Jan 16, 2011
In this episode we look at joyful faith and how it impacts the experience of community love. Joyful faith is focused more on the future and our efforts to become better people. The joy in joyful faith comes from the belief that God gives us the strength and guidance to become more than we are at our worst. In contrast, fearful faith focuses on our sinfulness, imperfections and failures. The key values of joyful faith are forgiveness and reconciliation, the two values I have used in my definition of community love. In comparison, fearful faith has the key values of anger, judgment, and exclusiveness. Jane's rejection of her life long friend Laura shows that Jane is acting out of fearful faith. Perhaps Jane would have kept her friendship with Laura if Jane had experienced joyful faith instead of fearful faith.
In the next episode we will begin several installments on what are marriage and family love.
This series is based on my book The Six Faces of Lovewhich can be viewed at