Beating Around the Bushnell

One of the books I am currently reading is Jesus in America by Richard Wightman Fox. It is a history of the way Americans have perceived Jesus throughout the centuries. Last night I was reading about the 19th-century push to focus more on the “love” aspect of Jesus. Fox tells of a letter written by an evangelical Protestant, Horace Bushnell, who claimed that finding joy in the act of loving God was a good thing, so long as it was done properly. In the letter, Bushnell says we should love God for “his excellence and beauty,” not for “the state into which he would bring you.” Furthermore, he warns that we should not love God “only artistically,” since that would be the kind of love that “requires contemplation only.” Rather, our love should go so far as to join us “to Christ so as to be in self-sacrifice with him.” We should experience the kind of love that “breaks into the heart,” able “to change and work it into the semblance of Christ’s” (pp. 266-7).

I don’t know what I think about the first bit of Bushnell’s claim. It seems hard to distinguish between loving God because of the salvation He promises and loving God because of His “excellence and beauty.” God’s salvific role seems to exemplify His excellence and beauty. It seems everything I know (or can begin to understand) about God’s perfection is only heightened by this redemptive offer. Indeed, do we not understand and admire His perfection all the more by placing our hopes in it? Nevertheless, I find Bushnell’s further comments quite interesting. If I am even justified in claiming I love God, surely it is love of the artistic kind. I clearly haven’t loved God enough to let Him penetrate (and permeate) my life. As a Christian, I have a duty to love God this fully, but how exactly is this done? It only seems to be a choice insomuch as I choose (or choose not) to live my life in a way that allows God’s love to first reach me. Isn’t this necessary before I can really love Him as much as needs be? Otherwise, how should I know Him well enough to love Him? Does this seem accurate to anybody else?

Perhaps this isn’t all that profound. It’s just interesting to me that we can easily assume we love God and yet never realize that we only love Him in an aesthetic sense. “As in admiring a landscape,” as Fox summarizes it. So what do YOU think, dear reader? Is it wrong to love God simply because He saves us? Is it wrong to love Him in part because He saves us? Can we really love God enough to change our lives without first changing our lives enough to really love God? Things that make you go hmmm…