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Christianity Today, July (Web-only), 2009 |

SPEAKING OUT

Why You Can't Just 'Love Your Neighbor'

According to Benedict XVI's new encyclical, trying to love people without knowing the truth about them leads to mere sentiment and will do them harm.

Francis J. Beckwith | posted 7/10/2009 10:56AM

Editor's note: On Tuesday of this week, Pope Benedict XVI issued "Charity in Truth," a new encyclical or general letter to the Roman Catholic Christians around the world. Popes use encyclical letters ...

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Jonah

Posted: July 20, 2009 8:42 PM


Great article! Pope Benedict God Bless you!

James

Posted: July 14, 2009 11:29 AM

In "a magazine of Evangelical conviction," an article by a convert to Catholicism about a papal encyclical. Cool, but it seems to only further deepens my view that we ("evangelical - whatever that means - Christians") continue our legacy of what should really be called "Cafeteria Christianity." If we are truly Protest-ants, why any articles about the thoughts of the Pope...UNLESS there are also articles about the thoughts of the Dalai Lama (and maybe there have been such articles?) and other religious leaders around the world to whom we claim no submission or allegiance. I love this pope (The "German Shepherd"), I loved JPII. In my opinion, they are/were wise and holy men...and, like many others, I'm coming to see that they rightly sit on the seat of Peter, as ordained by God (maybe Beckwith's conversion is rubbing off on us). What the Pope writes SHOULD have zero bearing on true Protest-ors, er, uh, "-ants". Then again, maybe Protest-ing isn't a Christ-like attribute after all?

David Scott

Posted: July 12, 2009 6:56 PM

Although, I personally am so far to the left that even the democrats appear to me to be "right-wing," I consider myself to be a strict constitutionalist. It is my opinion that since its inception there has been an organized and systematic assault by the conservatives in the United States on the civil liberties written into the US Constitution. The “War on Drugs”; “War on Terror”; “War on Communism” and a host of other wars waged by the right wing are really nothing more than a War on People--an excuse to erode civil rights to the point of non-existence. I invite you to my website devoted to raising awareness on this puritan attack on freedom: http://pltcldscsn.blogspot.com/

Yehoshua Ya'acov

Posted: July 11, 2009 2:35 PM

The Pope though well intended, has need to come to Jerusalem and sit at the feet of our Sages and learn. What? God's truth, is NOT man's truth. And too 'truth' is "the INFORMATION that never changes (in finality) changing (in intentionality)." And most significantly, that man's exile has ended and he's as yet unaware of this. What he's supposed to be teaching catholics is to "accept" this fact in order to INHABIT it in mind and authentic identity. His view of the required "socail doctrine" of the church, largely derives from Paul VI and John XXIII, while its methods and execution are reasonable though lacking history and events "central organizing principle." He attended a World Religious Leaders Conference in Jerusalem in Feb/1994 when we both attended and I was attacked violently as I entered the hall, was beaten (by seven cowards) and arrested by Israel's secret police to prevent me from speaking or presenting my views, on Humanomics(sm) and its central organizing principle. YY

John G.

Posted: July 11, 2009 7:18 AM

Some good thoughts. But I find it especially interesting that the Pope says that the Church should not "interfere in any way in the politics of States." Is this a reversal from centuries of Vatican interference in political matters? Granted that we've come a long way from the days when popes used to crown European heads of state. Still, I have to wonder exactly what Benedict was thinking when he wrote that particular line. (That being said, I hope that the Pope did tell Obama how wrong his policies are on many issues. That's not interference; that's telling the Truth with charity.)

dewaine

Posted: July 10, 2009 9:52 PM

The Christian liberty described in this article is not a stumbling block to the freedom defended by Ludwig von Mises; on the contrary, the only way to freedom -- the submission of the will to be obedient to God's commandments -- is to permit the individual to choose to be obedient. The use of the State to enforce charity, for example, by taxation, removes much of the blessing and divinity in personally choosing to to give alms. For this reason, the State is actually a sort of Civil Religion; the State's edicts remove the individual from the blessing of obedience to divine commandments and replaces it with a legal requirement, enforced by jail or death (if fully resisted). The decision to follow Christ is replaced by a requirement to avoid jail and deaths.

stan baldwin

Posted: July 10, 2009 6:21 PM


Makes sense to me. Especially needed in the me first, me only, mentality prevalent in the United Sates among too many evangelicals with regard to how they think society should be governed.

alanps

Posted: July 10, 2009 12:01 PM


Thank you for this - very interesting indeed. I am not a Roman Catholic, but find a lot to agree with in this letter.

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