Total self-giving love that demands nothing from the other is irreconcilable with assigned roles, duties, division of labor, accountability, and so on. The unqualified demands of sacrificial love require their implementation in the moment without regard for future consequences for self or others. Orderly life could not go on if no one ever insisted that others play their part, share the load, live by the rules of civilized society, and carry out their obligations.

Of what value, then, is New Testament Christianity for today? Alfred North Whitehead said that the impractical ideals of the first century are a standard by which to measure the shortcomings of society. Reinhold Niebuhr made the same point. Agape, Christian love, is an "impossible possibility" that is relevant in all situations as both judge of every present achievement and guide to further moral advance.

Our failure is not that we make the compromises that make civilization possible but that we make them long before they are necessary.

Presently, the following essays are available: