Love

Jim Burt: “You may recall that during his 2016 campaign, Trump at one point attempted to establish his Christian bona fides by referring hilariously to ‘Two Corinthians.’  Despite his open and obvious immorality, he seems to have established himself as the darling of white evangelicals in the U.S.  Franklin Graham and Falwell Junior are among his acolytes.  One of the biblical passages one never hears them quote is from what Trump would call ‘One Corinthians’ — specifically I Corinthians 13, attributed to Paul.  It’s beautiful, profound, and anathema to people of the Graham/Falwell/Trump persuasion, though I suspect Graham’s father Billy thought more highly of it.”

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned,[a] but have not love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;[b] 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

“The original was in Greek, but it passed through Latin on its way to us, and the Latin word used for love in the passage was not ‘amor’ but ‘caritas,’ the root of our word ‘charity.’  It means ‘caring love,’ or perhaps ‘loving care.'”

“Sort of says it all, doesn’t it?”

→ Amen.

Here is Franklin Graham this month leading “Pray for Trump” day.  (Not as in: pray for his long-lost soul; but, incredibly, pray that he prevails.)

And here is the story, if you missed it, of how Jerry Falwell, Jr. came to endorse Trump.  It had nothing to do with love or Jesus (though possibly with lust).