Francis Berger
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Loving Thy Neighbor Is Vital to Christianity, When Properly Interpreted and Applied

7/14/2020

6 Comments

 
Though atheists and non-Christians are faintly familiar with the instruction to love thy neighbor, they are unlikely, unable, or unwilling to ascribe the message to Jesus. Instead, they are more apt to classify showing love for neighbors within the nebulous category known as 'being nice.' This immediately raises a question: Is there any inherent difference between love for the neighbor and being nice? Of course there is!

To begin with, loving one's neighbor is preceded by loving God, a crucial point even self-professed Christians tend to neglect or forget. Put another way, true love for one's neighbour can only manifest if it is preceded by supported by love for God. Loving God first serves to concretize love for the neighbor and elevates it above murky, abstract notions of love. In addition, loving God first personalizes love of the neighbor, lifting it to the level of tangible relationship and interaction - of beings aiding and helping other beings.

In this sense, loving one's neighbor enters the realm of authentic compassion; the sort of authentic compassion that motivates an individual to help someone in need, all without the calculated expectation of receiving any sort of compensation or advantage in return. At the same time, practicing love of the neighbor does increase the likelihood of reciprocity - that the individual who helped his neighbor might one day receive aid from the neighbor when needed; however, true love of the neighbor should not be motivated by such expected stipulations. On the contrary, any love of the neighbor that expects the precondition of 'repayment' cannot be considered true neighborly love.

This is where loving God first and faith come into play. If an individual loves God first, he or she will have demonstrated this love through the love he or she has given to the neighbor; will understand that this in itself is enough; and will also sustain the faith that God will arrange things in such a way that aid will be extended to the individual when required. 

I could elaborate on these ideas for pages, but the purpose of this post is not to dissect the various complexities of neighborly love, but rather to share my experience with it over the past week. Last Wednesday I entered the hospital to undergo a same day operation on my foot. Knowing I would not be able to drive home after the procedure, I had planned to take the bus to hospital and enlist the services of a taxi for the ride home. One of my neighbors somehow got wind of this and immediately insisted on taking me to and from the hospital by car. A few days later, another neighbor offered to drive me anywhere I needed to go until my foot healed. Another neighbor has helped my family by taking my wife grocery shopping. Yet another neighbor - a nurse by vocation - appeared unannounced and offered to change my bandages and provide any other assistance I might require. 

Needless to say, I have found the outpouring of neighborly love I have received over the past week more than a little overwhelming. Much of this stems from my predilection towards independence and self-sufficiency. I generally like to care of things myself and am reluctant to 'burden' anyone with my own personal problems and troubles.  At the same time, I have learned that it is both unwise and impious to refuse the offer of neighborly love when it is extended. Yes, impious. Impious in the sense that all adamant and unqualified refusals of neighborly love interfere with what I would describe as a divine process. Much has been said about the proper provision of neighborly love, but the proper acceptance or acknowledgement of neighborly love has often been overlooked. 

My experiences over the past week have brought me much comfort and has deepened my faith in both people and God. At first I was tempted to wholly attribute the generous aid my neighbors have provided to the simple fact that I live in a small, rural settlement, but I can sense there is far more to it than that. Some of the neighbors who have helped me are friends - people I know and have helped myself in the past. Though I did not expect them to help me, their offers of aid did not surprise me when they came. On the other hand, some of the neighborly love I have received has come from people who are more or less strangers to me, and I cannot attribute their offers to assist me to anything but to the love of God. 

Unsurprisingly, my experiences over the past week have inspired a great deal of  thinking about what love of the neighbor implies. This post has not done much justice to the bulk of that thinking, but it will provide the vehicle through which I wish to express the following observation: Love thy neighbor is vital to Christianity. Nevertheless, love thy neighbor can only be vital to Christianity if it is properly interpreted and properly understood.

As is the case with so much of what appears in the Synoptic Gospels, the command to love thy neighbor has been thoroughly inverted and misapplied by the forces of leftism who have convinced many well-meaning Christians that loving thy neighbor entails a blanket, indiscriminate, abstract sort of love passively leveled at anyone and everyone, preferably through the channel of some bureaucratic system. This interpretation appeals to many because of its apparent indiscriminateness and unconditionality. But this indiscriminateness and unconditionality is, in fact, highly discriminatory and conditional, for it can only 'exist' by taking the love of God out of the equation. Without the love of God, this abstract love of the neighbor achieves the opposite of what it claims to do because it is built on a foundation of anti-love instead of genuine love. 

Destroying love of neighbor that is based first on love of God appears to be one the goals of the anti-society that is currently being constructed, driven primarily through the vehicles of the recent (and in some cases, still active) social distancing and lockdown measures imposed by the birdemic crisis. Social distancing and lockdowns not only drive a wedge between neighbors - both proximal and motivational - but also invert the command to love God first by invoking fear and base survival instincts. More than that, SD and LD serve to undermine and reinterpret the vitality and necessity and neighborly love by claiming that remaining 'sheltered in place', 'avoiding others', and relying on official, bureaucratic channels to be the sole source of neighborly love are in themselves 'best practices' when it comes to loving thy neighbor and doing what is best for 'the common good'. I offer an example of this kind of rationalization below, taken from this site, issued about two months ago when the birdemic was cresting in many places: 

While it makes sense for all citizens to follow the reasonable restrictions that have been imposed to contain the virus, for Christians doing so is also a matter of faith, charity and justice. After all, these are some of the stars we steer by: 
  1. "Am I my brother’s keeper?” Yes, we are responsible for others. In justice, as well as charity, we have no right recklessly to endanger others, or to cause their death. 
  2. “Thou shalt not kill.” 
  3. “Love your neighbour as yourself.”  

I appreciate the allusion to celestial navigation in the above because it contains a truth - we all need stars to steer by, but we must ensure our navigational instruments are properly calibrated. We must also ensure we are using the right stars in the right way. Miscalculations and misinterpretation will cause us to go off course or, worse, run aground, especially when it comes to loving our neighbors.  
6 Comments
Ingemar
7/14/2020 22:41:03

Great post, Francis.

I've been wavering between cutting off my entire family for falling for this scam or trying to plead with them to see the light. Two weeks ago, I wrote a tirade directed against the VirusWorshippers and tagged specifically a very leftist cousin who was proud of the fact that she is a journalist in DC. She was of course very upset but also wanted to "hear my voice"; I think the fact that it came to a surprise that a blood relation would have such acrimony.

Looking back, I realize what I did was wrong, but at the same time, I don't see that it is possible, or that there is a point, to trying to mend things. I did leave the door open for having a conversation, but when she showed no interest in trying to understand things the way that I do, I lost interest.

My mother, bless her, said that I shouldn't let politics "destroy" this family. In my own defense, "I" didn't "destroy" this family; members simply went their own way. Yet in the name of unity, I can't pretend black is white, up is down, and left is right. I'll accept that we are family on the basis of simple blood relations, but I can't let that fact nullify my own convictions.

I am suddenly reminded of Michael Corleone from The Godfather.

I am also reminded that Jesus told His disciples that brother will be against brother, father against son, daughter against mother, etc. because of Him. I'm living that right now. My faith is the most important thing to me but I feel like I can't talk about it at all... or at least gagged for the sake of keeping the peace. Some days I just wish that they'll just arrest me already so that I don't have to put up with VirusFarce any longer.

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Francis Berger
7/15/2020 12:48:46

@ Ingemar - As you well know, Bruce Charlton has often referred to the idea of "things coming to a point", which he drew from C.S. Lewis. When things come to a point, the gray area between good and evil shrinks and disappears. Two distinct sides become glaringly visible. When this happens, as has happened now, people must make a conscious choice. Which side am I on? Many people make the wrong choice. Unfortunately, this divide cuts through families as well.

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Epimetheus
7/15/2020 00:07:08

Leftists want open borders because they want open boundaries. People with strong psychological boundaries cannot be exploited by psychopaths. Likewise, people with strong spiritual boundaries cannot be exploited by demons. Modern Leftism is all about training people not to defend themselves against evil.

Interesting that neighborly love is all about loving the actual living, breathing people close to you. Like you say, it's personal, not abstract, and it doesn't permit all the random rapaciousness the modern world is designed to maximize.

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Francis Berger
7/15/2020 12:50:58

@ Epimetheus - "Modern Leftism is all about training people not to defend themselves against evil."

I like this point very much. Of course, I am very much aware of this, but I like the way you phrased it here. It served as a good, no-nonsense reminder. I believe I'll address this in a future post.

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Michelle
7/15/2020 03:53:17

GREAT post. Thank you for it. I, too, consider myself to be self sufficient and any offers of help I may receive i used to give a cordial "thanks for the offer but I think I am good" even though I may have needed help. I've been opening myself up more often to receiving help when offered, because not only because it is humbling, but because it also gives the other person the opportunity to express love for his neighbor. That is community and goodness.
With respect to the SD and also the masking of humanity- this is for me the most infuriating part to the birdemic response. The conditioning of humans to look at other humans as possible killers, the stay away from each other, to not be affectionate, to hide your face- these are behaviors that lead people to view others as enemies. In my letter to my priest telling him we will not be returning to mass, I said in part that masking and distancing the congregation is dehumanizing. This is the opposite of love and contrary to God's will.
Further, the saddest and most evil-filled day I think I ever have experienced was the social distancing-mask wearing- no hugging- no consoling graveside funeral for my grandmother in law. My mother in law was sobbing as her mother was put in the ground, and none of us could hug her, kiss her, or treat her as anything other than a potential biohazard. I could not even properly pray in that moment because I was so filled with anger and sadness with what I was witnessing. A complete collapse of what little genuine humanity and love we seem to have left.
People NEED to feel like they help others but the execution is lazy and misguided. Enter governments and nonprofits. By delegating the charity and need to help to those organizations, they end up helping no one, but are able to pat themselves on the back because they helped. Gee, it feels so good to give money to (enter evil nonprofit name here). I helped.
Back to the acceptance of help- I almost always ask people that I see need help or family or friends that need help if I can help them. And almost always I am met with a "thanks, I'm ok". We all need to offer - and accept- help. In doing so both parties are fulfilling the mandate to love our neighbor. On the occasions when i am able to help someone, whether it be my time, my money, or just my words or prayers, I tell that person that it is my privilege to do so and thank them. Because that's what we as humans are supposed to do. Love each other.

Reply
Francis Berger
7/15/2020 13:08:35

@ Michelle - Thanks for the comment.

As you are aware, quarantine measures and other social restrictions have occurred many times throughout history, but the degree to which our current restrictions have been imposed - on the flimsiest of science, on failed predictive models, on healthy people, for a virus that is only slightly more severe than an average flu - is unprecedented.

Masking infuriates me to no end. Most people understand that it is a useless preventative measure, that it does little to protect the wearer or the general public from anything; yet most people feel powerless to resist the pressure to wear one.

I believe the lockdowns are being used primarily to cripple the economy in an effort to hide the recession that had begun well before the birdemic crisis broke. It will also serve as a smokescreen for the coming financial meltdown that should have happened back in 2008/09 (but at this rate it might not happen at all and they might just be able to print their way out of anything). Regardless, I hold these to be the primary objectives of LD and SD. Having said that, it is difficult to ignore the demonic humiliation staining it all. The deliberate destruction of human society, primarily at the small scale level. It's as if they wish to create conditions in which love of the neighbor becomes impossible (unless of course it is their version of loving thy neighbor, which entails making yourself vulnerable to mostly hostile foreigners in the name of human kindness, or eternal guilt-induced self-flagellation based on skin color. That sort of 'neighborly love' is officially encouraged and endorsed. But helping your actual proximal neighbor or compatriot do the shopping? What are you? Some kind of careless, homicidal maniac?

I am curious to see how people will respond to a full-fledged second wave lockdown should it come.

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