The subject of Christians and their attitudes towards homosexuals or any number of ‘sins’ is often a subject of letters to the editor.

These letters most often accuse Christians of being unloving towards these people and judgmental (which essentially means unloving). It is letters like these I want to address.

There is one thing that both groups of people (Christians and their opponents in the Daily) generally agree on: The teachings of Jesus on love are something that we should follow and should be the norm.

Both groups also believe that they are loving. No Christians I know say that homosexuality is wrong solely because they cannot love people who are homosexuals.

They believe that their love demands them to have eternity in view always, which forces them to say that people who practice homosexuality, or any other sin for that matter, without repenting and asking God for forgiveness are going to be judged to hell.

This definition of love is reached by taking every part of the Bible and finding a harmony.

There are many passages in the Bible that command Christians to love each other.

There are passages that say to forgive people.

But alongside those passages are ones that deal with an eternal judgement of groups of people who live their lives in rebellion against God.

Christians start with a pre-supposition that the Bible is true and have to include every word in their views.

This is where other groups of people have their disagreement with Christians. They disagree with this definition of love. They believe love to be something that accepts all people.

This acceptance involves not judging them for anything they do.

Thus, telling people that they could possibly end up in hell is not loving and is therefore wrong.

This definition of love is also often said to be based on biblical teachings.

As James O’Donnell wrote in Monday’s paper, “it can safely be said that the overarching themes of the New Testament are love, forgiveness and compassion.” Thus, the Bible can best be understood by these themes, and these are the only things that he will pay attention to.

Other people say that the Gospel writers distorted the teachings of Jesus in recounting His life, adding in their own agenda of eternal judgement.

Only the pure religion of Jesus, the love for other people, should be used in defining what love is.

I’m sure that there are other opinions, but these are a couple that I have seen.

This is where my frustration comes in. This second view of love is often taken for granted as THE definition of love.

This may be true. It is possible that Christians are wrong in their definition of love, but only if the authority which it is based on (the Bible) is proven to be false. The same is also true for the opponents of Christians. Non-judgmental love could also be wrong, but only if the authority which it is based on is proven to be false.

As said above, this authority is often said to be the Bible. However, I think this is a half-truth. To say that the New Testament does not teach judgement is to disregard large portions of the Bible. To disregard a large portion of the Bible, there must be something that is truer than the Bible. There must be a higher authority, and oftentimes this is experience.

I do not want to debate the validity of experience as an ultimate authority, or any other, for that matter. It is unreasonable to assume the definition of love everybody agrees on is of acceptance and not judgement. This view of love is based on presuppositions just as much as a Christian’s definition of love. The issue is whose presuppositions are right.

I think that good discussion of the matter can only come about when we talk about the ultimate authority before the application of that authority. I am a Christian who believes that the whole Bible is to be taken seriously, every word.

This leads me to believe that loving people includes caring for them, looking out for their needs and being loving while not tolerating certain sins that the Bible condemns.

If I am shown that this view of the Bible is wrong or that my interpretation is completely wrong, I will have to come to a different conclusion about my definition of love.

Unsupported statements of what love is and how I, as a Christian, am not loving will do nothing for the cause.

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Dan Conner

Senior

Management information systems