{"id":42363,"date":"2014-03-17T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-03-17T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/human-love-has-become-our-new-god\/"},"modified":"2014-03-17T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2014-03-17T00:00:00","slug":"human-love-has-become-our-new-god","status":"publish","type":"sermon-illustrations","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/human-love-has-become-our-new-god\/","title":{"rendered":"Human Love Has Become Our New &#8220;God&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the book <em class=\"citation\">Love: A History<\/em>, Yale scholar Simon May calls human love our &quot;new god.&quot; In his chapter &quot;Love plays God&quot; May writes: &quot;Human love &hellip; is now tasked with achieving what once only divine love was thought capable of: to be our ultimate source of meaning and happiness.&quot; May contends that we&#39;ve changed the Bible&#39;s statement &quot;God is love&quot; to &quot;love is god.&quot; Here are some of the core beliefs for this new &quot;religion of love&quot;:<\/p>\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\t<li>Human love is the universal form of salvation available to all of us.<\/li>\n\n\t<li>We don&#39;t need &quot;long and disciplined training&quot; to learn how to love because most of us can love spontaneously and without effort.<\/li>\n\n\t<li>Human love is always benevolent and harmonious&mdash;a haven of peace.<\/li>\n\n\t<li>Human love transports us beyond the messy imperfections of the everyday world into a superior state of purity and perfection.<\/li>\n\n\t<li>Human love delivers us from all of life&#39;s losses and sufferings.<\/li>\n\n<\/ul>\n\n<p>May writes, &quot;These sorts of ideas saturate popular culture &hellip; To its immense cost, human love has usurped a role that only God&#39;s love used to play.&quot;<\/p>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[],"tax_ctp_authors":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_format":[171],"tax_ctp_illustration_types":[411],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_tags":[3726,3819,3951,4206,4207,4395,4400,5180],"tax_ctp_topics":[],"class_list":["post-42363","sermon-illustrations","type-sermon-illustrations","status-publish","hentry","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-culture","tax_ctp_tags-divine-love","tax_ctp_tags-false-gods","tax_ctp_tags-idolatry","tax_ctp_tags-idols","tax_ctp_tags-love","tax_ctp_tags-love-of-god","tax_ctp_tags-transcendence-of-god"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - 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