In what way does this look like a God of love?

This week I've engaged in intense conversation with followers of Albert Mohler's Facebook page. Mohler is the President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. The Southern Baptist Convention has recently been faced with another church's self-excommunication through the decision to permit gay people to attend.

It's alarming to read the comments to Mohler's posts, and I've done my best to try to shine a tiny ray of God's love into a dismal place of condemnation.

This morning's daily readings rang out in commentary over what was happening in this segment of Christ's church. The first reading from Acts 22 and 23 describes Paul's interactions with the Saducees and Pharisees, who argued about the resurrection.

Obviously dissension among the faithful is nothing new.

The gospel account was John 17:20-26, when Jesus prays for us, his new church:

Lifting up his eyes to heaven, Jesus prayed saying:
“I pray not only for these,
but also for those who will believe in me through their word,
so that they may all be one,
as you, Father, are in me and I in you,
that they also may be in us,
that the world may believe that you sent me.
And I have given them the glory you gave me,
so that they may be one, as we are one,
I in them and you in me,
that they may be brought to perfection as one,
that the world may know that you sent me,
and that you loved them even as you loved me.
Father, they are your gift to me.
I wish that where I am they also may be with me,
that they may see my glory that you gave me,
because you loved me before the foundation of the world.
Righteous Father, the world also does not know you,
but I know you, and they know that you sent me.
I made known to them your name and I will make it known,
that the love with which you loved me
may be in them and I in them.”

He prayed for our unity. Our supernatural oneness.

To what end? So that the world may know God.

The discussions on Mohler's page read like a lesson from The Screwtape Letters. It's the babbling of hundreds of self-congratulatory Christians, proclaiming hellfire and brimstone, and gleefully rubbing their Bible-ink-smeared hands together. As if that is what Christ desires.

I imagine that this is what hell looks and sounds like.

Is it any wonder that the world does not recognize divinity within the church?