How much love is enough? In this episode of It’s In the Code, part of the series “Questions I Wasn’t Supposed to Ask in Church,” we examine one of the most influential teachings in conservative Christianity: that Christians must love God or Jesus more than anyone and anything else. What happens when this teaching becomes an impossible demand? Drawing on a listener’s powerful experience, we explore the connection between the love of God, religious trauma, Christian deconstruction, and the damaging effects that toxic religious teachings can have on relationships with parents, children, partners, and family. For many people leaving high-control religion or evangelical Christianity, questions about how to love God—and whether loving God requires loving other people less—can become central to the process of religious deconstruction.

This episode also explores the history of Christian theology and the influence of Greek philosophy on Christian ideas about God, love, the body, the material world, mortality, and human relationships. Is loving God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength really the same thing as loving God more than everyone else? Can love of God and love of other people exist in harmony? And what if the things we love most are precisely the things that are finite, temporary, and mortal? This conversation about conservative Christianity, religious trauma, spiritual abuse, Christian deconstruction, and the meaning of love ultimately asks whether we need to rethink both love and God.

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