Day 15 - Agape

There is a book that many philosophy students fear; if we ever meet, I can explain further. It’s called “The World as Will & Representation”. When I encountered it, because of my being Christian, it bothered me less than it did others. The main point of the work is that what we perceive is not really what the world is like, and a major problem for us is that we are creatures that strive to change things - unsuccessfully.

I don’t find that shocking because I’m used to the idea that humans messed up what God has made perfectly. That realisation is one of the cornerstones of my faith and a major reason as to why I need Christ to make the corrections.

Jesus told His immediate followers that they were not of the world, and he prayed that God would leave them in the world but protect them. (John 17:14-17). It’s well worth thinking carefully about what that means because in our generations, churches and the world are very similar things. Maybe that’s why those outside churches can’t understand the message.

Often, we hear our fellow church attenders going on about how horrible the world is. Lists of wars, plagues, famines and injustices grow ever longer. Jesus told us to expect that sort of thing whilst He was preaching on The Mount of Olives (Matthew 24 for example). He then says – but. He goes on to explain that these things are to be expected.

Now the really important bit – that He tells us that our job is to stand firm and intensify our willingness to follow Him (Matthew 24:12-14).

Sadly, whilst a lot of hand wringing goes on, churches don’t display a lot of activity consistent with staying close to Christ. The world has caused “the love of many to grow cold” Matthew (24:12).

In my view that’s because churches have adopted the world. Concerns for position, money, power and so on are often the characteristics of both.

Which observation returns me to Schopenhauer, the author of the book that I mentioned. He rejected church-based religion whilst admiring parts of Christianity a great deal. I have found it helpful to look at the ways of the world from the stance that he adopted because he argued that the way to see passed the corruption of the human world is to work at the concept of agape. That’s consistent with Jesus’ teaching.

The problem for churches seems to be in dealing with the fact that many church goers don’t want to see evidence of human wilfulness. Rather, they expect to be part of the comfortable world. However, Christ’s example is different. In Jesus, He showed how to find unity with God by renouncing the ways of the world.

Returning to Matthew 24:12, we find Jesus telling us about this; “because of wickedness, the love of many will grow cold, those who stand firm will be saved.”.

Approaching the celebration of what The Cross means, this is a good time to seriously consider whether agape is really the dynamic of our churches.

John Cartwright