In a recent Atlantic* this indictment of Christians in America was made:

“Jesus taught Christians to ‘love thy neighbor.’ According to researchers at Cornell University, however, the more religious the American the less likely he is to love (or at least trust) his Muslim neighbors.”

The article goes on to say that Christians who describe themselves as “very religious” are three times as likely as the “not very religious” to favor monitoring of mosques, registration of Muslims, and the infiltration of Muslim volunteer organizations. “Very religious” Christians, by a large majority (65%) believed that Islam is the religion most likely to encourage violence.

These statistics are interesting, but not very informative. Without knowing what criteria determines whether a person is “very religious,” or even “Christian,” the results of the survey make better sound bite than science. That’s okay, I guess. One expects a little more clarity from a publication like the Atlantic, but we are so used to numbers, like words, being used so fluidly as to empty them of meaning that such reporting doesn’t even produce a double-take. We’ve learned to ingest the news with a grain of salt.

What I refuse to swallow, though, is the snotty, “gotcha” attitude the writer takes in the very first sentence, quoted above. The unnamed reporter gleefully indicts American evangelicals for the hypocrisy of preaching Jesus, and living hate. Admittedly, there are times when this is accurate. Many Christians I would describe as “very religious” happily sung (or at least hummed) along with Toby Keith, in the song “ Courtesy of the Red White and Blue,” when he told the terrorists where he would put his boot. Responding to that line by Toby Keith I heard one anti-war talking head say to the Christian talking head who was pro-war, “WWJD? Where would Jesus put his boot?” Fair enough. But this accusation is unfair.

It is unfair because it equates love with trust. Love and trust are not the same thing – as every parent of a teen-ager knows. If you had perfect trust in someone, loving them would be easy. Love is not easy. Love transcends trust, exists in spite of its absence.

Joseph loved his brothers, was happy to see them even after they had sold him into slavery. He forgave them, and took care of them. He did NOT, however, trust them with the welfare of his baby brother Benjamin. Why is it that Matthew, who was by training an accountant, NOT given the keeping of the purse? If you are a struggling alcoholic, is it proof of my love to give you a $50 bill and drop you off at a tavern? Is it hatred to insist a pedophile stay away from children?

Jesus-quality love, as defined in the New Testament, has two characteristics: it sacrifices and it serves. This is how Paul describes Jesus’ love for the Church in Ephesians 5.25ff, how John describes it in John 3.16ff, and I John 4.7ff, and how love continues to be described on every page of the New Testament. Perhaps the most succinct statement of Jesus-love is found in I John 3.16-17:

This is how we know what love is, that He laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him?

Trust certainly makes this easier, but it doesn’t make it possible - and who said love was easy?

- * “Suspicious Minds,” in Atlantic, April 2005, p.44.