Love Only Fails When We Fail to Love

I’m sometimes asked, “Why did you take the job at Claremont?” I had just taken retirement from a long career in higher education. And the last 20 years of that time was spent in university libraries, not seminaries. So why take on leadership of a theological school?

The answer is simple: I’m a follower of Jesus.

As far back as I can remember, I was taught that to be a good Christian meant following the words of Jesus: love God and love your neighbor, above all else. It seems simple enough, until you get into the details of what it means to love and then figure out exactly who our neighbors are.

Our new Website at Claremont School of Theology riffs on the Pauline passage that love “always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails” (I Corinthians 13). This makes love more than a feeling or a posture of tolerance or acceptance. Love, if it’s to be considered as such, must have effects. It must be active in the world. As the new Website says, “It must do something. Love must change something,”

This puts “loving our neighbors” in a slightly different light, doesn’t it? It’s difficult to love our neighbors from afar. We must know them, understand them, eat with them, laugh with them, and work with them in order to love them. Love only fails when we fail to love. But whom do we consider our neighbors to be?

Here in Claremont, our neighbors span the religious landscape of Southern California. Within a five-mile radius, our religious neighbors include a synagogue, two mosques, a Vedic temple, two Buddhist monasteries, a Unitarian congregation, and a Quaker meeting ... not to mention the wide variety of Christian communities, ranging from the Assemblies of God to the Antiochian Orthodox Church to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Neighbors they are, one and all. And those of us who are followers of Jesus are called to love them, one and all.

In coming months, you’ll hear more about what we at Claremont have been calling the “new CST.” This summer, a task force of faculty, administrators, students and trustees identified how Claremont can best support leaders in church and society in light of our 21st century neighbors. Our involvement with Claremont Lincoln University Consortium is also pressing us to be more articulate than ever before about our commitment to the church and the future of the faith.

But at the heart of Claremont School of Theology will be our commitment to loving our God and loving our neighbors ... one and all.