What We Were Made For: Christian Reflections on Love

With unflinching honesty, this meditation on the nature of varied forms of love wrestles with a central enigma of the Christian faith: how can flawed and sinful humans find the wherewithal to love others as God does? Wheeler, a professor of Christian ethics at Wesley Theological Seminary, approaches this complex issue by looking at the moral dilemmas that attend our attempts to love other people. Beginning with a short exploration of the scriptural foundation of the call to love others as God loves us, Wheeler uses the work of Christian writers like Anders Nygren and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, current events and a sparing helping of autobiographical anecdotes effectively in the service of her central points. While human love is not sufficient to meet the challenges of human relationships, Wheeler argues that if it is disciplined by Christian practice, informed by God's grace and modeled on God's love revealed in Jesus Christ, it can be a powerful instrument for healing. Wheeler's journey offers many rewards for the reader who appreciates clarity, a chastened realism and the gift of ethical reflection on a complex subject—all presented in prose lacking any trace of pedantry. (Apr. 13)