"God Is Love?" In THIS Economy?

There’s an argument—or a conversation, if you prefer—that I’ve seen play out in church spaces more times than I can count. It’s always the same. You have two church people disagreeing about something, and their disagreement boils down to "people vs. doctrine. "They go back and forth politely on the subject for a while. You watch a strange, troubled expression begin to cross the "people" person's face while the "doctrine" person elucidates some doctrinal point. (Always a doctrinal point.)

Now, at this point, the "people" person (let's call them Kind Karen, for kicks and giggles) musters their reply. And it's almost invariably some variation of “God is love.”

And that’s when it happens.

Dave Doctrine’s whole demeanor changes. He’s been preparing for this moment. He’s spent his entire Christian life training for it, studying, debating, practicing his arguments. He's been discipled to believe that his job as a Christian is to "believe correct," and like anyone who's trying really really hard to be good, he's thrown himself into study and practice and preparation to Believe Correctly.

And he's been told that there are a great many people out there, including (and sometimes especially) people who also call themselves Christians, who are trying to undermine his Believing Correctly with their Being Wrong. Dave Doctrine has been reliably informed that Those People Over There aren't really Christians, because [insert 2nd-tier issue here]. And that means they're trying to undermine The Truth. Part of Believing Correctly means defending The Truth, so Dave Doctrine is gonna DO IT.

That's not because Dave Doctrine is a bad guy. Dave Doctrine could probably be an absolute sweetheart, a hyperfocused autistic king ready to joyfully spill about the migration habits of African swallows, and do it in ways that will bring us all to astounded tears. But instead, he's been told that The Very Fate Of His Soul rests partially upon his ability to Defend The Faith, and therefore, Dave Doctrine is prepared to ruthlessly excise every single example of Being Wrong in his vicinity.

Now, to Dave Doctrine, "God is love" sounds too easy, too soft, too simplistic. It sounds wrong. It sounds naive. His interlocutor has not said a word about the realities of sin, death, and judgment. It's not taking Jesus nearly seriously enough.

And Dave Doctrine is very serious about following Jesus. But he doesn't know how. His earnest faith has been turned into a hurtling missile armed and ready to explode in a spiritual sibling's life. He is about to open his mouth and slander YHWH. And it (mostly) won't be his fault.

Dave responds to Kind Karen, just like he’s been trained to do: “Well, you have to have God's definition of love. You can’t define love the way the world defines love. God is also a god of wrath [or you can insert your favorite theological word for 'angry about evil' here].”

At first, it sounds reasonable. After all, Christianity does make a distinction between the church and the world. God does make it clear that he hates evil.

But here’s the thing: this entire framing is deeply flawed, and it's messing people up something fierce.

1. Love, the Lesser Virtue

Dave doesn’t realize it, but he’s just set up a false dichotomy: Dave's got this notion that, 1. there is God’s love, which includes wrath, justice, and holiness for some awful reason.And then, 2. there’s the world’s love, which apparently means “letting people do whatever they want.”

It’s an absurd argument (and one that Karen was never even thinking of making), for several reasons. First of all, the world doesn’t define love that way—except—

[A BRIEF PAUSE FOR THIS PROBABLY UNHELPFUL INCLUSIO] —a certain subset of Right-Wing Evangelicals. After all, I seem to recall some quite publicly holy folks being remarkably laissez-faire about things like:- Locker room talk- Adulterous affairs with porn stars- Open cocaine use- Sexual assault

And yet, those same folks rage at any form of justice or accountability when it comes their way. They don’t actually have a problem with “doing whatever you want.” They only have a problem when the wrong people do it, and their 'gospel' is shown to be a blasphemous absurdity thereby.

[AND THE INCLUSIO ENDS HERE; WE NOW RETURN TO HELPFUL CONTENT]

But here’s the real issue: the world doesn’t “define” love at all. I mean, we could start with the fact that the cosmos is incredibly varied and at no point in human history has 'the world' agreed on a definition of love because, well, that's kind of been a big part of the problem since the start. But let's take the biblical tack: the world doesn't define love at all because the world doesn’t know what love is.

You know what? Context is clarifying. Let's get the full quote:

“Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” (1 John 4:8)

Dave doesn’t realize it, but when he makes love sound dangerous, incomplete, or lesser, he slanders the very nature of God. Ironically enough, he's showing that he doesn't know much about love. Or God.

2. Wrath Is Not an Attribute of God

Not that this hasn't become apparent at this point, but here's the real problem: Doctrine Dave doesn’t actually know enough doctrine. (This is a common problem among those possessed of his all-too-routine affliction.)

If he did, he’d know that you don’t pit God’s attributes against each other. Love and justice, mercy and holiness—they are not in competition. Besides, we have several hundred years of history in ecumenical councils establishing that setting God's attributes up against one another ends badly every. single. time.

But more importantly, Dave has absorbed an idea that is, in the immortal words of the greatest philosopher of our age (according to my husband) Spongebob Squarepants, A LOAD OF BARNACLES.

WRATH IS NOT AN ATTRIBUTE OF GOD.

Wrath is not intrinsic to God’s nature. God is love. God is holy. God is just.

But God is not wrath.

Wrath is something God expresses in response to injustice. It is a reaction—not a core part of who He is. And it's a reaction we're grateful for because it's the same reaction we have when we are forced to lay eyes upon yet another moral catastrophe. Wrath. It's that furious rage, that "how could they??" reaction that we so often have when we open up the news of a morning.

Wrath is why Christians hope: not because Christians believe God's wrath exists to destroy our enemies, but because YHWH knows how to apply wrath in such a way that evil is destroyed, but good is preserved. In other words, even when YHWH's expressing wrath (that weaponized word), it's being done through the much more fundamental attribute that is love.

Love is eternal. Wrath is temporary. Love is a defining characteristic of God. Wrath is a tool God uses in a broken world.

So when Dave tries to “correct” Kind Karen by saying, “Well, love isn’t the whole picture. God is also wrath,” he’s actually making a genuinely blasphemous claim: that for God, rage is an innate part of who He is.

Ahem.

3. The Weaponization of Doctrine

It’s easy to make fun of Dave. But the truth is, Dave has been failed.

His church tradition trained him to see every theological discussion as a battle—one in which he must be ready to fight. It trained him to see his siblings as his enemies instead of brothers and sisters to be loved, and his enemies as demonic forces instead of, erm, humans to be loved.

Dave has been discipled in fear. He was taught that there is always an existential threat to the church. He was warned that Christians with different spiritual vocabularies might be wolves in sheep’s clothing. He was trained to value being right more than to embody love taking action.

So when Kind Karen says, “God is love,” Dave doesn’t hear a beautiful truth about God’s nature. He hears a threat—something that sounds too easy, too weak, too inclusive.

And because he loves God, and because he truly wants to be faithful, Dave has been conditioned to push back. He doesn’t realize that in doing so, he is pushing against God Himself.

And in that sense, he's doomed.

Here’s where the American institutional church has failed both Dave and Karen: it has treated doctrine like a set of correct answers, rather than a way to know and love YHWH. It has treated YHWH like a rubric to be studied instead of a person to be loved. It has treated Jesus's message like a law to be followed, rather than news to be joyfully disseminated, and lived in light of.

Doctrine Dave was trained to be right. He was never trained to be Christlike.

Kind Karen was encouraged to be kind. But she was never given a theological framework strong enough to stand up to someone like Dave.

Both of them deserved better. And so do we.

4. No Disclaimers

So let's get fresh on a few really simple, foundational ideas.

✨ God is love. Full stop. ✨ Love is not weak. It is the strongest thing in the universe. ✨ Love does not excuse harm. It transforms evildoers. ✨ Love is not at odds with justice. It demands justice, and gets it.

We live in a moment when enemy-love is once again coming to be seen as weak foolishness—not just by the Religious Right, but by the Progressive Left, too.

It will be tempting to join the ranks of Doctrine Daves and Commentary Catherines, policing borders and making sure only the right kind of people are included in our definitions of love.

But love is not afraid of being taken advantage of. It keeps no record of wrong.

Love is not concerned with appearing strong. It is not self-seeking.

Love doesn’t need a disclaimer. Love is kind.

GOD IS LOVE.

[p.s. no dave, i'm not saying 'love is god,' for heaven's sake take a nap or something]

To her who has ears, let her hear.