From Christianity to the civilization of love

Abstract

We live in a deeply individualistic, hedonistic, and narcissistic culture, which causes situations of injustice and violence. In order to face this dehumanizing culture, there is talk today of a civilization of love. The question is: what contribution can Christianity make to this civilization? Regarding its identity, Christianity was born based on the practice of love, otherness, and altruism, qualities that refer to Jesus, who not only always took the other under consideration, but was able to die for the other. However, in its trajectory through the centuries, Christianity lost this original character, becoming a religion that, in most of its history, affirmed itself in absolute and excluding terms, under the ideal of Christendom, reaching us, today, very different from that religion which gained momentum at Pentecost. To speak of the civilization of love, it is necessary to deconstruct an entire exclusivist mentality, closed to dialogue, and return to the tenderness of early Christianity, to the first proclamation, presenting not a multifaceted, divided Christ, but the maximum expression of divine love for humanity. This is what this article is about, recalling our historical past, to review the position of Christianity in face of today's world, in order to make its contribution to the construction of a civilization of love, the only one capable of giving meaning to the people's lives, who are plunged into the deepest existential void.