Jesus commanded his disciples to 'love one another '(John 13:34). How can a Christian disciple fulfill this obligation in cases where they are being threatened or abused? Should a victim of domestic violence passively endure suffering, or does the gospel provide a better way? In this lecture, Maxwell Institute visiting scholar Deidre Nicole Green discusses problems with a Christian ethic of self-sacrifice and offers solutions by drawing on scripture and Christian philosopher Søren Kierkegaard.
“Christian love calls us both to name injustice and prevent victimization. Kierkegaard puts it thus, ‘it is part of love’s work, that with the help of the loving one it becomes entirely clear to the unloving one how irresponsibly he has acted so that he deeply feels his wrong.’ He opines that it would be ‘a weakness, not love, to make the unloving one believe that he was right in the evil he did.’” —Deidre Green
Green's lecture, 'Saving Self-Sacrifice,' is now available on the Maxwell Institute's YouTube channel.
Watch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZFNlxDVnOg
About Deidre Green
Deidre Nicole Green is an adjunct professor of religion at BYU and a visiting scholar at the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship. She is author of Works of Love in a World of Violence (Mohr Siebeck, 2016). Green earned a PhD in Religion from Claremont Graduate University, after receiving a Master of the Arts in Religion from Yale Divinity School and a Bachelor of the Arts in Philosophy from BYU.