A PROPHETIC WORD FROM THE PRESENT
“Lovelessness” plagues SBC, ethicist tells American Baptists
By Marv Knox

*Below is an ABP article on a speech given by Southern Seminary Ethics Professor David Gushee. We think his words are worth sharing with Texas Baptists. one another?”

SCOTTSBURG, Ind. (ABP) — Southern Baptists will not move forward until they “learn how to love each other as fellow Christians once again.” ethios professor David Gushee told a meeting of American Baptists.

“Christian lovelessness” calls into question whether feuding Christians really are followers of Christ, and that is destroying the Church’s witness in the world, claimed Gushee, a faculty member at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky.

Gushee, who addressed the annual meeting of American Baptist Churches in southwestern Indiana, admitted he spoke from firsthand experience. “I come to you as one who has experienced the tragedy of Christian lovelessness,” he said.

Gushee explained he has been a Southern Baptist since 1978, while theological/political controversy has wracked the Southern Baptist Convention. He also noted he has been at Southern Seminary for two years. During that time, a new president and conservative trustees have steered the school sharply to the right, creating turmoil among faculty, staff, students and alumni.

Division and lovelessness among Southern Baptists has produced dire consequences, Gushee lamented.

“There is no way ahead, no way forward for us until we Southern Baptists learn how to love each other as fellow Christians once again,” he stressed. “No way ahead, no way forward until we realize that Christian lovelessness is a tremendous infidelity to Jesus Christ, an extraordinary calamity, a plague upon our house.

” Lovelessness “is a way of treating each other that violates the explicit moral teaching of nearly every book in the New Testament,” Gushee said.

can a Christian people expect to move ahead when they have wrapped themselves from head to foot in the chains of disobedience” to Christ’s command to “love one another, Gushee asked.

Unfortunately, Christian lovelessness extends beyond the SBC to “every level of Christian life,” he said.

The Bible describes lovelessness between Christians as the most dangerous church affliction. he said. Moreover, the call for mutual love among Christians is the New Testament’s most persistent expectation, he added.

Citing numerous Bible passages, Gushee presented three reasons why lovelessness is detrimental for Christians:

—It questions whether warring Christians really are Jesus’ followers. Supporting his point, Gushee quoted a passage from Jesus’ farewell address: “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for another.”

—It questions whether “joyful Christian community” is possible.

—It causes non-Christians to question the truth of Christian faith. “When we love each other and live together in unity, God uses us to reach a lost world with the Gospel,” he said. “But when we don’t love each other, we repel rather than attract an unbelieving world.”

June/July 1995