God is Love is God (?)
A chilling description of love based on Christian teaching
“God is love” -1 John 4:16a. I once heard or read a Christian teacher say that, rather than love defining god, god defines love. I believe the intent was to correct people who question god’s actions based on the human definition of love. Instead, this person was saying that the problem is in people’s flawed idea of love, and that to understand love, we need to look at how god behaves. How better to look at how the Christian god behaves than to read what is written in the Christian bible?
OK, here goes.
Love means wiping out whole populations to prove or demonstrate a point, or because they don’t fit your greater plan. [many examples in the Old Testament]
Love means demanding that a father murder his son to prove his loyalty. Love means waiting until the son is tied up and the father’s knife is raised, ready to carry out the order, before stopping him, ignoring the lifelong trauma the experience would inflict on the son. [Genesis 22]
Love means wiping out a man’s wife, children, servants, crops, and livestock in an attempt to win a bet that the man will retain his faith in the face of great loss. Love means giving that man new wives, children, etc. once he has proven his faith, ignoring the fact that the innocents who were killed in service to the bet are still dead. [Job]
Love means holding children responsible for the wrongs done by their parents. Love means extending that responsibility to grandchildren, great grandchildren, great-great grandchildren, etc. [Numbers 14:18]
Love means forcing your son to endure an excruciating death in payment for wrongdoing in which he played no part. Love means turning a deaf ear on his pleas for mercy. [Matthew 26]
Love means never apologizing for your actions, at best offering a promise not to do it again. [Genesis 9]
Love means cursing a tree because it is unable to create fruit out of season [Matthew 21]
While this is in no way an exhaustive list, it is sufficient to explain why “love thy neighbor” is so often acted out by Christians as “attack, reject, and condemn all who don’t hold the same beliefs in the same way.” They’re simply following the lead of their creator.
