A Person of Faith and Love
A Person of Faith and Love
Friday, September 11, 2026
Brian McLaren explains how he found support in the Bible to welcome uncertainty and expand his faith:
To my surprise, I discovered that … in the Bible I had been reading my whole life, and especially in the life and teachings of Jesus, Mary, Paul, James, and John, the fresh understanding of faith my heart was thirsty for had been waiting like a hidden spring all along….
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus doesn’t teach a list of beliefs to be memorized and recited. Instead, he teaches a way of life that culminates in a call to revolutionary love. This revolutionary love goes far beyond conventional love, the love that distinguishes between us and them, brother and other, or friend and enemy (Matthew 5:43). Instead, we need to love as God loves, with non-discriminatory love that includes even the enemy.
If that weren’t revolutionary enough, we could turn to Paul…. When he tries to summarize what God requires and desires, Paul does not say: “For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, ‘You shall have the correct beliefs.’” Rather, he declares, “For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Galatians 5:14)….
We find the same in the Epistles of John. In 1 John 4:7 ff., John doesn’t say:
Beloved, let us hold to correct beliefs, because correctness is from God; everyone who believes the required statements is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not confess the right beliefs does not know God, for God is correctness.
Rather, John says this:
Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love….
Are you a believer who puts your distinct beliefs first, or are you a person of faith who puts love first?…
That phrase I just used, person of faith, in one sense makes a simple generalization. It serves as a description that makes room for Christians, Muslims, Jews, and so on. But I am coming to see that person of faith is not just a generalization. It is also a differentiation, in contrast to a person of beliefs. It reflects a shared desire among people in all these diverse traditions to be identified not by lists of beliefs that exclude one another but by something deeper, by faith in a universal, non-discriminatory love that calls us all together.
In that light, the word doubt can mean two very different things. When it is applied to faith that expresses itself in beliefs, it means one thing. When it is applied to faith that expresses itself in revolutionary love, it means something very different. Sometimes, it is only by doubting a religion that expresses itself in beliefs that we can discover a faith that expresses itself in revolutionary love.
References:
Brian D. McLaren, Faith After Doubt: Why Your Beliefs Stopped Working and What to Do About It (St. Martins, 2021), 123, 124–126, 127.
Image Credit and Inspiration: Richárd Ecsedi, untitled (detail), 2019, photo. Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. We trust the way forward even as the unexpected appears just beyond the edges of the map.
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| John Chaffee Five on Friday – 9-11-26 |
1.
“It is no use walking anywhere to preach unless our walking is our preaching.”
– St. Francis of Assis, Founder of the Franciscan Order
St. Francis seems to be talking here about what we now call “being integrated.”
We most know something once we have metabolized it into our every day life. We have most integrated the teachings and the lessons of Jesus, not when we can talk about them, but when they even affect the way we walk.
This reminds me of an old story of a rabbi and his student.
The student was asked one day why he was following his rabbi in every single task, in every room, throughout the entire day. He was a brigth student and was known as someone who was already knowledgeable about the Hebrew Bible and the Talmud.
His response?
“I follow him in order to learn how to tie my shoes.”
The rabbi had integrated the teachings into his own life so thoroughly that the student realized that was what he most needed to learn!
2.
“I never so much as take a step onto the ladder of spiritual progress without placing death before my eyes before going up it.”
– Amma Sarah of the Desert, 5th Century Desert Mother
It is vitally important for us to remember that our time is finite. It is not a bad thing to have a limit, but it is certainly unhealthy to live as if we did not.
For the early desert monastics, to acknowledge and remember one’s death was a sure fire way to maintain our own humility. It is incredibly difficult to make any spiritual progress if we do not maintain a humility about our own existence.
Yes, some might think that this leans too far into morbidity, but I would respond that our whole culture in the West is lived in avoidance of the fact that our lives are limited.
This theme is picked up again in the 5th quote for today.
3.
“Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.”
– Rumi, 13th Century Sufi Poet
As a recovering Enneagram 5 wing 4, I have spent seasons of my life wanting to be known as clever or unique in my thoughts about the world. This is not to say that I inherently leaned toward the obscure, but it does mean that I at least enjoy the minority view out of hand.
Nowadays, though, I appreciate mystery and wonder.
So, when I came across this qoute from Rumi this week, I couldn’t help but resonate with it.
A few years ago, I wrote a book that touched on some of this.
It is called “The Wonderstanding of Father Simeon.” It is a dialogue between a young cynic and a desert monastic. I was about 2/3 of the way through writing it when I realized that it was the two parts of my own inner landscape talking with each other and coming to some sense of reconciliation.
The young cynic who wanted to be known as clever had to sit and riff things out with the old, joyful desert monk who was content in his wonder.
4.
“Books… are like lobster shells, we surround ourselves with ’em, then we grow out of ’em and leave ’em behind, as evidence of our earlier stages of development.”
– Dorothy Sayers, English Novelist
How interesting!
Books can be a road map or a record of where we have been and what lesssons we have gone through!
I am guessing this principle applies to every genre, too.
Children’s books, teen adventures, these books probably spoke to something that we were developmentally going through. Then we moved on to romance, or philosophy, or art. Then we read things about emotions, psychology, lessons from history. Or, at least, that was my trajectory. It is likely that your trajectory had its own twists and turns.
What if the next book or the next genre of books we might reach for is the next thing we need to learn, integrate, grow through?
5.
“Tenderly now I touch all things, knowing that one day we will part.”
– St. John of the Cross, 16th Century Spanish Mystic
I wonder how we would relate to everyone and everything if we remembered this wisdom from St. John of the Cross?
At the church where my family goes on Sunday morning, there is often a closing benediction that goes like this…
“Life is short, and we do not have too much time to gladden the hearts of those who travel with us. So let us be quick to love, make haste to be kind, and may the blessing of God Almighty, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, be with us. Amen and amen.”
