{"id":85388,"date":"2019-10-10T14:40:58","date_gmt":"2019-10-10T18:40:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=85388"},"modified":"2019-10-10T17:48:58","modified_gmt":"2019-10-10T21:48:58","slug":"psephizo-ian-paul-interviews-patrick-mitchel-what-does-love-really-mean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=85388","title":{"rendered":"(Psephizo) Ian Paul interviews Patrick Mitchel–What does \u2018love\u2019 really mean?"},"content":{"rendered":"

What do you think are the major issues in the way that love is (mis)understood in contemporary culture?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Today love has become virtually a religion in the West \u2013 an all-embracing belief system that answers questions of ultimate purpose. The reasons behind love\u2019s exaltation are well described German sociologists Ulrich Beck and Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim:<\/p>\n

Love is glorified largely because it represents a sort of refuge in the chilly environment of our affluent, impersonal, uncertain society, stripped of its traditions and scarred by all kinds of risk . . . weighed down by expectations and frustrations, \u2018love\u2019 is the new centre round which our detraditionalised life revolves.<\/a>[1]<\/sup><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So love, in itself becomes what life is all about. The \u2018shape\u2019 of that love will tend to be universalist and inclusive, almost a type of liberation theology, freeing people to be themselves. The philosopher Simon May has an incisive analysis of the high expectations that love now carries:<\/p>\n

the more individualistic we become the more we expect love to be a secular journey for the soul, a final source of meaning and freedom, a supreme standard of value, a key to the problem of identity, a solace in the face of rootlessness, a desire for the worldly and simultaneously a desire to transcend it, a redemption from suffering, and, a promise of eternity. Or all of these at once.<\/a>[2]<\/sup><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A key idea here is the anthropological optimism at the heart of much modern love. By this I mean how love is assumed to be within easy reach of anyone with little cost to the self. Yet this is a recent development and is far removed from how love is understood within Scripture and Christian tradition.<\/p>\n

Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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The academic position has been filled by Dr. Patrick Mitchel. He will take up a new role of Lecturer in Theology. pic.twitter.com\/9UYRc5iOOI<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 IrishBibleInstitute (@IrishbibleInst) April 18, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n