Love for Neighbor and Social Concern in Cameroon

In my conversations with pro-social action evangelical leaders in Cameroon recently, they mentioned love for God and love for neighbor as a great incentive for social concern in Scripture. They argued that the inadequacy or absence of love for neighbor would blind church leaders to the social needs of those who are out of the church. This essay will examine a biblical meaning, and the impact of neighborly love on social change effort within the Cameroonian context.

What is Christian Neighborly Love?
Love for neighbor, which is distinctly Christian, is often thought of as unconditional, unselfish love. The concept of neighborly love developed from Jesus’ greatest command in Mark 12:28-34. In his response to a question from a Jewish scribe about which of the commandments is greatest, Jesus links the shema creed on the supremacy of God in Deuteronomy 6: 4-5 and the command to love one’s neighbor in Leviticus 19:18 and concludes that love for God and for neighbor is more important than burnt offerings and sacrifices. Jesus answers a second question: “who is my neighbor?” with the story of a lay Samaritan who showed love to a Jew while the Jewish clergy passed by without a demonstration of concern (Luke 10:25-27). In the words of Paul, Christian love seeks not its own (1Cor. 13:15). This new kind of love that Christianity brought was believed to be vastly different from the Graeco-Roman concept of love.
In the twentieth century, the Swedish Lutheran thinker, Anders Nygren wrote a work in three volumes entitled Agape and Eros in which he made a sharp distinction between the two kinds of love in the following quotation from MC D’Arcy’s book A Study in Eros and Agape:
The Christian revelation of love is unique. Love or agape as revealed in the Gospels is a totally different kind of love from that known and accepted by the pagan world, and in particular by the Greeks. He, therefore, calls by the name of eros all the forms of love which existed in the Hellenistic world which early Christianity encountered and gives the name, agape to the specifically new
form of love which was introduced by Christianity

Since then it has been widely held that agape love denotes “self-sacrificing commitment to another’s good…even if we frankly dislike them” D.A Carson questions the credibility of this widely held notion of neighborly love as agape, a love presumed void of emotional feelings. He acknowledges that this emphasis is deeply flawed, as there are several usages of agape, eros and phileo in Scripture where a clear distinction in meaning cannot be easily detected. Although word study is important, neighborly love is best understood not in the so-called three different kinds of love but in the context of the redemptive work of Christ. Richard Hays is right when he remarks, “what the New Testament means by “love” is embodied concretely in the cross. As 1 John 3:16 declare…. ‘We know love by this that he laid down his life for us –and we ought to lay down our lives for one another”’. It could be said that neighborly love is a Christian’s gracious response to the needy as he reflects on the sacrifice of Christ for his own sake. Both the reflection and the desire to express love indeed are products of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer (Gal.5: 22).
Therefore love for neighbor apart from the cross is not sufficient for social response. The cross of Christ, not human selfless will calls for self-denial and sacrifice. The human will is always tainted with selfishness and cannot yield unconditionally to love that seeks not its won. A craving for selfish gain sometimes follows even the best of our actions. The logic of the cross compels us to love. In the cross, the power of selfishness, materialism and greed is broken so that the saints can sacrifice in love for the suffering. It is much easier to love God than to love neighbor. The lack of neighborly love is a deterrent to social response in community.

Impediments to Love in Cameroonian Culture
Cameroonian clergy advanced some reasons for passive neighborly love in some churches: namely, tribalism, capitalism and the lack of a theology of social change.

Tribalism
In most Cameroonian societies and institutions, tribalism control the choices people make on issues of common interest. Solidarity is more within a tribal, ethic and or cultural groups with common interests and bonds than between groups with vast differences. People do not always identify fully with others outside of their own ethnicity. Tribalistic tendencies can be found in the church as well. Thus the board of deacons or elders may be reluctant to endorse proposals for a major social project that benefits people outside their tribal group. I experienced this social deficiency in my ministry with three churches in Cameroon and agree completely with the leaders who see this as a setback to social ministry in Cameroon. Christian love transcends the limits of all ethnicity and cultural bias. Gerhard Kitel’s commentary on love in Matt 22:34 is important for tribalistic communities, “[Christ] frees neigbourly love once and for all from its restriction to compatriots. He concentrates it again on the helpless man whom we meet on our way.”

Profit motive
A pastor said to me “my church is not willing to spend a reasonable amount of money for prison ministry because they will gain nothing in return. They could prefer running a business.” This complain is justifiable when it proceeds from a poor church. But it is likely the case with most rich evangelical churches in Cameroon as well. For example, Baptists invest more in health and education than in charities, relief projects and prison ministry. While appreciating health care services, we must not forget the poor masses that cannot afford medication and the several hundreds in Cameroonian jails who need the gospel, material supplies and better prison conditions.

The Absence of a social theology
Most evangelical clergy acknowledged that a compendious social theology that analyses the social situation in Cameroon in evangelical tradition is unavailable. This had contributed to the church’s relative neglect of needs in the social field. The evangelical church in Africa was mainly concerned with a fundamentalist defense of the faith in the wake of liberal theology that arose internally from the growing influence of African Traditional Religions and externally from ecumenical theology on the young African church. There was little effort in evangelical reflection on social issues until the popularity and doctrinal weakness of Pentecostal prosperity theology demanded an evangelical response. Cameroon evangelical churches were not exempted from the social theological vacuum that most African churches suffered in the early seventies and eighties. In fact I do not remember taking any serious studies in social realities in my seminary years in Cameroon and Nigeria. There were courses in African Traditional Religions, African Christian Theology but never in social work and related fields. This is an indication of neglect in social studies. The slow development in Cameroonian evangelical social theology could be partly blamed on our curriculums. The outcome on social ethics has been a lack of active love for the suffering neighbors in the evangelical Christian witness in Cameroon.
Evangelicals may be critical of the social gospel and liberation models of contextual theology in many respects. But let us pay these models this tribute: they have forced the church to reflect on what love for God and love for neighbor means in the manifold experiences of life. Grant Osborne’s contention that “liberation theologies have arisen because the church has neglected areas of biblical concern” may be given full consideration, especially with the Cameroonian context in mind. Furthermore, Paul Tillich observes, “systematic theology uses the method of correlation…[which] explains the contents of the Christian faith through existential questions and theological answers in mutual interdependence.” This implies a mutual relationship between biblical revelation and existential situation. It is a provable fact that most evangelical churches in Cameroon have not systematized the word of God enough to address existential social issues. Perhaps there are lessons to learn from attempts elsewhere. The greatest proponent of the social gospel in twentieth century North America, Walter Rauschenbusch defines the aims of his controversial social thought as follows: “The problem of the social gospel is how the divine life of Christ can get control of human society. The social gospel is concerned about a progressive social incarnation of God.”
Rauschennbusch felt that capitalism had created a huge gap between the rich and the poor in twentieth century North America. Christianity had the impetus “to change the world -as-it is into the world –as- it –ought- to be.”
In this second statement Rauschenbusch proposed an ethic of the reign of God where love is the supreme Christian norm as the Christian approach to the social crisis. “When our moral actions are consciously related to the kingdom of God they gain religious quality…Love is the supreme law of Christ, the kingdom of God implies a progressive reign of love in human affairs.” Although some evangelicals have considered Rauschenbusch’s idea of the redemption of the social order as theologically off-balance, he can be commended for his desire to see the love of Christ active in practical relations in community. Rauschensbusch’s dream of a socially relevant faith will continue to confront the church. Today there are voices within the evangelical wing of the church in favor for a return to a more demonstrable faith in community.
Stanley Grenz observes that “Christian ethics in the last hundred years has shown a marked movement from “doing” to “being”… [but] has displayed a marked shift away from the focus on the individual moral actor to the relational ethic.”
Indigenous African theology is gradually witnessing a shift from the doctrinal debates over African theology and African Christian theology to theological reflection on the more existential realities. For example, David Kasali believes that God is concerned with both the spiritual and physical needs of the people of Africa. And concludes that the church in Africa has a moral and biblical obligation to address economic, social, and moral crises plaguing the continent in order to make a lasting impact in these fields.

To be continued


The Shema (shmä), Hebrew for “hear” is the Jewish confession of faith in one God. Its name is derived from the first word of the first of the three Scriptural passages of which it consists (Deut. 6:4-9, 11:13-21, Num. 15:37-41). It was considered to be the essence and creed of the Jewish religion, which originated on Mount Sinai with Moses. A Jew was obligated to say Shema daily.
M.C D’Arcy, A Study in Eros and Agape (New York, Henry Holt, 1947), p.54.
D.A Carson, “Love” in Desmond T. Alexander et al. (Eds.) New Dictionary of Biblical Theology (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2000), p.646.
Ibid.., 647.
Richard B. Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament: A Contemporary Introduction to New Testament Ethics (SanFranscisco: Harper SanFrancisco, 1996) pp.200-202.
Gerhard Kittel, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (Abridged vol 1), trans. Geoffrey Bromiley (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1964), p. 45.

Osborne, The Hermeneutical Spiral (1991), p.294.
Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology (vol. 1)(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951), pp.59-64 as cited in Alister E. McGrath (ed) The Christian Theology Reader (Cambridge: Massachusetts, 1995), pp. 26-27.
Rauschenbusch, A Theology for the Social Gospel (1918), p.148.

Walter Rauschenbusch, Christianity and the Social Crisis (New York: Macmillan, 1910), p.143.
Ibid., 140-42
Richard H. Niebour, The Kingdom of God in America (Chicago: Willet Clark, 1937), p.139-40, cited in Stanley J. Grenz, The Moral Quest: Foundations of Christian Ethics (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1997), p.165.
Stanley J. Grenz, The Moral Quest: Foundations of Christian Ethics (1997), p.202.
African theology began in the 1960s as a theological reflection on the relationship between African culture, traditional religions and Christianity. There were various models with significant shifts from traditional evangelical theology. Its close links with paganic African perceptions of God often made the system appear somewhat an ethnocentric theology designed to elevate African Traditional Religions over Christianity. In other models African people and their existential problems became the main subject of discussion as in Black and Liberation Theologies. African traditional evangelicals, such as the late Dr Byang Kato were most instrumental in exposing the flaws of this theology. It was subsequently rejected by evangelicals in favour of African Christian theology which set out to contextualize the Word of God in African thought forms while maintaining a high view of Scriptures.
David Kasali, “African Realities,” African Journal of Evangelical Theology 17, no.1 (1998): 15.