As people flock to stores for cards, candy, flowers and treats this Valentine’s Day season, faith leaders are emphasizing the importance of spreading love, not only during this time, but year-round.
“Love is vital in society,” Pastor Ylawnda Peebles, of City of Praise Ministries in Landover, Maryland, told The Washington Informer. “It is equivalent to blood in our bodies, we cannot live without facing division and uncertainty, love has the power to heal, unite and remind us that we are all connected.”
For Peebles, who celebrated 32 years of marriage to Bishop Joel Peebles in October, love is not optional. It’s a critical part of her life not only as a wife and mother, but as a Christian and faith leader.
“Love is the foundation of my faith because God is love,” she said. “When we truly know and understand God, love embeds itself in our lifestyle.”
As the longtime couple collaborates to lead City of Praise Family Ministries, they are guided by the values of God’s love.
“In my marriage and in ministry, my husband and I choose love daily, trusting that love always triumphs,” Pastor Peebles continued.
With love being a central tenet in Christianity and many other religious beliefs, the Peebles are not the only faith leaders pushing the importance of love beyond February.
“In our faith tradition, love is the lens through which we try to approach every human interaction. That includes how I interact with my wife of 34 years, Sheri, as well as how I coach my clients,” said Rod Hairston, founding senior pastor of Messiah Community Church. “Even though I work with people who don’t share my faith tradition as a follower of Jesus Christ, they appreciate the power of love.”
At a tense and divided time for the nation and world— amid protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), violent encounters between federal agents and American citizens, and pervasive racism and inequities— Hairston said love can be a healing antidote from the painful poisons of injustice and hate.
“The lens of love has the power to break through barriers of communication or to heal the painful scars,” he said. “Love gets us out of our own way and empowers us to think of and prioritize good for the other person.”
Breaking Down Love
Although Valentine’s Day spotlights romance, faith leaders emphasize the root of love is far greater than between amorous partners.
“Love is the essence and the foundation of human life,” said Imam Talib Shareef of Masjid Muhammad, also known as The Nation’s Mosque. “You express love in the same way you do when you enter this world. You first are embraced and then your immediate needs are facilitated and that never changes throughout one’s life.”
Understanding the depth of love starts with faith, for Kamau and Maria Chenelo, U.S. Air Force veterans and a “chaplain couple,” who, together, facilitate and host Harbinger Ministries International, an organization working to support local churches.
“God is love. You can only grow in love through growing in relationships through God your creator,” the Chenelo wife told The Informer. “It is something that you don’t put on but it’s something that becomes you.”
Love is a major tenet in many faith traditions.
Answering Islam reveals that the word “hubb,” appears 69 times in the Qur’an, divided into various categories, including: man’s love of things; human love, man’s love for God; the things God does not love; and God’s love for man.
“Love is more than an emotion,” Shareef said.
The word love is referenced in the New International Version (NIV) translation of the Bible, approximately 686 times, according to Bible Study Tools. In the New Testament, there are four main types of love, based on Greek vocabulary: agape, or divine, unconditional, selfless love; philia, which is brotherly love or friendship– the inspiration behind Philadelphia’s nickname; storge, meaning familial love; and eros, explained best as romantic love.
“The Bible reminds us in 1 John 4:8, that ‘God is love,’ meaning love is not just something God does, but who He is,” said K’Ren & LaShaun Martin, co-leaders as part of Zion S.O.L.I.D. Marriage Ministry, in a statement.
When approaching romantic situations, the Martins said it is still important to put God first.
“In marriage, we must remember that God’s love is the example of how we should show love to each other,” they said.
Just as one works to maintain their spiritual foundation, marriage requires intentional work and growth, explained Tahira Shareef, who has been married to the imam for more than 50 years and has known him since the ninth grade in their hometown of Wilmington, North Carolina.
“Love is not in a vacuum, it’s built and is like building a bridge,” the wife and mother of six said. “It takes two sides to bring things together.”
Beyond romantic relationships, many faith traditions offer a call to action when it comes to love.
Christians are guided by Jesus’ notion of love in Matthew 22:37-39.
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind,” Jesus says, according to the Gospel of Matthew, using an NIV translation. “This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
While that last charge is not always easy, particularly when people can be rude, frustrating and hateful, faith leaders note that doing so also takes work.
“To show love in our society [takes] long-suffering patience,” said the Chenelo husband, who with his wife, runs Harbinger as a church-on-the-go, working to engage beyond the traditional four walls of a worship space.
As senior pastor of Messiah Community Church and executive marriage coach at Love Again Coaching, Hairston emphasized that every person is called to spread love— something that he admits takes intentional practice led by God.
“Everybody wants to be loved, but demonstrating love is the challenge we have to grow into,” Hairston told The Informer. “I fully appreciate that God loves me— weaknesses, blindspots, failures and all. Love really does change the game if we’ll lean into it.”
Spreading ‘Love in Action’
As people across the nation, particularly minorities, navigate racism, bigotry and several inequities, faith leaders are highlighting the divine charge to spread love.
“In today’s society, we’ve lost our love. We’ve allowed ourselves to become skeptics,” Hairston told The Informer.
For the Martins, social media has also contributed to the erasure of love.
“[Love] seems to have become performative in nature. Social media, content creation and comparison is oftentimes prioritized over the depth of relationship love,” they said, encouraging people to be inspired by “the fundamentals of what love is, according to God.”
However, many of the local ministers said there’s a solution to the problem: all people adopting the concept of selfless love for their neighbor.
“We spread love in the community by seeing people the way God sees us. He dignifies every human being, no matter our race, creed, color, nationality, sexual orientation, or any other identifier,” he explained. “Sheri and I have embraced a saying for years: ‘Dignify everyone.’ In our marriage we treat each other with utmost dignity. I challenge client couples that I work with to do the same.”
Terence and Jacq Sams, who, with the Martins, serve as leaders of Zion’s S.O.L.I.D. Marriage Ministry, suggest “random acts of kindness,” to spread love.
“Like paying for someone’s coffee, showing compassion in helping a neighbor, volunteering to serve the homeless, serving at church, or donating to a worthy cause,” the Sams said in a statement. “The goal is to be intentional, and have the right heart posture in doing so.”
In addition, Hairston noted that the idea of loving one another does not start in adulthood.
“I’m convinced that love begins at home because home is our first learning institution. It’s the place we first discover what love looks like, feels like, and produces in us. It’s where we discover the power of love that makes us feel secure, or the lack thereof that makes us feel little, insecure, and prone to relationship disconnection and aggression,” said Hairston. “People, including children, thrive where love is delivered in large doses of kind words, encouragement, healthy correction, and forgiveness. People who are loved at home, have no problem loving away from home.”
Having witnessed the power of love, Peebles is using her platform to encourage others to tap into that God-given strength and share it with others.
“Love is palpable and we spread love by putting it into action,” she told The Informer. “To celebrate my birth month with people all around the world, I launched a movement: Project Love In Action. It’s a movement to intentionally serve, uplift, and to show love and compassion, hoping to leave indelible marks on people’s hearts, realizing love becomes transformative when it’s lived out, not just spoken.”