It just fell on me like a ton of bricks.

It’s weird how random elements often come together around the same time and coalesce in us as revelation. While some might see this as coincidence, I see this as providence. The latest gift I’ve received of providence has to do with Joseph Campbell, Pierre Abélard, C.S. Lewis’ four names of love, Garret LoPorto’s revelation that much of modern Christianity focuses on logos while all but abandoning eros, Jesus’ command to “Love your neighbor as yourself,” and the old truism that we hate in others that which we hate most in ourselves.

It starts with the marginally related elements. I’ve been thinking of Pierre Abélard recently, as I have a situation similar to one for which he is most famous, but that’s not something I’m going to go into. Anyway, to soothe myself I’ve been listening to an interview of Joseph Campbell, where he speaks of love in western mythology, specifically Christianity’s doctrine of agape, which is of course one of the four loves identified by C.S. Lewis. I was reading up on Lewis’ The Four Loves because I’m organizing my music according to them. Let me paraphrase Lewis’ definitions so everyone is on the same page:

• philia – brotherly or friendly love; generally love for another person devoid of sexual interest
• eros – sexual love, or as Campbell describes it, “the zeal of the organs for each other.”
• amore – what we traditionally think of love, or romantic love. The love reserved for spouses/partners.
• agape – love of God, but also love for others that is both unconditional and voluntary. It is the love of which Jesus spoke when he commanded “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

So having both the definitions of love from Lewis and the assertion that agape is the ultimate tenet of Christianity rolling around in my head, one or both of them must have bumped into my memory of LoPorto’s assertion that many modern Christians focus on the logos or logic, dogma, rules, of the faith almost to the exclusion of its eros (which in this context refers to love, compassion, forgiveness, and understanding). Put another way, many Christians are acting in an Old Testament fashion to the exclusion of New Testament action. It’s the type of behavior that turns so many off to religion; that has so many people sneer and scoff at the sound of the word “Christian.”

The question is, “why?” Why do so many feel that judgment and condemnation are Christian virtues? The answer I think is in the old truism: we hate in ourselves that which we hate most in others. Now that I’m divorced, the distinction of ‘person who most easily gets under my skin’ is my dad. Why? Because we’re so alike. I see his sheepishness, his lack of self-confidence, and his social awkwardness and I get angry with him. I get angry because those are all things that I wrestle with in myself. Those are things that I hate in myself.

So why are so many Christians so quick to condemn others when the second-highest commandment in Christianity is to “love your neighbor as yourself?” Why do so many Christians disobey that penultimate command?

Maybe they don’t. If you look at the command, it states that Christians should love their neighbors as much as, as well as, they love themselves. But if you don’t love yourself, then that pretty much dictates that you’ll be a big jerk to everyone else, too. And from what I’ve experienced, much of modern Christianity may give lip service to self-love (agape in Lewis’ definitions, not eros), but in fact promotes self-loathing. We are such bad people that Jesus had to sacrifice himself as a scapegoat for our sins.

But I agree with Abélard’s understanding of the crucifixion that it is not a ransom paid or a penalty applied, but an act of at-one-ment (atonement) with all humanity. The crucifixion illustrates the suffering inherent all our lives, and removes our minds from commitment to things in this world in compassion for Christ. It is in this capacity that the wounded becomes the savior. Humankind yearning for God and God yearning for humankind on the Cross in compassion met.

Which is what we need, compassion. We need unconditional and voluntary love – agape – first for ourselves, and then for others. We must truly and without self-deceit love ourselves first, and then we can do so for our neighbors. When we can pluck the beam from our own eyes and can forgive ourselves for having imperfections in the first place, we will not mention the mote in another’s because of our common unity (community) in imperfection and common passion (compassion) for life, suffering and all.