Love and liberation in a divided world
Scripture: John 3:16 — “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.”
Love has always been at the heart of the Christian message. Yet the love of God revealed through Jesus Christ is not a quiet or comfortable love—it is a liberating love. It is love that heals wounds, breaks chains, and crosses boundaries. It is love that lifts burdens and challenges injustice. It is love that calls us not only to care for one another, but to create a community where everyone can live with dignity, opportunity, and hope.
The liberating love of Jesus Christ is practical. It looks like feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting those who are sick or imprisoned, and standing beside those whose voices are ignored. It looks like teaching our children to see every person as a child of God, no matter their race, language, or income. It looks like building affordable homes, creating fair economic opportunities, and ensuring that justice rolls down like waters in our neighborhoods.
Here in Beaufort County and across South Carolina, we see both the beauty and the struggle of our community. We are blessed with generosity, faith, and resilience—but we also face deep divides in wealth, housing, education, and understanding. Too often, we allow politics, fear, or tradition to separate us. Yet the Gospel reminds us that love is stronger than division. Love is the bridge that brings us back to one another.
This love is not partisan—it is personal and communal. It calls us to look beyond our labels and see the image of God in our neighbor. Whether conservative or progressive, wealthy or working-class, native or newcomer, we are all bound together by the sacred truth that every person matters.
As followers of Christ, we are called to live out a faith that sets people free—free from fear, free from hatred, and free from despair. This is the essence of Liberation Theology: the belief that the love of God is not just meant to save our souls but to transform our world. It means that faith is not passive—it is active. It builds, heals, and restores.
This message of love and liberation is also a gentle but firm reminder that the Gospel cannot be confused with nationalism or any ideology that claims God for one group over another. Christian love transcends all borders and political boundaries. The Jesus we follow does not belong to any flag or party; He belongs to the whole world. The love of God, as revealed in Christ, welcomes the refugee, restores the sinner, embraces the stranger, and brings dignity to the least of these.
So how do we live this out in our everyday lives? We start by seeing one another with compassion. We listen before we judge. We serve instead of striving for status. We forgive where there has been hurt. We build where there has been brokenness. When we do this, love becomes more than a feeling—it becomes a force of liberation that transforms our homes, our schools, our churches, and our communities.
At Campbell Chapel AME Church, we believe that true worship leads to true service. That’s what it means to follow Jesus—the One who came to proclaim good news to the poor, freedom for the captives, and sight for the blind.
Our world needs this kind of love again. A love that listens more than it lectures. A love that unites rather than divides. A love that stands up for what is right, even when it is not popular.
For God so loved the world that He gave. May we, too, give—of ourselves, our voices, and our hearts—until love becomes liberation for all.
The Rev. Fedrick A. Wilson is pastor of Campbell Chapel AME Church, Bluffton, S.C.
