Love Thy Stranger -- Jesus and the Western Moral Conscience

Growing up Catholic, I feel like the two most significant stories from the Bible, specifically the Gospels, that resonated with and impacted me the most were The Prodigal Son and The Good Samaritan. These stories of compassion, empathy, charity, forgiveness and grace represent the heart of Catholicism to me, and they set a standard that I've always hoped I will someday be able to live up to. I'm still not there, even at the age of fifty-six ... but I'm trying. For, let's face it, compassion and empathy are not what most people have as their "natural default setting," to use a term from postmodern novelist David Foster Wallace.

That said, there is something fascinating in contemporary society that leads people to a sense of responsibility to care about others they don't know. And, it can be argued that the idea of caring for people to whom we have no personal connection is a hallmark of the modern moral conscience. To put it more specifically, people and societies have not always operated with a sense of charity and compassion for anyone beyond our immediate circles. At some point in history, we moved from only taking care of our families and our communities to developing, working for, and donating funds to organizations like the Red Cross and Habitat for Humanity and the Denver Rescue Mission and Catholic Charities and local food drives ... and the list goes on.

More interestingly, a new book from (ironically) an atheist named Bart Ehrman suggests that, "When we donate money to victims of natural disasters, or offer our forgiveness, or consider it a government’s responsibility to provide some basic assistance to those in need­­, we are (knowingly or not) demonstrating the enduring legacy of a particularly Christian kind of love." Basically, the contemporary moral conscience rooted in Western Civilization is a direct effect of the life and legacy of Jesus Christ. And Ehrman outlines his thoroughly researched claims in the new book:

Love Thy Stranger: How the Teachings of Jesus Transformed the Moral Conscience of the West

Recently, Ross Douthat of the New York Times posted an engaging and thoughtful discussion with the author:

Did Jesus actually rise from the dead? Heal the sick? Turn water into wine? How close do the Gospel stories take us to what really happened at the beginning of Christianity?

This is one of the world’s great religious debates and one of its most intense historical detective stories, and my guest this week has spent his career as a leading participant, joining the skeptical side as a New Testament scholar after growing up as a believing Christian.

His latest book is called “Love Thy Stranger.” It describes how Jesus’ teaching reshaped the moral conscience of the West — and it proves its own point, you might say, since the author is an agnostic who is urging people to listen more carefully to Jesus.