Newsletter:
Vol. 3. Iss. 1
25 October 2001
What does Love Require Us Now?
Dr. Thomas Jay Oord
The recent American tragedies compel people to wonder what love currently demands. Americans, like many others in our world, believe strongly in the power of love. But also like others, Americans often do not know how to put love into action. There are at least two simplistic traps that must be avoided.
We must avoid, at one extreme, thinking that love requires that we be permissive and lenient. We must not think that Americans and the world-community ought simply to ignore these horrendous attacks in the name of love. The command Jesus gave to "turn the other cheek" should not be interpreted as requiring the global village to smile, sit idle, and wait for another onslaught.
In rejecting the idea that love is equivalent to permissiveness, we must not think that love, at the other extreme, requires us to be "tough." A new bumper sticker depicts this extreme when it advocates "Kick-Butt Love" in red, white, and blue. This extreme entails that Americans retaliate by making the offenders and their compatriots experience the same kinds of pains inflicted on their victims ("let's teach them a lesson!"). This will supposedly make our enemies behave better. Tough love gone awry simplistically equates love with justice and justice with revenge.
When love collapses into either permissiveness or toughness couched as revenge, it fails to garner the prominence it deserves following the occurrence of horrendous evils. A more adequate approach identifies love as action that attempts to attain the highest degree of overall well-being possible given the conceivable circumstances. In short, love has the common good in mind.
When attempting to secure the greater overall well-being, love requires that we respond wisely, thereby avoiding simplistic extremes. Wise decisions are possible after information about the various relevant factors has been accumulated. In our present case, love requires, among other things, learning about crimes and victims, criminals and their reasons, the innocent and the guilty, the tragedy's perpetrators and their enablers, the military, social, political, economic, and religious realities of those involved both at home and abroad.
When assessing what love requires, we must account for what should be done to prevent future tragedies. Love requires us to consider not only those currently alive, we also must consider the well-being of those who will live in the near and distant future, both in this country and elsewhere.
When deciding what love requires, we must admit that it is impossible for us, as finite creatures, to assess all relevant factors in each situation. It is also impossible for we humans to be completely accurate when assessing even those situations of which we are most fully aware.
Despite these impossibilities, it would also be irresponsible to fail to account for as many factors as we can, in a reasonable amount of time, before deciding what our responses should be. We should not equate knee-jerk reactions with love. More often than not, knee-jerk reactions only trigger further evils that could have been avoided with a bit more thought.
Lovers are not justified in being violent for violence's sake. Love now requires us, as it always has, to act for the good of the whole. The best in our religious traditions and the best in our scientific endeavors can help us determine these requirements. I am confident that God, who loves perfectly and assesses flawlessly, will inspire us to love in these demanding days. I pray that we respond appropriately to these inspirations.
