[NOTE: This item expresses the views of the individual to whom the item is ascribed and does not necessarily reflect the position of the WRF as a whole.]   

ABD is the saddest abbreviation there is. What if someone is sure that they have the gifts and calling to be a high-level teacher and so go after their doctorate, get through the courses and the stiff exam (in Germany the Rigorosum!), but never get their dissertation accepted?

Then that’s their identity forever after, All But Dissertation. The Dutch say drs., doctorandus, looks more distinguished but it’s not quite doctor either. A true academic doctor does original research of a high order, and some can but many can’t, ABD. Now and then I see someone’s resume where they put that in, PhD ABD. So they almost got it done and think that’s memorable?

I played some baseball. I was pretty fair. A good fielder, better at 2nd but did 3rd OK. A good runner, fast and could get the jump. A pretty good hitter, at least with fast balls, just a little late. I tried to handle curves. The ball comes right at you and you have a split/split second to decide, will it break over the plate or hit you. I just couldn’t do that, could do everything else but hit the curve. So I was ABHC. I contributed, in practice got to go after the foul balls.

What name should we put on our calling as followers of Jesus Christ? What about ABL, All But Love? Is that a good enough identity? We know about 1 Corinthians 13, no matter how many great things you do, if it’s without love it’s worthless trash.

But the problem is that liberals talk so much about love. They aren’t ready to even think about a holy God and his wrath against sinners, and his pouring out that wrath against Jesus on the cross. Divine child abuse, they call it. Instead they believe in a god of love, they say. It sounds as if they love him so much that they don’t accept what he says about himself. They have no interest in the depth of love that our merciful God gives us, that he loves us so much that for us he set aside his love for his Beloved Son.

That’s why we think we need to stay away from all that love talk. It minimizes clear biblical teaching, and before you know it you’ve given away the store. We’ve been burnt so many times. If we have a choice between giving someone the benefit of the doubt, or not—then we’ve learned the hard way that we have to circle the wagons and fight it out. How could there be some other choice besides God’s way and the highway?

The Lord clearly wants us to love each other in his body, but the consequences seem very threatening. We need some serious thinking. When it comes right down to it, when you ask why does God love me, the biblical answer is what makes us Reformed, isn’t it? It’s not because you’re more lovable than most or in any way more deserving—God loves you because he loves you, that’s how it is. A Pharisee is better than anyone else, just ask him—that’s why he’s not in God's family. So if anyone wants to talk about the love of God, we’re the ones, we have a real head start.

But then we have to respond to his love. Jesus is our Savior and also our Lord. What does he say to us? When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself, and glorify him at once. Little children, yet a little while I am with you. You will seek me, and just as I said to the Jews, so now I also say to you, ‘Where I am going you cannot come. ’ A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another,” John 13.

That’s clear enough, isn’t it? That’s how people will know who we are. I think we’re doing better now than we used to. Some of us are sure it’s time to leave our denominations, as they make clear they have no desire to follow his Word. Some of us are not yet sure, and we still love each other, and talk with each other! That’s sea change from the fundamentalist/modernist days, when if you didn’t ‘come out,’ the rest of us thought we had nothing more to do with you. That was when the ‘new evangelicals’ came into being, with Carl Henry’s leadership in Christianity Today, as he taught us: “He who withholds love from another because he considers him unworthy removes himself from the love God manifests to us in the gift and death of Christ while we were yet sinners, yea, actually enemies of God.”

Henry gave us a great model to follow, I believe. For me it’s been easier to work through, as I’ve worked in three independent seminaries with a wide denominational range of students. Are some convinced Arminians? Well yes—but we pray together for the Lord to change friends’ hearts. Baptists? We discover we say the same thing at a baby’s funeral. It’s still not that easy for a remarkable woman student to figure out her calling, but maybe she can teach if not from the platform? Maybe it’s OK for a Presbyterian woman to move over to the Anglicans where it’s simpler?

I remember when premillennialism was a fundamental, right up there with the deity of Christ—but that changed. We’ve learned that drinking is not the same as being a drunkard. There are tensions about Sunday, but the old Swiss Reformed position is getting notice again: Second Helvetic XXIV, SUPERSTITION. In this connection we do not yield to the Jewish observance and to superstitions. For we do not believe that one day is any holier than another, or think that rest in itself is acceptable to God. Moreover, we celebrate the Lord's Day and not the Sabbath as a free observance.

Those are still fairly easy. I have a friend whom I respect enormously for his godly wisdom, who just went to a Jesuit retreat and learned how meditation works. Really? I’m still uncomfortable with the Anglican liturgy myself, but got the Ash Wednesday smudge on my forehead. How could I ever be uncomfortable with a lot of Scripture being read? But could I learn anything from Jesuits, could we keep from arguing justification nonstop? I really need to think it over.

There’s my friend Joe in Puerto Rico, showing all the Jesus in the Old Testament to Pentecostal preachers! That has to be right.

I guess I’ve been wandering? Too many options to think about? But while I still doubt we can be very close to people who despise the Bible and what it says, I know we can learn so much from others, from people we hardly know. Jesus said and we all believe it, they will know we are Christians by our love. As I think about Revival, I know that it always goes across those denominational lines. When the Scots told Whitefield, don’t preach for those other people, he gave the right answer, if I had the chance to preach to the Pope in the Vatican I’d do it.

Can we begin to get to know each other? To love each other? To listen to each other? To disagree and rejoice in where we don’t? To pray and work together for revival? How did they do that in Acts 15, do you think, agreeing on how Jews and Gentiles could worship together? It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and us—what a punchline!

ABL is comfortable, but not an option, not a true biblical option. We know that already, all of us.

We will walk with each other, we will walk hand in hand We will walk with each other, we will walk hand in hand And together we'll spread the news that God is in our land And they'll know we are Christians by our love, by our love They will know we are Christians by our loveBy our love, by our loveAnd they'll know we are Christians by our love, by our love They will know we are Christians by our love