1.
Halden observes about 1 Corinthians 13's characterization of love that
"Love Is F***ing Stupid". Kim Fabricius suggests a proper biblical-theological interpretation, namely: "Jesus is F***ing Stupid". As Paul might say, "For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men." (1 Cor 1:25, ESV).
Even those of us who have an impulse to joyfully and foolishly proclaim in response: Yes, Amen, "Love will kill you. ... Love will kill you by rendering you pathetic, naive, and stupid. To love according to this Scriptural definition will inevitably result in the crucifixion of any successful and attractive mode of existence. The love that the gospel invites us into is one that does nothing less than reduce us to nothing. The gospel makes us pathetic, lonely, manipulable, vulnerable, empty." -- There is also an impulse to emphasize that we do have (and should have!) boundaries. "The fact is that we all have limits that we’re not going to cross when it comes to loving others. There is some stuff that we just won’t bear. That’s how it is. If we try to deny this we are liars."
I embrace Halden's radical exposition of Christian love. At the same time, I find myself affirming Sharad's response:
"This post perfectly illustrates how incomprehensible the Bible is apart from some sort of theological context. 1 Corinthians isn’t a sonnet. It’s not Paul waxing abstract on the virtue of virtues. If it’s read that way it does result in an reprehensible co-dependence that only invites abuse.
The reason that love isn’t fucking stupid is because it isn’t characterized by the purposeless “for-it’s-own-sake” kind of idealism that is rightly lampooned by Nietzsche. Love is directed by an external reality called “the kingdom of God” in which human beings find out what they are for. Whatever human beings are for constrains and directs the love described in ch. 13. Paul thinks human beings are made for the enjoyment of God in Christ. That means that love isn’t passive - it’s patient and kind in the pursuit of that end. It bears all things to that end. Believing all things is a corollary to rejoicing in the truth - a refusal to distort the truth in pursuit of that end. It endures what must be endured to pursuing that end.
Jesus doesn’t embody the battered-wife-syndrome interpretation of this passage. He was, on several occasions, not nice. Jesus does, however, perfectly embody these characteristics if you see the kingdom of God as the telos which defines these descriptions.
Love, by this definition, refuses to forsake someone else because they’ve hurt us - instead we patiently hold the truth before them and offer the possibility of reconciliation if they choose to acknowledge it. We do endure their rage, frustration and denial in the process.
Anyone who’s had children who’ve done terrible things understand a type of love that doesn’t enable their behavior but continues to extend relationship and openness to reconciliation. It hurts like hell, and it’s f***ing beautiful."
There's certainly lots to generate controversial discussion here. And not controversy of a sort that can straightforwardly be sorted into two categories: "kingdom ethics" vs. "worldly wisdom".
...
2.
In a much older post, Halden discusses "romantic love" in the thought of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Life Together.
There are essentially two forms of communion that are possible, one is direct, immediate relationship with another person, resulting in a fusion between the self and the other. The second possibility is communion with the other through Christ, who stands between the self and the other as mediator, denying any possibility of immediacy, domination, or fusion of the self and the other.
”In the self-centered community there exists a profound, elemental emotional desire for community, for immediate contact with other human souls, just as in the flesh there is a yearning from immediate union with other flesh. This desire of the human soul seeks the complete intimate fusion of I and You, whether this occurs in the union of love or — what from this self-centered perspective is after all the same thing — in forcing the other into one’s own sphere of power and influence.”
This sort of dominating, possessive love is decried by Bonhoeffer as predatory on genuine Christian love and community. In the Christian community our communion with one another can never be an expression of the extension of ourself into the other, but rather of receiving the other as gift insofar as Christ sees fit to gift us with one another amidst the concreteness and difficulty of life under the Word of God.
”Because Christ stands between me and an other, I must not long for unmediated community with that person. As only Christ was able to speak to me in such a way that I was helped, so others too can only be helped by Christ alone. However, this means that I must release others from all my attempts to control, coerce, and dominate them with my love. In their freedom from me, other persons want to be loved for who they are, as those for whom Christ became a human being, died, and rose again, as those from whom Christ won the forgiveness of sins and prepared eternal life.”
Bonhoeffer goes on to argue as follows, “Self-centered love loves the other for the sake of itself; spiritual love loves the other for the sake of Christ. That is why self-centered love seeks direct contact with other persons. It loves them, not as free persons, but as those whom it binds to itself. It wants to do everything it can to win and conquer; it puts pressure on the other person. It desires to irresistible, to dominate. Self-centered love does not think much of truth. It makes the truth relative, since nothing, not even the truth, must come between it and the person loved. Emotional, self-centered love desires other persons, their company. It wants them to return its love, but it does not serve them. On the contrary, it continues to desire even when it seems to be serving.”
I find myself reflecting mostly on this last paragraph. My thoughts: "When truth threatens the status quo of a romantic relationship, how might the servant-love of Christ differ in its response from that of self-centered love? What happens when a motive to serve conflicts with a motive to desire to be loved? As Halden says: "The line between Carrie Bradshaw [self-centered love] and Dietrich Bonhoeffer [servant love] runs through each one of our hearts"."
Which is more important to serve, to keep alive and healthy? -- A union or relationship for its own sake, or the people in that relationship? A friend opined to me recently (in the context of our discussing Christian marriage) that it is the job of the Christian community to love and support the two persons, in whatever way is healthiest for them -- it is not the job of the Christian community to keep the two people together (in marriage) "no matter what". [I am paraphrasing of course.]
Consider cases of domestic abuse, for example. It has occurred far too often (some at all is too often) that a church community has used a "sanctity of marriage" and/or "God hates divorce" argument to exert pressure from without to keep a marriage together when it is really not healthy (for either party) for it to be kept together.
Marriage is a covenant between two people. We talk about "union", but the analogy here is to the covenant between God and God's People. In Christianity as I understand it (even in strong versions of theosis, I think) God and the Church remain ontologically distinct. Sure, I like to think of our community with God through Christ as an extension of the inter-penetrating love of the members of the Trinity. But the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one Being (hence, all equally divine) in a way that the Church is not one with God, and never will be.
So marriage does not create a new fundamental entity of which the two partners are ontologically secondary components. Rather the partners, as individuals, are ontologically primary, but they are members of a dyadic community, and in *that* sense they become one. They should be treated, and treat each other, accordingly. As Bonhoeffer suggests: "immediacy, domination, or fusion of the self and the other" is *not* the goal of Christian marriage. (Which should have ramifications for how we understand "the husband is the head of the wife", IMO).
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"Make me a channel of Your Peace."
-St. Francis
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