God: God is love. John IV, 8. Love: An expression of the communion between persons. Thomas Merton Neighbor: One whom we are commanded to love as ourselves, and who does all he knows to make us disobedient. Ambrose Bierce Christians cannot be very smugly conservative as they like or tend to think they can. Too often we see where they confuse “approval” with “love.” For example, Christians don’t approve of alcoholism, fornication, lying, stealing, and a multitude of other sins written and unwritten, big or little. Of course they don’t and no one expects them to; but, what’s worse, they don’t even “love” the sinner. They disapprove of the sinner and even go so far as to develop an intense animosity toward her/him. This is bad. Why? Because this animosity against sinners goes against the words of the Son of Man, Christ Jesus, as well as against God, Himself, whom we are taught and told is love. So, these “Christians” of animosity get a double whammy, so to speak, or they bring upon themselves a double curse (How this contrasts with the ‘double cure’ in the hymn ‘Rock of Ages.’). We can say, therefore, that these Christians’ lack of “love” for the sinner will seriously jeopardize their desired “good standing” in the eyes of Providence. This is because we know from Scripture that those who do not learn to forgive will not be forgiven. Logic along the same thought line tells us that those who do not LEARN to love, and this includes loving “undesirables” if they are among our “neighbors,” will likewise not be the subjects or “receivers” of dutiful, divine love. Of course this refers to Judgement Day and not beforehand just as it also refers to those who, upon that Day, did not “learn” either to forgive or to “love thy neighbor” (saint or sinner). Here, the key word is LEARN. For those who come up short, it’s not a very pleasant scenario. In truth, I’m personally glad we have “death” because it is so democratic. It is a sort of imposition that acts as a leveler, leveling all of us off. In some ways it is the realization of imminent death that causes/persuades/forces us, finally, to learn to love. In another piece of writing, I ask if you can imagine a Hitler or similar murderer at 150 or 200 years old! I hope this article makes a bit of sense. Thank you for reading if you got this far and cheers.