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Violet has a post here that I wasn’t going to respond to, but in a perfect confluence of events, I find myself compelled to.

It’s somewhat amusing to me, but  for recreation I often visit the churchian manosphere and try to convince them that love is a real thing in the world. I probably don’t need to explain that this often goes over like a ton of bricks. As in, hell hath no fury like a bunch of men who don’t believe in love anymore.

Honestly I am as gentle as possible, although the words “pig headed” and “theologically unsound” may have recently escaped my fingers. And the words, “banned for life”  may have escaped theirs.

Are my misadventures self serving? Perhaps, as in dog gone it, I have struggled to love Christ’s people,  other people, no matter what their brokenness and wounding,  and so must all others who claim His name! It’s only fair! I am sorry, (no not really) but one simply cannot believe that love is nothing more than a chemical soup of hormonal activity related to vague evo/psych theories having to to do with evolution. That is simply unacceptable! It reminds of me of the Gong Show, in the back of my mind I hear that gong being struck, telling you to stop, just stop the nonsense…

Violet, you would fit in so well there, these are so called Christian men that  would agree with everything in your post!  Ai yi yi… And Dudes! You are agreeing with ideas first put in place by  Richard Dawkins. What is wrong with that picture??

Back to Violet’s post however, I don’t disagree with everything she’s said there nor do I wish to mock her. Her perspective is cynical and somewhat nihilistic, but cynicism is a special kind of wisdom. Let me just address a couple of points,

“When I was younger, I was obsessed with love. I wanted to find ‘the one’ and spend the rest of my life in utter bliss with this perfect match.”

I found that kind of love, although the “perfect part” would never have worked on account of the fact that I am not perfect myself. Utter bliss, yes often, a kind of bliss that springs  from gratitude, as in I am so  blessed to have found  a soul mate as imperfect as I am. Our broken bits fit together  well.

“Why does no-one write a best-selling book and film about a teenager discovering that the hormones that make them crave this magical bonding are only there because we’re animals who have to breed to survive?”

You seem to have left out the part about grown ups, no longer teen agers, no longer trying “to breed to survive,” who simply enjoy each other’s company. Also, you’ve left out all the other forms of love, the non sexual, the sacrificial, the brotherly! What is it with our modern day obsession with teenagers? Why has no one written about a teenager’s hormonal wisdom? Well, perhaps because teenagers are dumber than a box of rocks…. I know I certainly was.

Let’s ask our 90 year olds to write about love. Let’s allow those who have sacrificed all, to preach to us about  how love is nothing more than an oxytocin bliss hit or a breeding strategy.

I have studied that four letter word, “love” for half a century now and I still don’t understand it. I do know that, Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. That’s the kind of love that might be called anti-breeding, anti-evolutionary, and certainly can’t be explained away by  oxytocin or hormones.

This may well sound crazy, but the things that are wrong in our world today are not being caused by too much love. We are not suffering from a plague of romantic love, nor does there appear to be an excess of forgiveness, mercy, and charity in the world. What is  happening  is more along the lines of trying to separate and compartmentalize ourselves, to create disunity and division, and to disconnect from any spiritual aspect of our lives.