Yesterday I was reading through the comments section on an article regarding homosexuality in the Church, and I saw a comment, in favor of such monogamous homosexual relationships, which ended by saying, "Love is love is love." Makes sense, right? I mean, if these people love each other, shouldn't we let them get married? Because to love one another is the highest command, right?
...well, no, actually. Not all love is the same. Love is not love is not love. The problem is, in English we have only one word to cover a multitude of uses. But as C. S. Lewis notes in his book The Four Loves, there are, yes, four different kinds of love, at least in the Greek in which the New Testament is written. The problem is that many American Christians, or English-speaking Christians in general, confuse or conflate two or more of the different uses. The word does not mean what they think it means.
That being the case, I think it's important to re-enumerate the four different kinds of love. The first is called στοργή (storge, two syllables with a hard g). This is more usually translated "affection," and is the sort of love we see from parents toward their children (especially mothers), from people towards animals, etc. It's the love of a higher towards a lower, generally. Most people will not get this confused with the others, but it is good to remember it all the same.
The second is called φιλία (philia). This one is more familiar, as we see it regularly in the city name Philadelphia, and in other places. It's the love of friendship, and is sometimes called "brotherly love."
The third is called έρως (eros), which is the one we are most familiar with. This is romantic, often sexual love, and it is generally the one under consideration in discussions of homosexuality. After all, the issue is whether or not people with homosexual eros are allowed to marry and satisfy that eros.
The fourth and final kind of love is called αγάπη (agape, three syllables). This is charitable love; love without hope of reward; self-sacrificing love, love for others that does not expect to be repaid and that desires only the other's good.
This last kind of love is the kind of love we are called to as Christians. John 15:13 says, "Greater agape has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends." 1 John 4:8 says, "The one who does not agapen does not know God, for God is agape." This is the love which, as Dante so eloquently says, "moves the sun and the other stars." It is agape love, not eros, or philia, or storge. That is the love to which we are called.
The confusion comes, I think, from people thinking that eros is the same kind of love as that love; but it isn't. There are many times when eros is bad. There are also times when it's great; I'm not denying that. But when I look at pornography, that is a bad use of eros. When I want to have sex with someone else's wife, that is a bad use of eros. Knowing that eros can be misused, and that it certainly is not the same thing as agape, it is not enough for the homosexual proponents to simply say, "Love is love is love." Agape is not eros is not philia. We must know what kind of love we are speaking about, and whether or not it is good in a specific instance.
So people with homosexual desires may have to deny themselves one kind of love. Yes, it is hard to deny a part of ourselves, but most of us will have to, because not all parts of ourselves are good, yet. But that's not the end of the world. Agape is open to all, and is the highest kind of love. And, in addition, I would argue that philia is perhaps better than eros, something we tend to lose sight of in our eros-driven culture. God loves us with agape, and we can love him the same way; but also, God loves us with philia. We are God's friends. Jesus said to his disciples in John 15:15, "No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his
master is doing; but I have called you philous, for all things that I
have heard from My Father I have made known to you."
To that commenter on that article: Love is not love is not love. Homosexual love is not right just because it is love. We must dig deeper; we must find out what love truly is. And the best and most holy kind of love is one that is common to all, even if erotic love is not. Why complain about being forbidden to sing "Mary Had a Little Lamb" when you could sing Handel's Messiah?
