Who Can Love?

I've gotten into a little "discussion" on the "God is not a Republican" Facebook group over @ Liberty U. Yes, I know it's hard to believe it, but there are others out there, even at Liberty, that realize God is not a spokesperson for the religious right, a gun-toting member of the NRA, or even a member of the George Bush fan-club. Anyway, someone made a remark that I've made myself in the past but upon further post-evangelical review I think the statement is full of crap.

The statement is this:
"It may not have occurred to you that no one can really love their neighbor unless they have the love of God, i.e. Christians."

The idea behind the statement is that it is impossible to love unless you are a Christian. Only Christians truly understand the love of God and only Christians understand the true value of human beings and so only they can love. The base belief is that anyone who isn't a Christian who "loves" someone ultimately does it for selfish reasons and so then it's not really love.

There are but a few problems with this in my estimation. #1 - You cannot make this argument from anywhere in Scripture. There is not a single place where this thought is verbalized, inferred, or anything of the sort. Nowhere does it say that someone who doesn't know Christ cannot love. #2 - Going a step further, there's not even a place in Scripture that says that just because you are a Christian can you truly love. #3 - Just taking a broad look at culture, if love is even remotely defined using words that convey action then Christians would seem to be low on the list for claiming a corner on the market of love. #4 - Millennia of recorded history seem to fly in the face of this extra-biblical notion. How many people who have no idea who Christ is have demonstrated love? They have made commitments and sacrifices for people, putting the needs of others ahead of their own. I can read the newspaper and come up with hundreds of examples within my own city. Am I really to believe that all of those are truly selfish, yet when the same act is performed by a Christian it somehow becomes pure and righteous?

I think it all goes back to the misguided notion that God only speaks and works through certain avenues. Truth, love, and other attributes of God can be found outside the Church, outside the Bible, and outside of Christians. Surely that is what was being talked about when Paul tells us that God has left himself a witness in creation. Why do we limit that witness to stars and trees and oceans? Couldn't it equally be said that there is a witness when someone realizes the value of life through sacrifice and commitment? I think that the greatest tragedy is that our self-imposed limitations of God have kept those of us who know Christ from seeing him in so many places.