An Inclusive Rather Than Exclusive Approach to Love, and God

(Photo by Jim Buie, circa 2002, of eleven 6-year-old boys and girls preparing to play soccer and feeling inclusive towards each other.)

Some religious believers take an exclusive approach, asserting that you have to share doctrines and beliefs, sometimes very specific doctrines and beliefs. They would exclude agnostics, atheists, and followers of other religions. Making such judgments, as a minister I knew asserted in response to questions, “is above my paygrade.”

I John 4:7-21 takes an inclusive, even universalist approach:

“Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit…”

The writer goes on to ask (in 4:20) how we can claim to love or worship a God who we have not seen, and yet disdain or hate our fellow humans who we have seen? (Different translations.)