have is the freedom to love. We believe that God is love.
Creation is the work of His love, and love is the work of His creation.
But the ambivalences of human nature keep us from being free in the work
of love. The coming of Christ, in the midst of history, changed the
balance of power between love and hate, life and death, and set us free
to love. Love became the energizing, reconciling force in human
existence. B.C. and A.D. marked the transition, not only of time, but
also of the old creation in which our power of love was imprisoned in
our fear to love, and of the new creation in which our power of love was
set free by the love of God in Christ. Now the triumphant power of God's
love is at work in the world and is available to all who seek to do the
work of love anywhere and for anyone. Accordingly, the work of love was
and is the breaking down of walls of separation, and the reuniting of
man and God, man and man, and man with himself, in all which work we
participate.

_What Is Love?_

Do we know what we mean when we think of love in this way? A clear
understanding of love is needed, because it is so gravely misunderstood
in our time. All too commonly, love is regarded as a sentiment, a
feeling, a "liking" for someone. While sentiment and emotion are
certainly a part of love, it is tragic to make them synonymous with
love. Certainly we mean more than that when we say, "God is love," or
when we wrestle with the concept of man showing his love of God through
his love for his neighbor. In these concepts we are thinking of love as
the moving, creating, healing power of life; of love that is "the moving
power of everything toward everything else that is."[12] Love reunites
life with life, person with person, and as such is not easily
discouraged. The most dramatic symbol of love's courage and triumph is,
as we have seen, the cross and the resurrection; it stands for the love
wherewith God has loved us. "In this is love, not that we loved God but
that he loved us...."[13] Having given us His love, we have it for our
response to Him, so that we love Him by loving one another with His love
which we received through His people. Thus, the nurturing of our
response to God's love is the work of the church. Our responsibility is
to love Him. We are to love God by loving one another, and in loving one
another we introduce one another to God. This is the work of the church
and the vocation of the people of God. We are called