The Way to Love: Reimagining Christian Spiritual Growth as the Hopeful Path of Virtue

“Love people.” An oft-proclaimed rallying cry for Christians, but what does it look like, in practice, to love? We may believe that love is “the greatest” (1 Cor 13:13). Love may be our destination. But do we know how to get there? This book addresses essential questions about the Christian life. What is a true, compelling, and helpful Christian understanding of love? What is spiritual growth supposed to do to us or for us (or for others, through us)? How can we speak of grace and personal initiative in one theological vision? How do we go beyond a spirituality that is either too privatized and insular or too activist without the undergirding character needed to sustain such activism? How do we ensure love is not simply a principle we hold or a slogan we applaud but a powerful force that perpetually grows in us and ripples out to others in concrete, transformative ways? This book is a guide to love. Drawing on virtue ethics, psychology, theology, and spirituality, it offers a love-centered, hopeful vision of the Christian spiritual life. The story in which God invites us to live is about a journey of love, toward love. Is this your story?