What the World Needs Now
For some, the above words may be a reminder of a popular 1960s song—“What the World Needs Now is Love.” Though I well remember the song, the above title was triggered, not by a song, but a philosophical debate on ethics that occurred in the Fall of 1980 on the campus of what was then North Texas State University, Denton, TX. The participants in the discussion were Thomas B. Warren (1920-2000) and Joe E. Barnhart who died earlier this year (Feb. 5, 2023). In the debate, Dr. Warren affirmed Christian Theism (the ethical system advanced in the New Testament) is superior to the system of utilitarian ethics (the system advanced by the British philosopher Jeremy Bentham, 1748-1832), and by Dr. Barnhart who, in the aforementioned debate, affirmed it as being superior to Christian Theism.
In the conclusion to the third speech he delivered the evening of November 5, 1980, which was the third night of this four-night debate, Thomas B. Warren said, “I want you to understand—if you do not understand anything else in this discussion—that the love of God is universal. It does not matter what your life has been. . . . God loves everybody—‘God so loved the world’! You may have been guilty of every sin that might be written in the black book of sins, but God loves you tonight and He gave His son to die for you” (Warren-Barnhart Debate 180).
The debate concluded each evening with both participants delivering a five-minute closing rejoinder in addition to three twenty-minute speeches each delivered nightly. In his rejoinder on the debate’s third night, Dr. Warren concluded with the following: “The greatest thing that could happen to any of us is to understand not only the existence of God but the love of God. Jesus said that if He were ‘lifted up’ He would draw all men unto Him. It is the power of insight into the crucified savior, as C. S. Lewis, a one-time atheist, recognized” (185).
The perfect, most powerful, and profound description of love in text is the thirteenth chapter of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians (13:1-13). The perfect, most powerful, and profound demonstration of love in time and eternity is He who was “foreknown before the foundation of the world . . . was made manifest” for our sake (1 Peter 1:20), through Whom God showed “His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). The perfect, most powerful, and profound discernment of love transmitted is that which Jesus Christ described when He said, “And I, when I am lifted up from the Earth, will draw all people to Myself” (John 12:32). Herein is the gaining of the power of insight into the love of God through the crucified Savior. Michael Green summed it up well when he wrote, “It is the reflection upon the cross as the supreme impulse to costly service to others in the name of the gospel . . . unquestionably the greatest single element in keeping the zeal of Christians at fever pitch” (Evangelism in the Early Church, 238).
It is what Paul had discerned and experienced when he wrote, “. . . I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me, and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Galatians 2:19-20). Though he has died, Thomas B. Warren still speaks through those powerful words he delivered in that Texas debate with the atheist Barnhart more than 40 years ago—"The greatest thing that could happen to any of us is to understand not only the existence of God, but the love of God.” No one can successfully deny this is what the world needs now!