Religious Liberty: The Hobby Lobby Supreme Court Case

As promised, let’s talk more about this Hobby Lobby Supreme Court Case and religious liberty. Hobby Lobby is a for-profit business run by Christians who claim that their business model incorporates articles of their faith. Their court case is against the “employer mandate” portion of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) – “Obamacare” – under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). Their claim is that the law mandates they provide health insurance coverage for their employees which will include reproductive health medicines they believe are abortifacients which they claim are against their religion. It is somewhat of a complex claim. There are lots and lots of things to talk about here, but first I think we should make a few things clear about their claim and their religion.

#1 – We the people, as a voting public, legislature, Supreme Court, or government in general, cannot and should not judge their religion. Whether or not we believe this action is actually anathema to their religion is not at issue. They get to define their religion. Not us. Not official dogma. Not their religious leaders. Only them.

#2 – We do, however, get to determine whether or not we believe any burden that is imposed on them is “substantial” enough to warrant accommodation. And we get to determine whether the reason the law was made in the first place is a “compelling” enough interest to override the burden imposed on them and their religious conscience. (For more on these terms and this calculus, please see last week’s blog.)

So onto the problems.

Problem #1: A tax is not a burden.

I wrote a lot here in my earlier drafts about the legal problems of this case, but it was too long and too esoteric. So, I will summarize very quickly and let you move onto the “sexier” problems:

1. In the Supreme Court case which upheld the ACA, the justices determined that the “employer mandate” is actually not a mandate after all, but a tax.

2. Taxes are not substantial burdens to our religious conscience. No one gets to exempt themselves from paying taxes because they disagree with the things those taxes pay for. No one gets to pick and choose what their taxes pay line by line. I am a pacifist and I have to pay for a military with my taxes. Such is life. Whatever moral complicity I bear, it is not enough to warrant accommodation from paying my taxes.

If you want to read more about this, I HIGHLY recommend this incredible blog piece.

Problem #2: Whose religious liberty?

The owners of Hobby Lobby are petitioning that to provide insurance coverage that provides Plan B and certain IUDs would mar their religious conscience and cause moral guilt. But what about the religious conscience of their employees? After all, it is the employees who will be electing to either make use of those medicines or medical procedures, not the employer. Nevertheless, the employer is saying that even by merely partially paying for insurance which grants opportunity to use these medicines or procedures (which are all legal), their religious conscience would incur substantial religious guilt.

At the moment, these same employers are not providing health insurance. If their employees want to get an IUD or use Plan B medication, they have to use their own money. But that money comes from working for this company. So it goes like this: Money starts in the hands of Hobby Lobby, then goes to employee in exchange for their work, then goes to a hospital or pharmacy. According to Hobby Lobby, this does not make them morally complicit. But if the money begins, the same as before, with Hobby Lobby, then goes to an insurance company in exchange for an employees work, then goes to a hospital or pharmacy, suddenly the moral guilt creates a substantial burden on the moral conscience. How is one different than another?

But there are other things to consider. One of the ways I like to test my agreement or disagreement with a policy or legal standing is to imagine an analogy that involves a position I both agree and disagree with to make sure my principled position is consistent. The ACA has created (at least tried to) a new entitlement for Americans: affordable healthcare. The entitlement is aimed to be universal and consistently available for all Americans despite employment, thus the exchanges and tax credits for self-insured and medium-income, Medicaid expansions for the non-working or working poor, and the regulations for standards of minimum coverage for the employed with coverage.

So let’s imagine an employer that believes in very strict separation of the sexes. Labor laws prohibit this in the workplace, but according to his religion, women should never see male doctors and men should never see female doctors. So under this law, he wants to petition that the coverage his company provides would keep this standard. Is that ok? Should all his employees, even those who do not hold this religious belief and had no idea he held it, be bound to this rule in seeking healthcare?

Some might immediately say here, “Well, the employees don’t HAVE to work for that company. They can go elsewhere if they feel the need to get different health insurance.” Let’s consider that in a few more examples. What about a CEO who comes from a religious background that does not believe blood transfusions and organ transplants are moral? Or a company run by folks that do not believe in vaccinations? Or going further into other universal entitlements, what about companies that do not believe in overtime pay? Or equal wages for women?

We do not think that overtime pay or equal opportunity employment should be held to the whims of employers but should be a benefit to all employees regardless of where they are employed. Why not this universal entitlement? What makes a religious burden against the man who doesn’t think women deserve equal pay any less substantial than the man who doesn’t want to provide insurance that includes IUDs? Why does a janitor at her local neighborhood grocery store need to find out the religious beliefs of the owner regarding vaccinations for her kids but she doesn’t need to worry about whether or not the owners believe overtime pay is religiously immoral? What is the important difference, here?

If I were hired as a clerk for a movie theater, should the owner, who lives 6 states away, dictate how and under what circumstances I am able to get an emergency biopsy of my thyroid because he has a religious issue with it? And if so, why? Because his company contributes to it? As an employee who would pay for it with my paycheck, isn’t that the exact same amount of contribution as paying a monthly premium to an insurance company?

I don’t disagree that this issue is about personal liberty. IT MOST CERTAINLY IS. But we are talking about creating an ambiguous manner of determining a person’s conscientious autonomy to make life-altering decisions. Healthcare is incredibly important. Life’s crises often revolve around this very issue. And we are playing with the notion that a very powerful, very small group of people (business owners) be able to regulate how and under what circumstances the benefit of paid healthcare is allocated. For all Americans, but the poor especially, this will add a whole new level of coercion into the employment process and the decision to seek medical treatment when ill or injured, which is truly a sad and dangerous notion.

Problem #3: Fairies are not real. (You’ll get it in a second.)

Hobby Lobby is not protesting providing all birth control, but only a few forms: ella, Plan B, and the copper IUD. They claim these are abortifacients and therefore against their religion. If you will remember point #1 at the very beginning, we are not allowed, as a government, to judge whether or not their religion dictates a moral burden on the conscience by providing access to these medicines or procedures. (Although we are free to engage one another about it as a dialogical people.)

But the problem here is not whether or not abortifacients are against their religion, but whether or not ella, Plan B, or the copper IUD are, in fact, abortifacients (a substance that induces an abortion – or, at the very least, stops fertilized eggs from being implanted onto the uterine wall).

There was cause to believe, for years, that the reason some of these medicines or devices worked was because they stopped fertilized eggs from being implanted. But a lot of scientific research that has been coming out lately has shown this theory to be false and that the medicines or devices work in ways that are not religiously controversial.

(Some articles here and here about this new research, with links to follow and read yourself if you like.)

So who gets to make a ruling on this? Do we leave it up to the owners of Hobby Lobby to investigate the newest scientific research and determine whether or not that research is trustworthy enough to remove their moral guilt? Do the judges have to weigh the scientific evidence and make the determination whether or not the medicines or devices are, in fact, abortifacients? Who gets to make that determination?

But really here, what do we do with petitions for accommodations and exemptions from law based on scientifically erroneous beliefs that have created an imposition onto the religious conscience that are, in actuality, not really there?

I know this is going to get into absurdity, but bear with me. Imagine a CEO who asks for an exemption for providing reproductive services which test semen samples because he still believes in the homunculus, which means collecting the sample would kill human life. Or what about a businessman who believed that all injections actually put invisible demon fairies into our bloodstream, which caused moral corruption? Or, less absurdly, a company didn’t want to provide vaccinations because they believed vaccines caused Autism, a belief debunked by scientific research for many years now.

I am all for having conversations about moral burdens on the conscience and how we can work around those, but not if we are going to argue about fairies that don’t even really exist, especially if the belief in those fairies restricts another person from having access to healthcare that everyone else can easily make use of.

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That about sums it up. I realize there are many points of contention here, especially the central question of whether or not healthcare, all on its own, should be an entitlement. (I wager only rich people with access to it even question that…) That is another discussion we will have to take up, later. Even still, there are many problems with this case and how it shakes out could have devastating effects on making sure the working poor and average Americans have reliable access to healthcare free of ambiguous restraints and external forms of coercive manipulation.

Religious Liberty: A Primer

There is this Supreme Court case that is making the news, lately. Hobby Lobby, a corporation of hobby stores, is suing for accommodation from the birth control mandate portion of the Affordable Care Act (ACA – colloquially known as Obamacare) under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA). This is a bit of an important case. If they win the case, it will be the first time that for-profit corporations will be seen as having the “right” to religious liberty in the same way that people and religious non-profits (Church ministries) have. The implications will mean that any business that is for-profit will have legal recourse to be exempt from laws they claim religiously interfere with their business model. This is exceptionally dangerous.

However, for many, this might seem positive, especially if you are sympathetic with those who are against the ACA. This issue has been majorly politicized since the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) objected to the original ruling that required religious non-profits (except churches) provide birth control to their employees despite official dogmatic religious objections to birth control. But for me, even though I do have a certain amount of sympathy for someone who has to abide by rules they have moral objections to, this is a dangerous development. But before we can even have a thoughtful conversation about these implications, we should first know the basics of law regarding religious liberty – especially RFRA.

We do not have absolute religious liberty in the United States. We never have. There are limits to that liberty. For instance, no one is allowed to sacrifice another human being, even if for religious reasons. Why? It is not because that religion is “untrue.” It is because the state, our power as a collective, has a vested interest in a person or groups not killing other persons or groups. The official legal language for this is a “Compelling Interest.” We, as the people, create laws when we have an interest in limiting the liberty of some in order to ensure the rights of others. This is not only the way we think about laws concerning religious liberty, but all laws really. You and I are not free to drive as fast as we want because we have a compelling interest to make sure everyone drives at a safe speed.

However, as a country that wants to respect religious conscience, we also don’t want laws to impose burdens to religious conscience unless for very good reasons. Our entire life is based on compromise and we do it every day, most of the time without noticing or with very little stress involved. But most religions have some kind of hierarchical understanding of practices that can be compromised and those that cannot. For instance, Christians share space and live peacefully with those who willfully blaspheme – but to force a Christian to blaspheme would place a burden on their conscience that is beyond just peaceable living. Sometimes, even without ill intent, laws are made that inadvertently cause significant tension on the religious conscience. The official legal language for this is called “Substantial Burden.”

The art of respecting religious liberty and respecting the rule of law is a constant “see-saw” between the compelling interests of the state (us collectively) and the substantial burdens imposed on individual conscience.

RFRA gives us calculus for this see-saw. Here’s how it goes, in the form of a flowchart:

           

Does a law present a “substantial burden” to someone’s ability to practice their religion?

                        If No, pass the law.

                        If Yes, next question.

            Is there a “compelling state interest” to passing the law?

                        If No, then people with a “substantial burden” get special accommodation.

                        If Yes, then pass the law.

The calculus enshrined in law is that compelling state interests always override substantial burdens. The one caveat is that these laws have to apply to everyone. We can’t make laws that target religious practice – like “You may not sacrifice animals. But slaughtering them for food is ok.” Otherwise, the ability of the government to make laws for important reasons always override petitions of religious freedom, EVEN IF they impose substantial burdens.

This is a very important rule. This means that individual conscience ALWAYS comes second to the will of the people to make and enforce laws that are generally applicable and have strong, significantly compelling reasons. Religious liberty, even by our very accommodating standards, is not such a bulletproof legal defense as most people think.

The trick is determining, as a deliberative and discursive people, whether or not we have a compelling interest in removing another person’s liberty to live according to their religious conscience. This isn’t something that should be taken lightly. And most importantly, it should only be done for reasons that we all can reasonably be expected to accept without changing religious beliefs. In other words, we should be diligent in making sure we protect a person’s journey in finding truth and only stop that journey for reasons that have nothing to do with whether or not we believe they have found the correct religious truth.

Do you agree? Please keep in mind this isn’t a conservative vs. liberal split. There are prominent liberals and conservatives on either side of the debate. I, despite my very liberal leanings, find myself agreeing with Justice Antonin Scalia, a firebrand conservative, on this issue.

More to come later this week. Less boring explanations. More fun examples and thought experiments. Stay tuned.

Hitler in Heaven: A Game.

Let’s play a game. This isn’t about truth. This is about us. This is about what kind of God we want. Now, immediately, I expect this reaction: “I don’t want any God but the God that exists. What I want doesn’t matter.”

To use the technical theological word here: bullshit. But don’t miss the point.

When we talk about God, we are talking about something that can’t be proved. (That’s why it’s called faith.) We have deep beliefs about who God is and we have very strong convictions about who that God is. And it is surrounded by ideas about what we believe is good and right and true. And if someone else starts describing God and their idea of God is different, we reject those ideas. We don’t want to believe those things because we believe God is different. Whether it is actually true or just speculation, it is what we want to believe.

So the game. Heaven. The afterlife. I have created four scenarios in a thought experiment that hopefully pulls us out of our comfort zone and pushes our ideas of justice, mercy, and God’s love to the limit. And more than asking what kind of God we want, it asks us what kind of person we are. And want to be. Enjoy!

So here are the scenarios:

1. You get to heaven and you see Osama bin Laden and Hitler. You rejoice that God's grace has no bounds and that nobody is beyond redemption. God's love can save even the most evil and cruel individuals.

2. You get to heaven and you search and search, but there is no Osama bin Laden and no Hitler. You rejoice for justice. They did horrible, terrible things on earth and they pay for their crimes with eternal punishment and separation from their creator.

3. You get to heaven and you see Osama bin Laden and Hitler. You become very angry. How could God forgive them so easily of the horrible things they did on earth and their lack of faith? Where is justice for the innocent people they killed? Where is the God that promises to have vengeance for us (Romans 12:19)? Like the other brother in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, you become angry that God would welcome such horrible souls into heaven with the same people who served God day and night on earth (Luke 15:25-32).

4. You get to heaven and you search and search, but there is no Osama bin Laden and no Hitler. Yet you believe in a mercy so profound that even God's forgiveness certainly can penetrate even the most evil and cruel human souls. You have faith that God's love and mercy can restore all humans, even ones so vile as those two, back to him. Like Abraham did when God planned to destroy Sodom, you beg God to reconcile them back to him and be able to join eternal happiness and communion in heaven (Genesis18:16-33). You know that none are without sin and all deserve death, but the sacrifice of Jesus has reconciled us all to God. If God can overlook my sin, why not theirs?

This is the basic sketch. It becomes even more complex when you don't think about Osama bin Laden and Hitler but think about Gandhi. He was a Hindu. But he was by no means evil. He was good! Is that justice?

Or think about just regular people who try very hard to figure out these very very very complex issues and simply make a decision that might send them to an eternity of punishment. Does that seem just? Do they deserve God's wrath more than Christians who have faith in God but do horrible, terrible things in his name?

Hope you enjoyed.

Tolerance and Intolerance

I recently read a blog by the incorrigible, yet inconveniently popular, Mark Driscoll about tolerance and intolerance. I loathe to give him more publicity but the ideas he writes about are not novel; they are ideas that have made the rounds among conservative church-folk for years. So his iteration is a pretty good springboard.

Let’s just skip right over his semi-male chauvinist introduction. He begins the discussion of tolerance and intolerance with this narrative between himself and Piers Morgan which he uses to identify the problem: Piers Morgan (and the rest of the world) finds Driscoll intolerant because they hold a newer and inferior definition of tolerance than him with his more traditional, prestigious version.

The main difference between the old (good) version of tolerance and the new (bad) version is the foundation of absolute truth. The old version, as he puts it, has an underlying foundation of the belief in an absolute truth that many people dialogue in meaningful ways in order to hopefully arrive together at this truth. The new version, in comparison, denies the existence of some universal truth and therefore finds discussion and dialogue unnecessary and the precursor to prejudices.

He then goes on to posit the extremely tired assertion that the “new” tolerance is actually very intolerant. His example:

“The new tolerance is dreadfully intolerant. Ask average people arguing that every moral view is equally valid and respectable whether they think it’s right for big corporations to destroy the planet, that women at one time could not vote or that people once smoked on airplanes, and see if they are willing to truly welcome, embrace, celebrate and tolerate everyone and everything.
I’m pretty sure if an old guy smoking a cigarette while buying stocks in oil companies and gun makers and bemoaning it was a big mistake to let women learn to read was sitting on a plane next to a feminist on staff with Greenpeace, she would not defend his equally wise and welcomed alternative lifestyle to the flight attendant who was being intolerant for asking him to put out his cigarette.”

So here is how I understand his argument: 1. The new (bad) tolerance doesn’t believe in moral absolutes and finds discussion and dialogue counterproductive; 2. The new tolerance is intolerant by stopping discussion and dialogue; 3. The new version actually DOES believe in moral absolutes, but holds a prejudice against those with whom they disagree.

Well, Mr. Driscoll, which one is it? Is the problem that people don’t believe in moral absolutes anymore or that they believe in universal moral truths but simply won’t tolerate the other side’s viewpoint?

Premise #1 above belies premise #3 but the point he is making isn’t terrible. And my experience has shown similar results. Most people who claim there are no moral absolutes or no universal truths would very quickly backtrack on that assertion when asked about slavery or genocide or rape. Most modern Westerners, liberal or conservative – atheist or Christian – whatever, would assert that it is absolutely (universally) morally wrong to commit genocide or enslave another human being. (However, it is not absolutely wrong to disagree with those assertions.)

The problem, often misconceived by my conservative religious friends is that the modern world has given up on moral absolutes and universal truths. This isn’t true. But something has changed, that is for sure. If you were to ask Martin Luther, or St. Thomas Moore, or Jonathan Edwards to create a list of universal moral truths, that list would be much larger than any modern rendering of the same thing. Perhaps we would find archaic ideas like dancing, drinking alcohol, donating organs, reading non-church approved literature, disagreeing with the Church’s official doctrine, democracy, educating women, etc.

So let’s be honest here. The problem is not that the modern world has given up on moral absolutes. Not at all. In fact, many modern problems are focused on the security of human rights, a cause most modern Americans hold dear (at least in theory). The idea of universal, inherent human rights is, by definition, a moral absolute! No. The problem, here, is that when Mark Driscoll and his ilk roll out their list of moral absolutes and compare it to the list of modern society, their list is much longer. And we reject many things on that list, not only culturally, but in law.

Let’s be more honest. This is really about the fact that conservative Christianity doesn’t like homosexuals. And Muslims. And feminists. And that dislike is veneered with the notion that their god mandates it. Their god not only requires that they, as individuals, not become one of those things, but that they make sure society isn’t a welcoming place for those ideas and those people. They can’t “condone” that behavior. They can’t accept it. They can’t tolerate it because it ought not exist.

And liberals who find virtue in tolerance should be honest. We feel the same way about bigotry. Racism ought not exist. Nor misogyny. Homophobia too. And a myriad other things.

But another main problem with Driscoll’s characterization of tolerance/intolerance is his naivety and complete lack of insight into his own imperfection and frailty. I agree, one of the benefits of lively discussion and dialogue with people who believe differently than we do is a mutual respect for the journey to find moral truth. But that isn’t the only benefit. The other, and perhaps, most important goal is to find ourselves in that other person. To hear the reasons, and understand that different people do exactly what we are doing, trying to find meaning and truth and good even as they arrive at a different answer.

But, we will never know in this life whether what we believe is absolutely true and universally good. The problem today is not that the modern person doesn’t believe in absolute truths, it’s that we don’t believe we can absolutely know if our beliefs are absolutely true. As Paul puts it, it’s like looking in a dim mirror; we only know in part even if one day we will know fully. We want to give as much room for everyone to wrestle with the ideas of morality and goodness as possible without giving them license to injure or hinder another. This requires humility and some modicum of restraint.

So the problem with the conservative Christian moral agenda is not that modern sensibilities disagree with it. By all means, continue believing those things. Let’s talk about them. Let’s talk through them. Help me understand why you believe them and I will do my best to explain why I believe what I believe. But when that speech becomes hurtful, and more importantly, attempts to quarter out a group of our free population to be treated differently – less free, well that just won’t work.

How many times, as kids did we try and use this line: “Hey Dave! You’re ugly and you smell.” “Shut up, Thomas.” “No. It’s a free country.”

That line never worked. Yes. It is free. We are free to say and think what we want. But that doesn’t mean we are free to be jerks. And it doesn’t mean we get to ruin other people’s life with our freedom. That just won’t do.

The Not-So-Great Commission

(This is an old post I wrote when I was an undergraduate. Since then, plenty of my beliefs have changed and evolved, but I still like this piece. Enjoy.)

The Not-So-Great Commission

I have a tiny 4 X 6 Bible. It is black in color.

When you flip through it and look, you will find large numbers signifying "chapters" and smaller numbers signifying "verses." You will also find that apart from these divisions, specific pieces of the text are grouped together under a subtitle in italics. All of these things were not original to the author. They are inventions of whatever company printed my particular Bible.

If you look at Matthew 28:16, most likely, your Bible's subtitle, as well as mine, will read The Great Commission. Now, I don't know who called his words in verses 18-20 the "Great Commission" first, but it wasn't Jesus. In fact, in this specific piece of the text, neither the word "great" nor "commission" are even mentioned. Not by Jesus. Not by the author.
Yet we call it the "Great Commission."

This might not mean much to some people. This might mean the world to others. "So what? We call it that. Big deal." "Of course we call it the 'Great Commission!' This is our holy purpose given by Jesus, for us to go out and make disciples!"

There are several reasons why I think we cling so tightly to Jesus' last recorded words by Matthew and place them on a "Great" pedestal.

1. These words do seem to be a "commission" from Jesus. They are filled with actions words (go, make, baptizing, teaching). By all means, if one was to read Matthew alone, it would appear that these are Jesus' last words, and perhaps even the words he wanted to leave last on the minds of the disciples as they began to build the church on earth.

2. The action asked from Jesus is relatively easy. Meaning, it doesn't ask us for much sacrifice. I know some people would split wide open if they read this, so let me explain. Essentially, this verse has been interpreted as a call to convert. Ever since around the 4th century, doctrine has trumped all other issues determining the definition of a "Christian" and the righteousness of personal piety. As human beings, we tend to congregate and socialize with people that we agree with. This is a widely known and uncontested truth. Basically, we hang out with people like ourselves (Jesus acknowledges this truth in Luke 14:12). The idea of our modern idea of "discipleship" is that we envision converting people to our particular interpretation of the gospel. We teach them our doctrine, essentially creating people that are like us. This, to a bigger scale, creates a church or community that is filled with people like ourselves. The reason why this commission is easy is because it asks us to do something we tend to do normally, that is, congregate around people like ourselves, and change the ones that are not like us to be like us. We do it normally, therefore, it is not really all that sacrificial.

3. We have been seeped in tradition and teaching that tells us that those words are the "Great Commission" and we have had no reason to think of them otherwise.

With all that said, I want to issue a challenge to the greatness of this commission. Let me re-phrase that. I think it is great. I just don't think it is any more great that any of the other great things he said.

Except for the "Great Commandment."

You see, we have dubbed Matthew's commission as great, but both Matthew and Jesus didn't. In fact, if we look at the other gospels, we don't even really see another commission. Mark ends his gospel without even showing Jesus. In fact, the last words of the gospel are about how afraid the women at the tomb are. The gospel of John ends with Jesus rebuking Peter for questioning his decision to not have John martyred. Luke ends his gospel with Jesus telling the disciples to stay in the city. Not exactly a "great commission," huh?

The closest thing we find to the great commission of Matthew is found in Acts, written by Luke. But in Acts, the language is much different. Instead of the commission to go and make disciples, he tells them that the Holy Spirit will come to them and give them power. And they will be witnesses. See, the funny thing here is, the Greek word for witnesses is "martus," which just so happens to be the same word for "martyr." So, essentially, what he tells them is they will be given great power by the Holy Spirit to travel all over the world and die. I don't know, but if I were one of his disciples, I don't think that would sound so great. (Rereading this, I realize I was being a bit dramatic for persuasiveness' sake. I think the word "martus" has more to do with how we live then how we die. This does not, however, negate my point. Jesus commissioning his followers to live in a way that results in either their physical death or putting their personal agendas, lifestyle, comforts, etc. to a metaphorical death isn't exactly the feel good message that people want to label "great". Also, I think Jesus is telling them to put their agenda's to rest. This exchange is loaded with political undercurrents.)

Yet, in the three Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke), we have this one story that centers around a question posed to Jesus about importance or greatness. According to Mark (12:28-34), a Pharisee or Scribe came to Jesus and asked him what the most important commandment was. Jesus replies with the familiar "shema", Love the LORD your God will all you heart/soul/mind/strength (Dt. 6), and to love your neighbor as yourself (Lev. 19:18). What is so cool is that after Jesus says the two, he says, "There is no commandment greater than these" (v.31b).

Wow. It is as if to say, "No matter what you read, see, think, or hear beyond this point, these are the most important or greatest commandments ever recorded in history."(Again, perhaps a bit hyperbolic for persuasiveness' sake. Jesus' words speak well enough on their own, I think, and really don't need another interpretation from me.)

See, John didn't include this conversation in his gospel though. But what is cool is that he includes something else that Jesus said that is like this that the other gospels didn't include (this seems to be a trend John has - writing about the things the Synoptic authors left out). In John's account (13:34-35), Jesus says, "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."

The context is cool for this part in John. Jesus is talking to his followers, specifically the twelve he called, and he is telling them that he is leaving. He is going to go away from them. Then he lays that new command down on them. It is like he is saying, "You have followed me, but now I am going away. When I leave, this is what I want you to do: Love each other like I love you." This is a commission. I will repeat that because you probably read it and missed its importance. This is a commission. He is saying, "I am going away, and the job I leave for you is to love."

So in three gospels, we have Jesus saying the greatest thing is for us to love God and love people. Then, in the last gospel, we have Jesus saying that he wants us to love people the same way God loves us. (This is of course assuming Trinitarian dogma. If you don't, then “love people the same way Jesus loves us.”)

So, how did we get so mixed up? See, all three of these commandments are united under a common theme. Love. Love. He doesn't say anything about doctrine or believing a certain thing or who's right and who's wrong. He doesn't even say anything about teaching anything to anyone else. He just simply says to love. And in doing so, he defines discipleship for us. He says that if we love the way he loves, then we are his disciples and everyone will know it. Not if we graduate from a class, or go through a four-step plan of discipleship. Not if we believe all the correct doctrine and condemn all the heresies. Not even if we know how to defend all our beliefs with hard evidence. But if we love like he did.

Without that definition, we can't even understand the "Great Commission." When he says, "Go and make disciples," he is saying to go and love people like I have loved you until they learn to love other people the way I love them. "Return the favor." In a pop culture language, "Pay it forward."

So again, I say, how did we get so mixed up? According to Jesus' definition of discipleship, I know some Buddhists that are better disciples of Jesus than Christians. I know some people that don't even believe Jesus existed that are better disciples of Jesus than Christians. How did we get so mixed up?

With that, may we stop converting and creating people like ourselves. May we stop cultivating a religion based on doctrine and correct beliefs. May we stop shrinking the gospel message to a pamphlet of orthodox faith created by a small group of modern thinkers. Instead, may we allow Jesus to tell us what is "Great" and then follow that commission without a second glance back. May we understand that love wins and is the greatest and most important thing for us to do. May we turn the hearts of nations back to God by the way we love our neighbors just as God loved us. May we simply love first. May we love like it is the greatest thing for us to do. May we love like Jesus commanded us to. May we become authentic disciples of Jesus, and in turn learn to make disciples in every corner of the earth because we loved them.