I’ve noticed that among progressive Christians, “love” works as a kind of rhetorical trump card. Christians are supposed to “love,” hence you should be nice to people, hence you should be a liberal — or something to that effect. Are you worried about illegal immigration? Stop worrying and deploy some love. Does acceptance of homosexuality bother you? Well, I’ve got bad news — accepting homosexuality is a form of love, therefore you should do it. Case closed!

Presumably this rhetorical tactic does work in some individual cases, most likely people who were already uncomfortable with conservative Christianity and just needed that last little nudge. And it does make sense to try to deploy the most powerful and intimate Christian virtue if you’re trying to make radical changes to people’s moral and political commitments.

In the end, though, it rings hollow. Most of the time, it seems like “love” is a translation for “liberal tolerance,” which overlaps only very partially with love, if at all. Does “love” really mean that you don’t make any effort to change the loved one’s behavior if you believe it to be self-destructive? Does “love” mean letting someone rest content with a way of life you believe to be beneath them? That’s not how it’s ever worked when I’ve loved or been loved. Maybe you grudgingly come to accept that you can’t change the loved one, but that’s normally the end of a long and bitter process, not step one.

Further, does “love” mean supporting government policies to impersonally help someone? If my sister became homeless, I don’t think my go-to solution would be to write my Congressman and demand greater funding for shelters. And if you are trying to goad people into taking radically self-sacrificing actions on behalf of the homeless, or illegal immigrants, or whoever, I would remind you that love has degrees, and you may well learn that the person has enough on their love-plate with their day-to-day obligations to their own family.

A diffuse love that vaguely includes “everyone” isn’t love at all — it’s liberal tolerance accompanied by sentimental feelings. And I agree, it would be better if people would embrace liberal tolerance, with or without the sentiment. But that’s not love, and anyone who has thought about love seriously — which would presumably include any committed Christian, for instance — is going to see through the cheap rhetorical ploy that wants to pass off generic liberalism as the most profound Christian virtue.