Passionate Loyalty, Is it A Good Thing?
Photo by Koshu Kunii on Unsplash
Passionate Loyalty Can Cause Blindness
by Eric Elkin
“I am passionately loyal to God, just like you who are gathered here today.”
What does it mean to be "passionately loyal to God"? I am not sure I want to be "passionately loyal" about anything, not God or even my wife. The phrase scares me. Americans love passionate people. In many ways, we praise it as the ultimate value. Coaches want athletes who demonstrate a passion for their sport. Elite artists are driven by a passion to create. And you cannot have passion for something without an equal level of loyalty to it.
In my experience, passionately loyal people also tend to be blind. Their extreme level of loyalty can and does become the justification for disturbing behavior. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Apostle Paul. His passionate loyalty led him to persecute the people of the Way (Jesus' followers), and his words in scripture later led Jesus' followers to inflict death on the Jews. Passion can be a dangerous thing.
The experiences of Russell Moore serve as an example of my point. In 2020, Moore resigned as president of the Southern Baptist Conference's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (SBC). Many assumed his resignation resulted from the pressure Moore received for publicly criticizing Donald Trump. While his criticisms did not gain favor, the real reason was much more disturbing.
Russell Moore was appalled by the passionate loyalty of Southern Baptist Convention leaders to themselves over the victims of sexual abuse. I doubt leaders in the SBC would claim self-centeredness as the problem. They would most likely frame their response as passionate loyalty to the Gospel and the procedures of the denomination.
“By judging others we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which others are just as entitled to as we are.”
In the Lutheran tradition of my ordination, we love to quote Dietrich Bonhoeffer and cite his martyrdom. Nazi German leaders killed Bonhoeffer for joining a plot to assassinate Adolph Hitler. Modern Lutherans love to envision Bonhoeffer as representative of themselves and their denomination. That is delusional. Almost all pastors are blind to the thousands of Lutheran pastors and millions of Lutheran worshippers whose passionate loyalty to God and country led them to be willing participants in the Holocaust.
It may be semantics, but I prefer to be faithful to God and my wife instead of passionately loyal. Faithful communicates an ongoing dynamic relationship. A kind of relationship that is free to see where actions divert from faithfulness. I would rather be loving than loyal. My love for my wife informs my actions much more effectively than any loyalty to a set of rules. To me, faithfully loving God allows more room for the Holy Spirit to shape my days and deeds than passionate loyalty.
As we all enter this new year, we should pay attention to how our actions and those around us reflect our values as people of the Way (original title of Christians). Let us discern the difference between when someone asks for our passionate loyalty and when we are invited to love faithfully.
Click to read Acts 22: 3-16
Reflection Questions:
When you hear the words “passionate loyalty,” how do you respond?
What is the difference, if any, between loyalty and faithful?
When have you felt pressure to be loyal? When have you given loyalty freely?
What are the values you love?
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