The Logic of Love

What makes the universe run?  What makes Mother Nature tick?  What governs interactions between people everyday?  What makes YOU tick?  What governs the way YOU interact with people everyday?  These questions are what Brian McLaren explores in the third chapter of "We Make the Road By Walking."

The first two chapters focused largely on the building of creation itself and our place in it as human beings.  Now however, McLaren invites us to take a step back and ask: "What does it all mean?"  He suggests that most of us live our day to day lives wrapped up in one of four logics.  These logics govern the way we treat ourselves, each other, and the world around us.

The first logic is the logic of rivalry. In this logic, the universe and our world are a large battleground where we fight against each other and compete against one another constantly trying to gain the upper hand.  I thought about it as a large, anything goes game of football where the only rule is: do whatever you want as long as you get the ball, score, and get ahead.  In the logic of rivalry, cheating and deceiving are largely ok--it's the spirit of competition.  The more ruthless you are, the more you get.  The more generous and kind you are, the more you get taken advantage of and tossed to the side, or worse.

Next is the logic of compliance.  In this logic, the universe is ruled like a big, powerful corporation, and we as humans strive to learn the rules and do our jobs, to stay in our place.  This logic encourages us to bow to power and riches.  This logic doesn't reward honesty or honest work, it rewards those who stay in their place, do their job, and don't ask questions.  Of course, trying to gain influence with those in power is always welcomed, as long as you don't break the rules to earn it.

Then we have the logic of meaningless mechanism.  In this logic, the universe is just a big machine that churns on with or without us.  There isn't a deeper meaning to it, we just ARE.  Once we're done BEING, then we're just done.  What we do in life doesn't really matter if we're just viewed as a sack of water and organic material that will one day cease and be claimed by the forces of the big machine around us.

McLaren advocates a fourth logic, a logic of love.  He introduces this concept with the opening verses of the Gospel of John.  If you've ever spent any amount of time going to church in your life, you've probably heard a sermon or two on these verses: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."  When I was young, one of the assistant pastors at our church was almost obsessive about this passage.  He was intrigued by the Greek word "LOGOS" which is translated to our English Bibles as "Word."  You see this root in words with "--ology," psychology, biology, sociology and so on.  Early on we learn that this root means "the study of" or "the logic of."

In John 1 we learn that the Logos of God, the Logos that was there at the beginning, the logic behind everything became flesh.  "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:14).  This of course is Jesus.  Think about what John is saying here.  The logic that governs everything, the creator that set the stars in their courses, that breathes the breath of life into creation all around us became one of us.  It's a pretty extraordinary thought.

Given this, we should probably pay attention to the way this man, Jesus, lived his life.  His logos, his logic, was of love and mercy.  His logic was not about violence, but dignity and respect for all human beings and all things around us.  He didn't seek to compete with those around him.  He had no interest in being a compliant footstool to those in religious authority around him.  He sought the meaning, the divine presence in everyone, Jew or Gentile, slave or free, rich or poor.  In the end this logic was so subversive to the world around him that they killed him for it.

Today the logic of love is no less subversive.  Even in "Christian" circles this is often cast aside for the logic of rivalry.  Just a couple of days ago one of the gentlemen from "Duck Dynasty" was on a news station brandishing a Bible and saying that if ISIS members won't convert to Christianity, then they should be killed.  The ideology behind ISIS is certainly horrible and they are undoubtedly guilty of many atrocities, but "covert them or kill them" would never have come from the mouth of Christ. What did come from Christ's mouth as he died on the cross? "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

Love and mercy are frowned upon and considered a weakness.  However, when employed the logic behind them is powerful enough to change your life.  Then as your life, and my life, changes and grows in the logic of love, we can help others change and make the world better, whether you're a religious person or not.  There will be bumps in the road.  There will be people who take advantage, but in the end, as more of us make our choices with the logic of love and the logic of hope, we can start to dispel the the darkness of the logic of fear and violence.

Will you join me, and help me on this path?