I
have recently been ruminating on what love is all about and the present
perceptions about love in today’s culture. I intend to spend some time talking
about these perceptions and what I believe should be the correct attitude to
have. They are my own views based on the Bible and you may agree or disagree
with them.
From
my meditations on the treatise on love in 1 Corinthians 13, it is quite clear
that loving is directly linked with doing. And the feeling in today’s culture
is that if you love someone and they do something wrong, you do nothing. There
seems to be a general perception that if you say you love someone, then you
have to condone everything they do even if you think it’s wrong. Doing
otherwise would be “judging”. We live in a society where nothing is wrong or
right anymore and there are seemingly no absolutes. There’s nothing like
correction or repentance any more. Cheating on a wife or a husband or a
boyfriend is nothing to be frowned on anymore as someone will make an excuse
for you. In fact cheating is to be praised and encouraged. I recently came
across the excerpt of an interview granted by the actor, Ethan Hawke. According
to him, we have a childish and naïve attitude to fidelity in a relationship. He
rehashed the old argument about how man is not meant to be monogamous. My
understanding of what he was on about was that we should be more tolerant and
understanding of people who cheat on their spouses and partners. Which leads me
to the question, if you know you can’t commit to one person, why be with that
person? Especially when you know that that person expects you to be with them
alone?
It’s
not only fidelity in relationships I’m referring to. Let me ask a question. If
your teenage son or daughter came to you, scared and with tears in his or her
eyes and told you that something they had done had led to the death of someone
else, what would you do? After the initial shock had worn off, would you:
(a)
Hand them over to the police and let them face
the fate that their foolishness deserved, or;
(b)
Would you help them cover their tracks, bury
the body and if possible help them escape the country so they wouldn’t have to
face a trial?
Sometime
ago, I read the story of a boy who was under the age of ten who fatally wounded
his younger brother. The parents of the boys tried to cover up the injuries,
going onto the internet looking for ways to care for the younger son at home.
In the end they had to take him to the hospital where he eventually died. The
parents tried to cover up for the older brother but the authorities
investigating the matter noticed the internet searches on the computers and
were able to piece the events that had happened together. There was an outcry
when the older brother was charged for the murder of his younger brother.
People asked the District Attorney to forgive the boy. Refusing to do so, she
said, “It’s not my job to forgive, it’s my job to apply the law.” Today, the
statement still resonates with me as on the day I read it.
The
average belief of everyone is that we should shield our loved ones from hurt
and pain. But the question the DA’s answer throws up is, who then gets to fight
for those we hurt? My personal belief is that apart from the fact that it’s
illegal, helping your children escape the consequences of their actions shows a
lack of love and respect for those hurt by their actions. And we are called to
love everyone.
What
if there was a third way? A better way? What if I was to say that there was
nothing wrong with going to the authorities with your child and then hiring the
best legal team to try and get him off? Would that not be showing greater love
rather than trying to hide the offence and doing something illegal? Love will
force us to confront ugly situations with a view to sorting them out. Condoning
only makes us run from the situation in the hope that things will sort
themselves out by themselves. And that usually doesn’t happen.
JC Cruz is the author of DECEPTIO published by WestBowPress, a
division of Thomas Nelson publishers.http://bookstore.westbowpress.com/Products/SKU000194087/Deceptio.aspx and LOST, BUT FOUND available at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DPLLEUQ/. You
can follow him on Twitter @Cruz_JCReal
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