Love Without Limits: Jesus' Radical Vision for Love with No Exceptions

By Jacqueline A. Bussie

The love of God crosses all boundaries. Every. Single. One.
Every day, millions of people lament the loss of civility, respect, and hope, and they wonder if it's possible to cultivate a love big enough to overthrow hate and heal our hurts. With courage, authenticity, and relevance, Jacqueline A. Bussie proclaims, "Yes! It's possible!" and urges readers to widen love's wingspan and to love as God loves--without limits or exceptions.
In Love Without Limits, Bussie imparts practical solutions for people of faith who yearn to love across division and difference in these troubled times. Through poignant personal memoir, engaging theological reflection, inspiring true stories of boundary-busting friendships, creative readings of scripture, and surprising shout-outs to some of love's unsung heroes, Bussie challenges readers to answer God's call to practice a love so deep, it subverts the social order; so radical, it scandalizes the powerful; so vast, it excludes no one.
"A must-read for all Christians interested in inclusivity for their communities." --Publishers Weekly

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fortress Press
• Release date: Aug 20, 2018
• ISBN: 9781506446899

Jacqueline A. Bussie

Jacqueline Bussie is director of the Forum on Faith and Life and professor of religion at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota. Her first book, Outlaw Christian, won the 2017 Gold Medal Illumination Award for Christian Living. She lives in Fargo, ND.

Book preview

Cover Page for Love without Limits

Praise for Love without Limits

"‘God is love.’ ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ I want to embrace these biblical dicta, but so often I hear them as clichés. In a way equaled only by C. S. Lewis’s The Four Loves, Jacqueline Bussie’s dilation of love wakes me up so that I might see, practice, and receive love. In this moment when so many of us find it hard to love the neighbor with whom we disagree, Bussie’s work seems especially urgent."

—Lauren F. Winner, author of Wearing God

"Love without Limits is a beautiful, exquisitely written, and deeply moving proclamation of revolutionary love. A courageous triumph of solidarity over censorship and hate."

—Valarie Kaur, founder of the Revolutionary Love Project and author of See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love

In a world as balkanized as the one in which we find ourselves, Bussie’s words light the way toward practicing ‘a love so deep it subverts the social order, so radical it scandalizes the powerful, so vast it excludes no one. A love, it turns out, that couldn’t be censored.

—Chicago Tribune

This is a book about love, but not just any love. It’s about a cosmic love, deep-faith love, break-down-walls love. Every page pulses with that same radical love. Read it and let the contents pour into you and make you better.

—Eboo Patel, author of Acts of Faith

"In Love without Limits, Jacqueline Bussie offers us a no-nonsense, no-excuses, love-without-exceptions instruction manual. Written with a warmth and earnestness that invite readers to settle in and stay, this book gives us permission to think in new ways about old stories while reminding us to open up to loving even the most rejected parts of ourselves and others. Love without Limits is folksy, generous, and wise."

—Sheri Reynolds, author of The Rapture of Canaan

Jacqueline Bussie is one of the most insightful and inviting thinkers in the church today. I love the way she seamlessly integrates head and heart into this vibrant treatise on what has always been at the center of Christianity and yet has so often been ignored: love.

—Nadia Bolz-Weber, author of Pastrix and Accidental Saints

If you believe, as I do, that love is the heart of Jesus’ message and should be the point of the Christian life, then you’ll be surprised to see how few books there are that aim specifically to help you become a better practitioner of love. And you’ll be thrilled when a book like this comes along—well-written, inspiring and practical, deeply engaging with Scripture, and joyfully celebrating the primacy of love.

—Brian D. McLaren, author of The Great Spiritual Migration

I want to press this book into the hands of every Christian who has despaired of our faith being choked by narrow moralism, prejudice, nationalism, and all those who sought Jesus and were greeted by a door slammed in the face instead of a seat at his banquet table. Jacqueline Bussie’s a gifted preacher with the voice of a friend who will grab you by the shoulders, look you in the eye, and say, no matter what your family of origin says, no matter what your church says, no matter what you say, you are beloved. Full stop. The Good News is good news for every single one of us, or it’s no good at all.

—Jessica Mesman Griffith, author of Love & Salt, curator of the online spiritual community Sick Pilgrim

"Love Without Limits is more than a book; it is a profound and witty guide to a way of life—no, not just a way of life, but the way of life Jesus outlined for us in his life and teachings, if we would only pay attention. Over and over again this gracious book reminds us that ‘love without limits’ is not only our goal, but is possible if we have the courage to attempt it and to pay, if necessary, the price. I love this book. It has become part of me."

—Anthony S. Abbot, author of Dark Side of North, Pulitzer Prize nominee, winner of the North Carolina Award for Literature, North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame 2020 Inductee

This is a memoir, but it’s also a theological examination of the depths of love.

—The Presbyterian Outlook

"Like no other book, Love Without Limits gives graciously to my students, embodying a vision of Christian living and loving that successfully strains the bounds of traditions many of them inherit. Jacqueline Bussie’s voice connects like few authors I have taught in over twenty years in the undergraduate classroom. I have repeatedly witnessed this book’s transformative effects on learning minds and yearning hearts, and commend it to all who educate and who seek edification."

—Caryn D. Riswold, Professor of Religion and the Mike and Marge McCoy Family Distinguished Chair in Lutheran Heritage and Mission at Wartburg College, author of Feminism and Christianity: Questions and Answers in the Third Wave

Love without Limits

Jesus’ Radical Vision for Love with No Exceptions

Jacqueline A. Bussie

Broadleaf Books

Minneapolis

LOVE WITHOUT LIMITS

Jesus’ Radical Vision for Love with No Exceptions

Copyright © 2022 Broadleaf Books, an imprint of 1517 Media. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Email [e-mail] or write to Permissions, Broadleaf Books, PO Box 1209, Minneapolis, MN 55440-1209.

Broadleaf Books edition published 2022. Previously published 2018 by Fortress Press.

Cover design: Cindy Laun

Print ISBN: 978-1-5064-8144-9

eBook ISBN: 978-1-5064-4689-9

While the author and 1517 Media have confirmed that all references to website addresses (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing, URLs may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.

To my beloved husband, Matthew Myers (1968–2021)

I loved you without limits

You loved me without limits

You were the bravest person I’ve ever known

You were my best friend since age fourteen

You were my greatest champion

You were the champion of everyone who needed one most

You were my blanket on life’s coldest nights

You were the pillow on which my cheek rested

You were the light behind my eyelids

You were my life’s garnish

You were my home

You were my revolution

You were my compass

You were my music

And you still are all of these things and always will be

Even though you were taken from me—from all of us—too soon

And this world is infinitely less without your huge, huge heart

Table of Contents

Preface to the Paperback Edition

Introduction

Part 1: People Who Taught Me Love

1 My First Love (Gus)

2 A Mother’s Love (Charlotte)

3 When Your Friends Become Your Family (Framily)

4 Wearing the Wrong Nametag (Grandma Perkins)

5 Adoption (Elijah)

6 Stop the Single Story (Khadijah, Rasheed, and Jamila)

Part 2: More of Love’s Teachers: Places and Things

7 Can Anything Good Come Out of Nazareth? (Fargo)

8 Is It Wrong to Love Ourselves? (Feet)

9 Why Does Love Hurt So Bad? (Grief)

10 How Do I Love You If I Don’t Even Like You? (Difference)

Acknowledgments

Notes

Preface to the Paperback Edition

For me, writing is prayer. A form of healing. A stethoscope that brings my ear one inch closer to God’s heartbeat . . . and one mile closer to the world’s hurt and hope. I thank you for reading this book—for listening with me. Our world needs your ears.

Three years ago, when I first wrote Love Without Limits, I never would’ve expected that a book could have its own life—complete with heartache, rejection, failure, solidarity, and joy. Or that my own life could so deeply be tied to it. I guess that’s what can happen when an author tries to trace none other than the outline of her own heart—and the hearts of those she loves—onto a book’s pages.

As many of you know, Love Without Limits was censored by its original multinational Christian publisher. When I refused to delete affirming true stories about my LGBTQ and Muslim friends from the manuscript, the publisher rejected it, then demanded I pay back my entire advance in order to buy the rights back for my own book.

Blessedly and unexpectedly, though, months later a viral social media post about that censorship helped the book find a new publisher in Fortress Press (now Broadleaf Books). Today, I refer to the tens of thousands of dollars I lost as my integrity tax.

Unlike my other books, Love Without Limits has taken me on the ride of my life. Let’s just say, if this book is a newlywed couple’s car, I’m one of those cans tied to the back of it. Wherever it goes, I follow, tethered. Wedded forever to its message of love across difference and division—in sickness and in health, for better and for worse.

For worse: at first, this book’s censorship and my getting fired by my publisher dragged me to below-ground places of unspeakable sorrow, depression, and a loss of hope—especially about how we treat those who don’t think, act, believe, or vote like we do.

For better: then the viral post, as well as all the amazing book tour invitations to over one hundred different churches, synod assemblies, colleges, and conferences since the book’s birth, soared me to the highest heights of solidarity, joy, and hope. From Olympia, Washington, to Beaufort, South Carolina; from Fresno, California, to Chicago, Illinois; from Canberra, Australia, to Oshkosh, Wisconsin; from Columbus, Ohio, to Davidson, North Carolina; from Minneapolis, Minnesota, to Peachtree City, Georgia; from Minot, North Dakota, to Ann Arbor, Michigan; Love Without Limits and I have traveled. Every stop grace, every encounter a gift.

This book has opened—and continues to open—doors to me all over the map, and each time, the Holy Spirit surprise-slips through the crack. To every amazing human who’s read this book, listened to my story, and/or reached out to tell me your own stunning stories, please know how much I appreciate you. You know who you are. I wish I could thank every single one of you by name! Here’s my highlight reel:

• The nine-year-old who sent me her own love-without-limits stories of faith and said she’d like to be a writer like me someday.

• Molly from Minot, the reader who went on an internet quest to try to find my first love, Gus Tate, for me.

• The eighty-year-old gentleman at Holden Village who said he hadn’t cried since his wife’s death six months prior but cried during my talk because I gave him permission to—and then quietly asked, May I hug you?

• Pastor Shannon Mullen and the fabulous congregation of St. John’s Lutheran in Beaufort, South Carolina, who created the most thoughtful care package ever: a bag hand-embroidered with one of my mother’s love lessons from the book—Showing a person that you remember what they love is how you love them—and filled with a dozen little things I mention in the book that I love: gummy bears, a honeysuckle-scented candle, my favorite pop. (Y’all, I still carry that bag everywhere I go. Thank you.)

• My childhood church in Peachtree City, Georgia—Christ Our Shepherd Lutheran, which I hadn’t set foot in since I was nine years old—who invited me to speak and preach after reading my book as a congregation. Thank you, Pastor Fritz Wiese, for calling me a daughter of [your] congregation.

• Zion Lutheran Church, the newly (and proudly!) Reconciled in Christ church in Ann Arbor, Michigan, whose pastor (Rev. James Debner) carved out time to drive me to the church I was baptized in as a baby, as well as the hospital where I was born—neither of which I had ever seen since I moved away at three years old.

My life is enriched by each of you—and by every reader. That includes you, the person holding this book in your hands right now. May you never forget that you are loved without limits.

To my critics: as a follower of Jesus and white straight woman of privilege, I hold strong views about interfaith advocacy; the movement for Black lives; gender equality; racism; and the inherent dignity and equality of people of color, Muslims, people of all faiths and none, and LGBTQ folks. My activism, values, and theology upset a lot of you who disagree with me. You’ve told me so through strongly worded letters, emails, phone calls, and conversations. To you I respond, sure, you could be right that one day I’ll come face-to-face with our Creator and learn I was wrong about some stuff I say in this book. But in the end, I’d rather err on the side of too much love than too little. God’s love without limits is my life’s spiritual hedge fund, in which I riskily invest every penny.

This book’s journey has a beautiful ending to be sure, but as I tell every audience, it would be totally irresponsible of me to end my story there for two reasons. First, even though my book’s censorship was overcome, the anti-Muslim bias and anti-LGBTQ prejudice, alongside our human need to divide the world into us versus them, pervades communities of faith and still persists in all its ugliness. We followers of Jesus still have a lot of work to do. As my friend Eboo Patel likes to say, the road may be long, but at least we have each other.

Second, because God gave me an invaluable takeaway from this experience—an incredibly humbling epiphany. Before writing this book, I’d long considered myself an interfaith ally/accomplice, as well as an ally/accomplice to the LGBTQ community. But this experience called me out. If I’d really understood the degree to which some folks in our society are shoved into the shadows—are silenced, marginalized, rejected, and denied even the right to breathe—I would’ve never been surprised by what happened to the book or to me. But I was surprised. And what does that say about me? It says I may have understood this pain in the abstract, but I had not yet understood it in my body, in my bones, and certainly not in my bank account the way millions of you do every day.

I know that many of you reading this identify as members of the LGBTQ community, the Muslim community, and/or as people of color. And I want you to hear me say that the most important thing I learned from this experience was how utterly clueless I really was about the extent of my own privilege and how much my compassion needed to grow. You are the true heroes of this story for what you face and survive. Every. Single. Day. I want you—and everyone who can’t breathe in this country—to know: I see you. And I will stand alongside you, no matter the cost.

Writing as I am after the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and so many other deeply missed human souls, there are things I wish I had discussed more in detail in this book. After a pandemic summer spent reading and learning from the brilliance of Ibram Kendi and Valarie Kaur, I’d add this unequivocal assertion: racism is about policy and power. Policy and power structures need to change, and not just people.

Racism can’t be solved with hugs, worthy intentions, changes of heart, or even individual acts of forgiveness. As a liberation theologian, I believe this wholeheartedly, and for nearly two decades of teaching, I’ve taught this in my classroom and beyond. I regret that I didn’t go as deeply into that as I should have in this book. As an antiracist, I’m still a work in progress.

Relatedly, I’m still struggling with the complexities of forgiveness. My faith as a Christian demands it, but I have to ask, Is it fair to demand forgiveness from anyone who has been oppressed? Isn’t that insistence on forgiveness just another exertion of power over rather than solidarity with? No matter your answer to that question, one thing is clear: forgiveness is no substitute for justice or policy change. These days, I take to heart what Valarie Kaur says in her book See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love regarding the Sikh community’s forgiveness of the white supremacist who murdered seven people at Oak Creek: "Forgiveness was not a substitute for justice; it had energized us in the fight for justice. . . . Forgiveness is not forgetting."¹

I’m a different person now than the one who wrote this book. There’s no denying. Among the insights glued to my soul now: censoring and silencing people with whom we disagree does not work. Being censored didn’t persuade me to change my mind. If anything, the experience worked like a well-digger’s shovel, entrenching my beliefs deeper and deeper into the ground of my being. I often think about this these days when I disagree with someone and catch myself secretly wishing they’d shut their pie hole. I’m as guilty as anyone of the urge to silence folks. I see my own hypocrisy now. I know I must do better than was done to me. Remember, only love persuades. Silencing just cements views into place.

Sometimes, I ask myself, If this book hadn’t been censored by the big multinational, multimillion-dollar corporate publisher, would it ever have gained the following it has now? Would the book have garnered all the invitations to speak, or be featured in Publishers Weekly and on countless podcasts? We know the answer. Let this be a lesson to all of us.

Over the last three years since this book was first published, I’ve compiled a top-ten list for you of what I learned from this experience:

1. Your story matters. Tell it.

2. Now more than ever, what the world needs most is more people of faith who are not for sale.

3. Never cave to the lie that you can’t make a difference. Solidarity saves. Even a click or a share can jump-start a heart.

4. Human love is tiny, but God’s love is titanic. Following Jesus means letting him transform our tiny love into the titanic kind.

5. Hope is a GPS. If you ever lose yours or your battery dies, you can always share mine. What matters is we all find our way home.

6. Most people totally misunderstand power. True power pursues only one goal: the empowerment of other people.

7. Understanding and agreement are not the same thing. Real love demands only the first and not the second.

8. When you can no longer stand, let your community hold you.

9. Never trust any voice that tells you that your love should have asterisks or exceptions or limits—even if that voice is your own.

10. And last but most important, love wins. Always. And each and every one of you is a beloved child of God who is loved without limits. Don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise.

—Jacqueline A. Bussie

May 25, 2021

George Floyd, may you know you are fiercely loved. Without limits. Forever.

Introduction

This book was censored. To my shock, in 2017, the original Christian publisher that paid me handsomely to write it—and had agreed to its subject of God’s radical love—deemed two chapters theologically out of bounds. I was asked to cut specific true stories—stories expressing my love and appreciation for my Muslim friends and LGBTQ friends—because they

Reviews for Love Without Limits

[sara_cat-107388 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I struggle with how I feel about my faith and religion in general, but this was a beautiful and touching book that had me in tears at several points. And always had me thinking. This is a book that will stay with me, I feel.