A review of Rebecca McLaughlin’s “No Greater Love”

In No Greater Love, Rebecca McLaughlin explores what Christian friendship can look like at its very best. She champions the high calling of Christ-centered community as integral to the church fulfilling its mission on earth and challenges believers to consider it one of their noblest pursuits. Her thesis is Jesus’ definition of the greatest love: “Greater love has no one than this; that someone lay down his life for his friends.” John 15:13

Family redefined, with affection

McLaughlin challenges the common belief that one’s primary duty is to the nuclear family. Instead, she exhorts believers to extend their inner circle to siblings in Christ as well as to neighbors, literal and proverbial. I appreciated her reminder that Jesus built his kingdom upon a nontraditional family—a group of friends. While he greatly valued marriage and children, he taught that the family of faith comes first: “Whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother” (Mark 3:35).

These “relational ensembles” of Christ’s choosing should be rich and varied and characterized by affection, McLaughlin writes. Intimacy should not belong exclusively to romantic and parental loves, she argues, but should be reclaimed by Christians as the New Testament standard. Throughout John’s gospel, he refers to himself as the “one whom Jesus loved,” while Paul referred to his male and female friends as “his very heart” among other terms of endearment. I’m not sure contemporary Christians are going to resume reclining on each others’ bosoms or exchanging holy kisses, but you can’t blame a girl for dreaming.

Gentle soldiers

McLaughlin reminds us that we are not members of a social club so much as we are soldiers drafted into Christ’s ever-growing army. Though we are “comrades in arms” with specific marching orders, I found her use of the New Testament’s military metaphors to be a bit of a stretch. I doubt she or her 21st-century Western audience is really “risking their lives” for the faith; after all, we live in peacetime compared to our 1st-century counterparts. 

That said, I appreciated her characterization of the Lord’s enlisted, always expanding their arms to new recruits: “Jesus leads an army stacked with gentle, servant-hearted soldiers, not ruthless hitmen.”  

Bodybuilding with benefits

These loving, holy friendships not only build up the body of Christ and show the world what life in him is like, but they also benefit individuals in unexpected ways. McLaughlin explores how multiple friendships draw out the best in everyone: “No single human is equipped to draw us out in all the good ways we could be drawn.” We need a village for that, she reasons, and warns that “when we look to marriage as the only real source of connection, we find ourselves impoverished.”

She also suggests that close Christian friendship can be a protection against the temptation of adultery, in that such friendships provide the adventure and variety sometimes lacking in marriage. “The beauty of marriage is that it’s locked in and exclusive. The beauty of friendship is that it isn’t.” 

Some of these friendships that would be harmless for many are more fraught for McLaughlin, though; throughout the book she is admirably honest about her history of same-sex attraction. While I appreciated her vulnerability, I felt a tad lost as she explained how she guards against such romantic attachments. Rather than avoiding one-on-one time with female friends, she pursues them aggressively in an effort to grow in godly, sibling love that supersedes her natural inclination. 

Aspirational? Yes. Wise? I’m not sure. 

I can’t envision pursuing intimate friendships with men in an effort to see them like brothers and thereby avoid romantic attraction, but perhaps other readers will. Though McLaughlin does allow that some Christians need to avoid close friendships with whichever gender they’re attracted to, like an alcoholic needs to avoid bars, she believes the reward is greater than the risk.

Life together

No Greater Love is a helpful treatment of what defines edifying Christian friendship – sibling love, vulnerability, encouragement, correction, sacrifice, inclusivity, forgiveness, bearing one another’s burdens, and the camaraderie of sharing Christ’s mission to recreate the world. It’s a call to the highest ideals of the Christian community.

As I read, however, I found myself wondering when McLaughlin sleeps, given how many active, sacrificial friendships she maintains and suggests her readers maintain. 

If the author worked long hours in a secular job just to keep food on the table and the lights turned on, on top of her domestic and relational responsibilities, would she still call us to ever-widening circles of close, committed friendship? I wonder. 

Still, I think there is plenty of inspiration in No Greater Love and that readers will come away with new eyes for what’s possible within the body of Christ.