Loving a World in Crisis
Rev David Tomlinson reflects on the call to love your neighbour and what it means to live for love in a world in crisis.
On 15 December, another four people drowned in the English Channel. Their small boat had capsized. They had been heading towards our shores seeking sanctuary. These small boats continue to make this treacherous journey because they cannot find a safe route to get here. The government’s minsters response to these tragedies has been to pedal pejorative stereotypes, while doing nothing to provide further opportunities for those in danger across the globe to find refuge here.
Rather than being chastened by the sight of corpses, there has been a hardening of the rhetoric with some calling for asylum seekers to be denied their human rights. When we undermine someone else’s humanity, we give ourselves permission to be inhumane, and risk legitimising the darker motives of the human heart. Pandering to xenophobia and a nasty nationalism adds credence to the darker agendas on offer in our political landscapes. Scapegoats and distractions from society’s injustices sometimes suit those in power. By sanctioning hatred, we make those who have fled war, persecution, and hunger a target for the kind of baying mob that gathered outside a hostel in Knowsley on Friday 10 February. We can only imagine the fear of those cowering in their rooms, listening to the violence and vandalism of those wielding hammers and shouting abuse.
How we frame the issue of those seeking sanctuary across the globe determines how we see those undertaking this perilous journey. If the steady flow of barely seaworthy vessels constitutes an “invasion”, then they are the “enemy”. Should we assert that they come illegally, we criminalize them. When we see them as only here to improve their economic outlook, they are defined as “migrants”. However, when we focus on our common humanity, we recognize their dignity, and must acknowledge that there is no simple label we can apply to define and dismiss them.
In my latest book, “Living for Love-the essence of Christianity, and humanity’s only hope”, I contend for the truth that each one of us is precious. Every human being is God’s representative. We are, as the Bible reminds us, made in the “image of God”. Each person is an icon of the ultimate Other. As such, they deserve not just our tolerance, or only our care, but our reverence. In their presence, we are on holy ground.
What is more, there is bound to be an element of mystery about them. There is no way that we can encapsulate them with a pithy descriptor. This should not surprise us for we know how complex we are. Each human being is “…composed of layer after layer of perceptions, reactions, expectations, memories, desires, hopes, and values. By placing people into boxes, we are denying them the truth of who they are.”
Cherishing their humanity in all its richness, we sense our obligation to be kind. Remember the golden rule, “treat others are you would hope to be treated”, a maxim born of mutuality and self-interest. Then there is the call to “love your neighbour”. This commandment makes love not a choice-an attitude and actions we can offer or refute-but a responsibility. By regarding love as a duty, we train our hearts. Softened by compassion, we can no longer ignore the suffering of other people but are compelled to be generous.
Our shared humanity, allied to the universality of love’s claim, must be the ground on which the world responds to the refugee crisis, and the other emergencies we face. As international collaboration is imperative in the face of the vast number of refugees fleeing from persecution, war, and meteorological calamities resulting from the climate catastrophe, the quest for world peace must be a collaborative enterprise. Given renewed urgency in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine, and the heightened threat of nuclear Armageddon, we must forsake myths and narratives that set nation against nation. And, of course, we are emerging from a global pandemic that was a stark reminder of how we live in a global village with one shared future. We can no longer afford to indulge individualism and tribalism, and other divisive creeds. It is vital that we join together under the collective banner of “living for love”, and take seriously each other’s welfare. For there are not multiple, independent future to pursue but only one. We can no longer avoid the vital necessity of working together to shape a sustainable and just future. This requires both international action, and all of us to see “the other” in the light of love.
My book is an exploration of what it means to see the world illuminated by love. Like a diamond, love has different faces but also an essential unity. Love’s source is God. As the climactic theology of the biblical story testifies: God is love. If we are to love other people, we have to start with ourselves. A healthy self-love fosters our capacity for loving relationships. Our love for each other is integral to our love for God as Jesus Christ taught and demonstrated. An exploration of his teaching underlines that no-one is to be excluded from our embrace. We cannot write off the stranger or even our enemy, they must be enfolded in our compassion. What that means in practice has to be worked out but we have no excuse or alibi for engaging with this challenge. Contemplation and community both nurture and express our growth in love. Spending time in silence opens up to the spring of love, and its fruit is the mutual exchange of faithful friendships.
When we are motivated by love, and seek love’s triumph in every relationship and context, the goals for our interpersonal dynamics and politics, local and global, become bighearted and open-handed. The cynic might call this approach naïve but the alternative is to bunker down, and hold on to the delusion of self-interest like an increasingly threadbare comfort blanket. If we become increasingly more selfish, we all lose out. Increasing division leaves us all entrenched in our positions, staring forlornly at a widening no man’s land. Further fragmentation means that greater numbers fall down the cracks between us. The Christian faith issues a clarion call in every generation to ignore the dissenting voices, and to make love our aim. Against the backdrop of a world in crisis, there is a renewed urgency about this summons. We cannot hold back: we must grasp and hold fast to humanity’s only hope: to live for love.
Interested in finding out more about David’s book, “Living for Love-the essence of Christianity, and humanity’s only hope”, then you can see the themes on the publisher’s website Sacristy Press and even read some of it on Amazon.
David has also produced some questions for each chapter for small group discussion which can be downloaded through the link on the Sacristy Press website. Alternatively they can be used for personal reflection.
Following two-year spells as a civil servant, a CMS mission partner, and a secondary school teacher in his twenties, David Tomlinson has served in ordained ministry in Surrey, Essex, and now Birmingham. He is the Vicar of St Paul’s in the Jewellery Quarter in Birmingham, and chair of the Board of Trustees for Thrive Together Birmingham. He has also written a book on leadership, and another on Christian discipleship. Bibliophile, film buff, cyclist, cook, and lifelong West Ham supporter, he is, more importantly, married to Jenny, and the proud father of two wonderful daughters.