Christian Neighbor Love: An Assessment of Six Rival Versions

Central to Christianity is love, and central to love is the objective norm of conduct relating self and others. Yet this norm has been surprisingly neglected. The half dozen different and incompatible ways in which Christians have conceived love's requirement of service to others have not previously been identified and listed, much less compared and assessed to determine which of these six rival conceptions Christians should prefer. This study provides such assessment, based first on Scripture, then on a survey of Christian tradition and contemporary non-Christian literature. By rigorously analyzing the merits of each major interpretation of agape's demands, it reveals the shortcomings of all but one of the six, and thereby answers a fundamental question of any Christian ethic: If Christians wish to be both consistent and true to their heritage, what preference-rule for mine and thine should they adopt?