“…the will to give ourselves to others and “welcome” them, to readjust our identities to make space for them, is prior to any judgment about others, except that of identifying them in their humanity. The will to embrace precedes any “truth” about others and any construction of their “justice.” This will is absolutely indiscriminate and strictly immutable; it transcends the moral mapping of the social world into “good” and “evil.””

The above quote comes from influential theologian Miroslav Volf. The quote comes to me via this podcast at Jesus Radicals featuring one of my favs, Richard Beck. Beck quotes Volf during a discussion about Christian hospitality and his new book. I thought it was quite beautiful and brilliant.

Essentially what Volf is articulating in the quote above is that the first impulse for any follower of Jesus should be to love other people; love them and accept them. This is important because it gets to the heart of what I feel is a huge problem for many people, Christians in particular. The first impulse for many Christians is not to embrace but to sort people into saints and sinners; in groups and out groups. Beck goes on to say that if sorting people into categories becomes the primary move, it naturally follows that you will begin to objectify, stereotype and dehumanize people, leading to the worst outcome imaginable.

Beck is making a hugely important point here. He’s not saying that we can’t or shouldn’t disagree on certain subjective internal norms and such. What he is saying is that at the end of the day you still need to love each other.

In the interview Beck gives a good example of this. Periodically he would ask his class if they think it is possible to “love the sinner but hate the sin.” About 80% would raise their hands indicating that they think it is possible to make a clean separation between the person and the persons behaviors. However after further inquiry it is revealed that most of these people whom the students love but disagree with are either family or friends. In other words, people who were already part of their “in groups.”

I completely agree with Beck that this is diagnostic. The problem which is brought to the surface by this is that our “in groups” (friends, family etc.) tend to be pretty small groups. Consequently, people begin to see other groups as being defined by their sin category (gays, conservatives, liberals etc…), which unfortunately allows for a completely different experience then if you had a gay brother for instance, who presumably you love at the end of the day because, well…he’s family.

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Photo above by Eric Cahan

Tags:familyHospitalityJesusJesus RadicalsloveRichard Becksin