Fruits in Season: Love in the Time of Election

[Editor’s note: This is part one in a nine-part series exploring the biblical “fruit of the Spirit” (Galatians 5:16–24) and how Christians approach election season. You can find the series introduction here.]

In 1975, the Scottish hard rock band Nazareth recorded the song “Love Hurts,” opening with these lyrics:

“Love hurts, love scars, love wounds

And marks, any heart

Not tough or strong enough

To take a lot of pain, take a lot of pain

Love is like a cloud

Holds a lot of rain

Love hurts...... ooh, ooh love hurts”

The song reached number eight on the Billboard charts in March 1976, and remains a classic rock staple today, heard in everything from movies to ad campaigns. But the Nazareth version of the ballad wasn’t the first. It was recorded in 1960 by the Everly Brothers and again in 1961 by Roy Orbison. The Orbison version had limited success in Australia, but otherwise the song languished in relative obscurity until Nazareth hit it big in ’76.

Much like the song’s hit-or-miss success, there are times when love seems to flourish more than others. But election season is one of those times not typically defined by love. In political campaigns, love doesn’t hurt as much as it makes itself scarce.

But Christians who walk by the Spirit should bear the Spirit’s fruit, and the first fruit on the Apostle Paul’s list in his letter to the Galatians is love. And while it may be counterintuitive to think of love having anything to do with elections, the season is a prime opportunity for Christians to display this first fruit.

First things first, we need to make some distinctions. Definitions matter, and how someone defines love can lead down many different roads. Perhaps it’s most helpful to define it negatively. What love is not will help distinguish the fruit of love that Scripture speaks about.

Love Is Not Sentiment

The way the world defines love is often more aligned with sentiment and feeling. Defined this way, love is something a person feels toward someone (or something) for whom he or she has positive affection. It’s the “I like you a lot” definition. This often translates into a very low lift for the person supposedly doing the loving. When “I love ice cream!” shares the same potency as “I love you” — it doesn’t mean a whole lot.

So what is the love we’re talking about? Elsewhere in 1 Corinthians 13, Paul himself defines it in the negative. He says that love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude; it does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; and that it does not rejoice at wrongdoing. Note how love here is doing something. It’s never idle, and it’s never mere sentimentality. Defining it positively, Paul says that love is patient and kind, that it rejoices with the truth, that it bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. He says that love never ends.

These things are all much heavier lifts than merely having a positive feeling. To be clear, love is magnetic in the sense that it pulls in feelings, emotions, and sentiments and affects them all — but love isn’t the sum of those parts. In much of Paul’s definition, love is active, alive, and in motion. Its activity shapes and transforms feelings along with the people in its path.

Our love as followers of Christ should be like that. Love will often be a heavy lift, and will often have a cost much higher than mere sentiment ever does. Sentiment is cheap. Love is expensive. Sentiment is comfortable. Love sometimes hurts.

Love Those with Whom You Disagree

In a political climate like the one we’re now in, disagreement isn’t in short supply. No matter the candidate or the issue, you’re going to disagree with someone. If you doubt that, try wearing a red MAGA hat in an urban environment these days. Disagreement will find you quickly. How do we deal with this? We love. Jesus told us:

“But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you” (Luke 6:27-28, ESV).

Note that he doesn’t instruct us to agree with them. He also never defines any kind of moral equivalency. We’re never told to set aside our differences with those with whom we disagree. We’re to love them through the differences.

This will work out in different ways depending on the circumstance. If the person you love is head over heels for Harris-Walz, and you think otherwise, loving them doesn’t mean you have to pretend to like Harris-Walz or never try to persuade your loved ones. But it also could mean that you don’t unnecessarily provoke them. And it also may mean that you continue to love them as a human being created in the image of God even as they go down a path you think is wrong. Love through the pain.

Love Those with Whom You Agree

Sometimes, in the effort to love those with whom we disagree, Christians often veer toward silence in hopes of keeping peace. We’ll deal with peace as a topic later in this series, but for now be reminded that true peace won’t be found in constant vocalization of political positions nor in complete silence on politics. Silence may at times be the loving response, but it’s not a response that’s mandated. In a world that’s made everything political, you’d have to avoid everything to avoid the political.

Sometimes it’s an act of love to encourage those with whom you agree. Paul said, “love rejoices with the truth,” and it’s good for truth to be accompanied by joy. For example, you may not want to put a sign in your yard opposing a ballot measure because it might upset your neighbors. But on the other hand, your visible opposition to the measure could help neighbors who are undecided know that they are not alone in their concerns, and motivate them to vote no along with you. It is an act of love to work together toward the right outcome, and to do justice in what may be the most powerful act of governance we encounter — our vote.

Love Hurts, but It Also Heals

Loving this way may indeed produce hurt — or at least what seems that way at the time. But that doesn’t mean it’s not love or that it shouldn’t be done. The fruit of love produced by the Holy Spirit within a believer is a powerful thing, and it will be effective. As the first of the fruits of the Spirit, it is also a root from which all the other fruits spring. After all, look at how many other fruits from Paul’s list in Galatians 5 are also reflected in Paul’s definition of love in 1 Corinthians 13. Patience, kindness, joy, and faithfulness are all there.

If we are to exhibit love as a fruit of the Spirit, we can’t trust in our own ability to produce such love. We’ll never be capable of that harvest. We must prayerfully seek the growth of that fruit from the Spirit who cultivates it. And that will be a love that can heal and that will endure to the end — far beyond a certain day in November.