with science and technology, and with vast space and enormous power. One wonders, and hears others wondering, what good is a person in the face of all these masses, spaces, and complexities. But it was revealed in Christ, and every now and then it is revealed to us afresh, that the whole vast structure of life is dependent upon the power of83 persons and upon our exercise of the power of the personal. The character of man, expressed in his relations with his fellow man, will finally determine whether we will use our vast powers creatively or for our destruction.
The primary vocation of the Christian in this time is to respond to the call of the person to be personal. The church members with whose conversation we began this book, seemed oblivious to the personal nature of the church’s purpose. They were concerned about substitutes for the personal, about institutions and professional groups, about a legalistic morality, and about knowledge for its own sake. Any one of their concerns, if caught up in the vitality of the personal, could have valuable meaning. Law, as we have seen, has its role, if it is a part of love. Human effort is important as personal response to what God has done for us. Dependence upon the clergy is a part of the life of the church, but the work of the clergy, as we have seen, cannot be a substitute for the ministry of the whole church. The church is important, but it does not find its meaning in its isolation from the world. And knowledge about God, His creation, and redemption is necessary to the Christian life, but such knowledge must find its meaning in our living relation with God.
The recent emphasis on the interpersonal and group process has contributed much to our understandings of the human relationships of Christian fellowship. As a result of the emphasis, a new polarity operates in the life and teaching of the church: one pole is the content of the Good News; the other pole is the encounter between men in which the Good News is realized. Unfortunately, the image of the relationship between the encounter and the content of the Christian faith has been and still is that of opponents in a battle. This concept is erroneous, for any dialogue must have content. The conversation between two people that is not informed by learning produces nonsense. Discussion groups have revealed their poverty when they have not been informed by responsible knowledge; fellowship for the sake of fellowship becomes tiresome; and relationship without good84 discipline, whether in the home or elsewhere, becomes chaos and anarchy. So, there are some disciplines that we need to observe as persons in whom the Spirit of God seeks to incarnate His love.
We Need Informed Christians
First, if we are to embody and express the love of Christ in our generation, we must keep our minds alert and our interests alive. At this point, church people fail in several ways. Instead of having minds that search for the meaning of life in Christian terms, they sometimes have minds filled with musty opinions and prejudices. An otherwise alert lawyer, for example, said that he did not want his church to take a stand on any of the great social issues, but stick to its subject, namely, religion. This preoccupation with the subject matter of religion apart from its relevance to life is a characteristic failure of many church people.
As Christian churchmen, we do not need to be scholars in religion, but we should be interested in the issues of life, open to new understandings, and engaged in some kind of reading or study that will keep us informed and intellectually awake. Only in this way can we keep ourselves from falling into narrow little ruts and pulling the world in after us. A part of our ministry is to participate in and help to keep alive the dialogue between man and man, between the church and the world, between Christian thought and the problems of existence. Emotional and opinionated thinking about religion, values, and social issues is appallingly prevalent among “religious” people. The conversations of church members often are pitiful in their concern for the trivial affairs of the local church and institution, about its building and organizations, its suppers and bazaars. What a pathetic and inconsequential way of serving Christ! He needs, instead, men and women who are out on the frontiers of modern life, representing His message to the world.