When I was in eighth grade at St. Patrick’s Elementary School, I was very fond of the then-popular Christian song, They’ll Know We Are Christians by Our Love. It was a catchy tune easily played on guitars that I loved to hear, and it combined the social consciousness of the sixties with the timeless message of Christ’s social gospel. The song lyrics resonated with me back then and have ever since, and those words go a long way toward explaining why I consider myself a liberal with an affinity for the poor and the oppressed.
Sadly, a lot has changed since my elementary school years and I dare say that many Christians today are no longer known by their love. They’re known instead for their disdain for the poor, their callous indifference to the plight of refugees and their hard-hearted attitude toward the suffering of those who are sick and infirmed. They are known by their loathing of women seeking reproductive freedom and their intolerance of individuals who practice different faiths or no faith at all. They’re known by what they take and not the things they give, by their criticism and not their compassion and by their arrogance and not their humility. They are known by the bombs they drop and not the people they uplift, the sins they commit and not the righteousness they claim and by their practice of discrimination and not their profession of man’s equality.
It’s no wonder that much of Christianity today has become synonymous with hypocrisy of the highest order. How could it not when so many professed believers have rejected the central edict of Christianity - the command to love one another - in favor of selfish personal interests? They use to know Christians by their love, but not so much anymore. How sad!
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