The Purpose of Life is Love

This post is the third in my series on the 4-Ls. (Those of you who didn’t see the previous posts or want to review them can click here for the March 9 post and here for the one on March 30.)

The second of the 4-Ls is love, and the title of this article comes from the following words by Leo Tolstoy:

The purpose of life is loving, the penetration of everything with love. It is the slow and gradual change from evil to good, it is the creation of the real life, the life filled with love (A Calendar of Wisdom, p. 249). 

As I began teaching Christian Studies in Japan, I soon realized that most of my students were not only quite disinterested in Christianity but that they were also not much interested in traditional Japanese religions either.

Many students, however, were interested in thinking about the meaning of life (the first of the 4-Ls) and of love.

Few of my students had ever heard of or knew little about  Kagawa Toyohiko, a Japanese Christian. But the life and work of Kagawa (1888~1960), who obviously lived a life of love for others, was appealing to many of them.*¹

And while many students were negative toward the racism they knew existed in the U.S., which they generally regarded as a Christian country, they were impressed by the life and work of Martin Luther King, Jr., and by his book Strength to Love (1963; Japanese translation, 1965).*²

So, I focused increasingly on how Christianity had been, and is being, expressed in loving actions and less on the doctrinal expressions of the Christian religion.

Understanding the distinctively Christian meaning of love is of great importance. In English, “love” is used in many different ways. For example, a man may say he loves his wife at one time and then in a different conversation say he loves ice cream.

C.S. Lewis, the English writer and popular theologian, sought to clarify that diversity in his widely-read book Four Loves (1960). One of those four was called agape in the Greek New Testament, and that word articulates the particularly Christian form of love.

The word “love” is not used as much in Japanese as in English. Rather than the word for love (愛、ai), Japanese people are more prone to say like (好きsuki) or really like (大好き、daisuki). But to emphasize the distinctive meaning of agape as used in the New Testament, I used holy love（聖愛、seiai).

Here is how that is written in Japanese calligraphy on the hanging wall scroll I introduced in the March 9 blog post: 

 The basis of Christian love is God’s love for us, but I am writing here only about our love for others, or the lack thereof.*³

In the Gospels, Jesus stated clearly that following the commandment “Love the Lord your God…,” the second greatest commandment is “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:30-31, NIV).

This is a commandment, though, that is definitely difficult to obey. How often do we really love our “neighbor” as much as we love ourselves? And remember that Jesus taught that a neighbor is any hurting/needy person who we have the opportunity to help (see Luke 10:25~37).

Some of the “Church Fathers” spoke plainly, and challengingly, about such neighbor-love. Consider these words of Basil of Caesarea (330~370):

The bread in your cupboard belongs to the hungry man; the coat hanging in your closet belongs to the man who needs it; the shoes rotting in your closet belong to the man who has no shoes; the money which you put into the bank belongs to the poor. You do wrong to everyone you could help but fail to help.

I am not sharing these disturbing words to make us feel guilty, as perhaps we all are. But if the purpose of life is loving, as Tolstoy wrote, seeking to love God and to love our neighbors is, truly, the key to experiencing life to the fullest.

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*¹ Here is a link to the blog article I posted about Kagawa in July 2013.

*² The first of several blog posts about King was in January 2010. I also wrote about his explanation regarding Christian love in a September 2018 post, in which I also made reference to chapters #22 and #25 in my book Thirty True Things Everyone Needs to Know Now (published in 2020).

*³ Earlier this week, I  posted a brief article about the hymn “The Love of God” on my alternative blogsite, and I encourage you to read it by clicking here.

But What About Biden’s Support of Israel?

There are several reasons why President Biden’s re-election as POTUS is uncertain despite the undesirability of his only real opponent. In this post, I am dealing with only one of those, which is the main reason some people, including some of my Thinking Friends, say they cannot vote for Biden. 

Pres. Biden contemplating what to do about Gaza.

Why is Pres. Biden supporting Israel so strongly? This is a question many people, especially younger people, in the U.S. are asking. And most of those asking that question are quite critical of the President because of that support.

In contrast to Lord Tennyson’s well-known words, “Theirs not to reason why, / Theirs but to do and die,” concerning Israel’s retaliation against Hamas and the U.S. President’s support of that warfare, it is incumbent upon us to ask the reason why—and to ask why so many Palestinians have had to die.

The attack on Israel by Hamas on October 7, 2023, was an atrocious event, one not unfairly compared with the September 11, 2001, attack on the U.S. True, the deaths on 10/7 were around 40% of those on 9/11—but the population of Israel is only about 3% that of the U.S.

Do you remember the reaction of the U.S. government to those horrendous attacks on 9/11/01? On October 7 (in a remarkable coincidence of dates), the U.S. officially launched Operation Enduring Freedom against Afghanistan.

In that war which ended on August 30, 2021—an ending for which Biden has also often been strongly criticized—at least 175,000 (and probably far more) people were killed, including more than 46,000 civilians.

If that is how the U.S. first responded to 9/11 even though the attackers were not Afghans, it is not surprising that Israel responded with strong military action against Gaza, where most of the Hamas terrorists lived.

Support of Israel has been U.S. policy since 1948 when Israel became a nation, and the U.S. under Pres. Truman was the first to recognize that new nation, and this country has been Israel’s primary ally ever since.

Israel has been the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign aid since its founding, receiving about $300 billion (adjusted for inflation) in total economic and military assistance.

What else could Pres. Biden do but stand by an old ally? As I wrote in my blog post on Dec. 21 last year,

I don’t think Biden’s position is any different from what any other President’s would be, including Hillary Clinton (who could well have been nearing the end of her seventh year as President if it had not been for her inexplicable loss in 2016).

Near Election Day in 2016 when I thought Clinton’s election was assured, I wrote “an open letter to Madame President.” Among other things, I implored her to ease up on her support for Israel in order to lessen the injustice being done to the Palestinians.

Pres. Biden’s support of Israel has lessened over the months since last October, and his support for humanitarian aid for Gaza has increased notably.

Four weeks ago, Senator Schumer (D-N.Y.), the highest-ranking Jewish official in the U.S. and a staunch ally of Israel, gave a powerful speech criticizing Prime Minister Netanyahu and called for new elections in Israel, for if held now, Netanyahu would most likely not be re-elected.

Pres. Biden praised Schumer’s speech. In contrast, it was also widely reported that leading Republican lawmakers were quite critical of it. U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said the U.S. needs to stand with Israel and give its friend and ally its full support.

What would happen if Trump were President? Two weeks ago, Trump said he would have responded the same way as Israel did after the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas but urged the country to “finish up” its offensive in Gaza and “get this over with.”*¹

On that same day, “U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg, a Republican from Michigan who used to serve as a Baptist pastor, suggested at a town hall meeting during Holy Week that the Gaza Strip should be nuked.”*²

I certainly wish Pres. Biden—and the U.S. government—had a far less supportive position toward Israel and a far greater humanitarian position toward Gaza.

Hearing what Trump and the Republicans are saying, though, why would anyone think voting for them rather than Biden would be better for the Palestinians?*³

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 *¹ This was widely reported in the news media; here is the link to what the Associated Press wrote.

*² Here is how my friend Brian Kaylor, president & editor-in-chief of Word&Way, continued, citing Walberg: “‘We shouldn’t be spending a dime on humanitarian aid,’ [Walberg] declared on March 25 after a constituent asked about the U.S. effort to build a port to deliver humanitarian aid to starving people in Gaza. ‘It should be like Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Get it over quick.’” (Word&Way is a Christian [Baptist] media company based in Missouri since 1896.) 

*³ Please note my contention in the March 20 post that not voting or voting for a third party candidate, especially in swing states, increases the likelihood that Trump will be re-elected.