I spend a good deal of time writing about how we ought to be united in love, faith and hope in the gospel so let me say something that might sound a little contrary.
The kind of unity we find in the gospel is not compatible with the popular definition of love as trust. Unity of this kind is still a self destructing unity in faith though by another name. This kind of behaviour is the kind that we discussed in Love is Meaningless which presses the individual into the shape of something familiar which still holds significant meaning for us.
If love reflects reality then it is primarily an action we take on other people; we see others as they really are and show them mercy and grace and invite them to see us as we are and accept mercy and grace from them—a truly vulnerable state. The deeper the love, the deeper the vision of who we truly are—this has been traditionally interpreted as trust and acceptance. But if you remember from Funnelled and Formed it is not love that shapes and forms us, but faith. When we unite in love as trust we identify with one another and subsequently put our faith in one another and begin to change ourselves to look, act and sound like one another—pressing one another into the mould of nice white Church folk.
This is the difficulty of preaching a message about love to people who think they are already loving one another. It is not love that causes us such pain but the contorted shape into which faith in anything other than God would have us bend. When we define love as trust we build a permission structure to bypass love for those we don’t trust. For this reason, those who would claim to have a fellowship of love are really in a fellowship of faith because love is seen as secondary to faith.
All fellowships of faith are unities of faith in one another and not God. This applies to Baptists, Presbyterians, Unitarians, JW’s, Mormons, you name it—their unity is in faith in one another. How we know this, is that if you have an opinion that veers off of the company line, you are out.
who writes writes about her Church experience of a lack of willingness to reconcile,“What we know now — the truth that caused us to uproot our family and move across the country — is that our community would not be willing to do the work of repair with us. After nearly 10 years together, those dear friends would choose to discard and forget about us in just a few months.”1
Imagine kicking your 10 year old out on the street because they were disobedient—while they beat at the windows of your house you put on a stiff upper lip and move on as if you didn’t give birth to them and feed them and comfort them and otherwise raise them up. But they defied you one too many times and that was the last straw. There is no other word for it than abuse. The LaPrades spent a decade in this church and in a few months they weren’t even brought to remembrance because they were no longer towing the company line.
As much as our message and music are about God and His Word—our true unity is in the flesh; in what it looks like for us to worship God. Unifying in faith brings us together only insomuch as we are exactly the same in the flesh. In this way we only love those who are becoming like us, and because of this Jesus says, we are no better than the unbelievers.
A lot to think about here! You write, “When we define love as trust we build a permission structure to bypass love for those we don’t trust.” — when I think of “trust,” I think “believe the other party is not deliberately trying to harm me” as well as “allow them to speak and act according to their own desires.”
Does the “trust” you’re describing here also include a desire for control and conformity?
Wow, yes. The “love” I see you describing here is really tribalism/codependence, which is definitely not Gospel love. It does give a sense of belonging, but always with the undercurrent of fear for those longing to be wholly accepted and known, bc something in them realizes the “box o’ belonging” isn’t big enough or true enough to ever let them fit into it.