Jules Jones

I usually post on Easter Sunday about the Two Great Commandments, and usually in reference to a very specific application of the second of those. This year I was going to do a somewhat different theme, on my choice of Easter eggs, and Fair Trade, and walking away from Omelas. Unfortunately I've got reason this afternoon to go back to the usual.

I will begin by quoting from Teresa Nielsen Hayden's magnificent "Things I believe" post for Easter Day 2004, a beautiful meditation on the Nicene Creed:

I believe in the God of the Burgess Shale, Who not only made creation stranger than we know, but stranger than we could ever imagine.

These are the words of someone who believes, who believes very deeply. And who also believes this:

I believe that any Christians whose religious practices aren’t centered around sacrificing and burning animals ought not spend all their time trying to enforce obscure passages in the Pentateuch.

I believe that as well. As do a number of other people who write, edit or publish books which have just been censored by Amazon for their adult content, where "adult" is deemed to include anything that portrays homosexuality in a positive or even neutral light. This is the thing which many people overlook when they associate Christianity with an obsession with controlling sexuality, who believe that a Christian, by definition, disapproves of homosexuality -- there are a good many Christians who don't. Who believe that the persecution of people for no better reason than their loving, consensual relationships with other adults is a direct repudiation of the second of the Two Great Commandments, and thus of the message which Jesus gave to us. Which he died, horribly and in pain and in public shame, to give to us. This is the passage in question:

Jesus said to him, "'You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbour as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets." Matthew 22:37-40

And when he was asked, "Lord, who is my neighbour?", he made it very clear through a parable that your neighbours are not just the people you like and approve of. Not just the people who are just like you.

I am not as good as I might be, as I should be, at keeping those commandments. But as a Christian, I must at least try to keep the spirit of the second. As indeed must adherents of other religions with similar messages, and those who follow no religion or faith at all. This is what it means to be truly human -- that whatever we believe to be the source of the impulse to love our neighbours, whether we have one god or many or none, we believe that others are human too.