The objection usually comes short: I will not consider Christianity, because I have never seen Christians love each other. Often the right first response is to agree with whatever part of that is true, then become part of a community whose shared life makes the claim worth hearing again. Jesus made love the visible sign of his disciples. That sign does not replace the reasons Christians give for believing, but when it is missing, people notice, and they are right to.
This guide moves from what you have actually seen, to what Jesus said, to what a Jude 3 Project conversation adds, to a practice you can try in a real conversation and a real week. You can work through it alone in about an hour. A group can use it across one long session or two shorter ones. Wherever it asks for a personal story, sharing is optional. Writing an answer for yourself counts.
Start with what you have actually seen
Before you prepare a response, test the critique against your own memory. Draw a line down the middle of a sheet of paper. On the left, list specific moments when you saw Christians fail to love one another: a church split, a feud between members, gossip that drove someone away, a congregation that knew nothing about the family in the next pew. On the right, list moments when you saw Christians love one another in a way that cost them something. Use initials only on your own copy.
Which column came to mind faster? Which has more detail? If your left column is easier to fill, the person who raised the objection may be describing something you have seen too. If your right column is full but every entry happened inside a building on a Sunday, ask whether anyone outside your congregation could have seen any of it.
Keep this sheet. You will come back to it at the end.
Read the sign Jesus gave
Jesus spoke these words to his disciples on the night he was betrayed, after he had washed their feet. John 13:34-35 reads:
A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.
Read it slowly twice, then write a one-sentence answer to each observation.
- Who loves whom? The phrase “one to another” points to love among the disciples themselves. What changes if you read the verse as being about how Christians treat each other, rather than only how they treat outsiders?
- What is the measure? Jesus says “as I have loved you.” He had just knelt with a basin, and within hours he would go to the cross. What does that measure rule out?
- Who is watching? “All men” will know. A sign has to be visible to work. Where, in your current church life, could someone outside actually see Christians loving each other?
Notice what this means for the person raising the objection. They are applying the test Jesus himself set, looking for the sign he said would be there. That is a reason to take them seriously rather than treat the critique as an attack.
Jesus also exposed a reflex that shows up in these conversations. In Matthew 7:3 he asks, “And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?” The verse is about judging, and its picture is a person busy correcting someone else while blind to his own larger fault. A Christian who rushes to point out the flaws in a critic’s reasoning, while ignoring the failure the critic actually named, is in that position. Applying the verse here is an application rather than its direct subject, but the logic carries: deal with your own fault first, and you will see the other person’s point more clearly.
What the conversation adds
In a Jude 3 Project podcast conversation, Lisa Fields and Christian hip hop artist Emmanuel Lambert, known as Da’ T.R.U.T.H, discuss exactly this sign. Their exchange gives this guide three ideas to practice with.
Love has to be defined before it can be shown
Lambert insists that “when we talk about love, we have to qualify it.” He argues that the culture treats love as an emotional sensation, which is why people leave relationships when the feeling fades. The love Jesus commands is commitment that holds through conflict. Lambert ties this to his own marriage, describing a hard season that convinced him the gospel he preached would have looked ineffective in his own life had he walked away. His reasoning is that the gospel is a message of reconciliation between enemies, and a relationship repaired after real conflict “gives people not just a sermon, but a picture of the gospel.”
This matters for your response. Pointing to Christians who are pleasant to each other does not answer the critique, because pleasantness is common. The critique is really asking whether Christians stay with one another and repair what breaks.
One boundary has to be stated plainly. Reconciliation as a witness never requires anyone to stay in danger. Repair depends on repentance and the end of harm. If you are being hurt at home, your safety comes first, and the National Domestic Violence Hotline is available at 1-800-799-7233.
Love has to be seen
Lambert makes a concession of his own. Speaking about the New Testament commands to love, pray for and build up one another, he says “the one anothers have to be visible. See, the one thing about the early church is that they were visible.” He contrasts that with his observation that “Now the church is open on Sunday and Wednesday,” and asks, “At what point do people get to see that one another’s exercise?” His conclusion is direct: “we have to be present outside.” He wants communities where people outside can watch the love at work, “And we’re not just telling them that we really love each other.”
Lambert does not argue the critic is wrong. He grants the problem as a member of the church and moves straight to what would change it. He also adds a realistic limit: “that is difficult in a splintered church.” Mutual love requires people who stay together long enough for others to see it.
Love has to be shared, not climbed past
Lisa Fields names one cause of that splintering. She describes preaching that frames growth as God removing people from your life so you can reach your next level, and she answers it: “It’s not just about my next level. It’s about us going together.” Lambert agrees, arguing that Western individualism shapes the church more than it realizes. He points to Ephesians 2, where Paul writes that Christ “is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us” (Ephesians 2:14). Lambert’s summary is that “reconciliation was not just vertical, reconciliation was horizontal.”
Taken together, these give you something to point to besides the church’s record: what Jesus said his people would look like, and what it looks like when they commit, stay visible and stay together. That raises an obvious worry.
Does agreeing give the argument away?
If you agree that Christians have failed to love, have you conceded that Christianity is false? Start by separating two questions. John 13:35 says love shows whose disciples these are. It does not say love proves Jesus rose from the dead. A church that fails to love has failed to resemble its Lord. Whether that Lord is who he claimed to be is a different question with its own evidence. Jude 3 Project holds that the failures of leaders are real and grievous, and that they are not the same as the failure of Christ. An honest answer needs both halves of that sentence.
A sharper skeptic will press further. Christians claim that Jesus changes people. If the people he supposedly changes look no different, is that not evidence against the claim? This deserves a straight answer. Visible failure is real evidence that many who carry the name are not living what they profess, and a church that shrugs it off has no case. What that evidence cannot settle is whether Jesus rose, because that is a historical question. It also cannot show that change never happens, since the right column on your sheet, if it has anything in it, counts too. The fair conclusion is that the church’s life is part of the evidence a skeptic may weigh, and Christians should expect it to be weighed.
Notice too what visible love does when it appears. Lisa Fields says “one of the most powerful apologetic is how we love people,” and she recalls how people responded when believers forgave those who had deeply wounded them. Observers began asking, in her words, “what kind of faith do you have? What kind of relationship with God do you have?” Love did not end the inquiry. It started one, and the faith behind the love still had to be explained honestly.
One caution. Some people who say they have never seen Christians love each other are describing real harm, including abuse by church leaders. If that is what you hear, this is not the moment for an argument. Listen, believe what is credible, and help them find safe support.
Practice: the concession conversation
This exercise works best in pairs, but you can do it alone by writing both sides. Allow about twenty minutes.
Step one. One person plays the skeptic, with a simple line: I will not even look at your arguments. I have never seen Christians love each other. The skeptic can draw on something real from their own left column, or invent a plausible example.
Step two. The other person responds with a question before any defense. Ask where they saw it, what happened, and what they expected to see instead. Keep asking until you could repeat their story accurately.
Step three. Restate their experience in your own words and ask if you got it right. Do not move on until they say yes.
Step four. Agree specifically. Name what was wrong in what they described, and say why it fails the standard Jesus set in John 13:34-35. Avoid general apologies for “the church” that cost you nothing. If you have contributed to the same kind of failure, you may say so.
Step five. Only now, offer one thing: a short account from your right column, told with the conflict left in; the distinction between the failure of disciples and the claims of Jesus; or an invitation to come and see a group of believers you trust. Choose one, not all three.
Then switch roles, and talk about which step felt hardest and why.
If you are leading a group, model step four yourself before anyone else tries it. Keep role-play examples away from current conflicts inside your own congregation, which deserve private and pastoral handling. If someone’s example touches abuse, pause the exercise and follow up with them privately.
A practice for the week
Pick one “one another” from the New Testament: “Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another” (Romans 12:10), or “let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works” (Hebrews 10:24). With at least one other believer, practice it this week somewhere a neighbor, coworker or friend could see it. Help a fellow member move. Sit with someone at a hospital in shifts. Show up together for a member’s job loss with food and time. Make the plan specific enough that you could say afterward exactly what you did, with whom and where.
If a relationship with another believer is strained, consider whether this is the week to take one step toward repair, where that is safe and wise.
Questions for discussion
- When someone says they have never seen Christians love each other, what is your first internal reaction? What does that reaction tell you about what you are trying to protect?
- Lambert argues that love must be qualified as commitment rather than feeling. Where does your church’s common life show commitment that holds through conflict, and where does it show only warmth?
- Imagine a neighbor who has never attended your church watching its members for a month. What would they actually see, good and bad, and where would they see it?
- Is it true that a focus on personal advancement divides churches? What would count as evidence for or against that claim in a congregation you know?
- Where is the line between honestly agreeing with a critique and conceding something that is not true? Try to state that line in one sentence.
- If someone asked you what kind of faith produces the love you have seen, what would you say, and what reasons would you give?
Return to your sheet
Take out the two columns you wrote at the start. Add anything the week has shown you, on either side. Then look at the line down the middle and ask the question this whole guide has been circling: if the person who raised the objection spent a month near your community, which column would they add to?