Current Issues

The above photo of the “Current Issues” shelf in a Christian bookstore was shared online. The titles deserve a close look.

The apocalypse? The occult? Islam? World religions?

None of these things is new. I suppose all of them can be said to be “current.” But it seems as though they are all issues that Christians ought to have learned how to deal with at least a millennium ago.

The same can be said, of course, about hunger, poverty, and perhaps even sexual orientation. None of these matters ought to be considered genuinely new challenges for the church – unless we either neglected to remember past wrestling with them, or failed to seize the opportunities provided century after century in the past.

I wonder what would happen if the current focus of Christians, whether conservative, moderate, or liberal, turned towards loving our neighbor, and even our enemy.

How many of the things that are made the focus of inordinate amounts of attention would be seen in a different perspective as a result?

Loving others is always a current issue. Could the case be made that, for Christians, it is – or should be – the only current issue, or at least the issue to which all other issues are subordinated?