Loving Kindness
He has showed you, O man, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?
—Micah 6:8
In the church today many battles are being fought over issues that would have been non-issues to our forefathers. Issues such as women priests, sexual morality, and abortion have not been a matter of debate throughout any but the most recent decades of the past two millennia. Those of us fighting to preserve traditional Christianity have a lot of work to do, but sometimes it is difficult to get out of “fight mode.” It is sad when the fighting engulfs people who are on the same side. Then the fighting is no longer motivated by a desire for Truth, rather it is from pride and a lack of kindness.
Kindness is a virtue that is often neglected, especially among the theologically-inclined. How many times have you seen someone vilify a fellow orthodox Christian over some small point of canon law that is not widely practiced by the Church Universal? In our zeal for Truth, we lack a love of kindness. In our desire to demonstrate our knowledge of Truth, we lack humility. In our effort to show the world that we have the true faith, we sometimes show that we have the personal piety of the Enemy instead.
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Thomas S. Buchanan is the George W. Laird Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Delaware. He has studied at UCSD, Northwestern University, and MIT, and has held visiting professorships at the University of Western Australia and the University of Aix-Marseille. He has served as department chairman, deputy dean, and institute director, president of the American Society of Biomechanics, and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Applied Biomechanics. He is on the Board of Trustees of Saint Katherine College, the editorial board of Touchstone, and the board of The Fellowship of St. James.
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