Love Is the Only Sane Response in a Time of Fear

In the weeks leading up to the inauguration, Sojourners’ 41st class of fellows gathered to study bell hooks’ prophetic book All About Love. In her writing, hooks not only exposes the structures underpinning systems of oppression but illuminates paths toward dismantling them. Her primary tactic is one we don’t hear much about these days: love.

Published in 1999, All About Love could just as easily have been written amid today’s political upheaval. Hooks calls out fear as a defining issue of our time: “As a culture we are obsessed with the notion of safety. Yet we do not question why we live in states of extreme anxiety and dread. Fear is the primary force upholding structures of domination.”

It is no stretch to see how fear underpins many of the issues dominating our current political landscape. When our economic system manufactures scarcity by promoting unregulated accumulation, we fear that we will not have enough for ourselves, and we turn to scapegoating the marginalized. When churches stoke fear about personal salvation, voters focus on issues of private morality –– like sexuality and reproductive freedom –– rather than on liberation for the poor and oppressed. When fears concerning global insecurity and conflict convince us to place our faith in a bloated Department of Defense budget –– which totaled $841 billion in 2024 –– we miss naming the real source of instability: exponentially rising wealth inequality.

During the Trump administration’s first weeks in office, fear was instilled as a deliberate strategy of political domination. Political adversaries’ security details were rescinded. Federal employees who did not accept the administration’s resignation offer were threatened with furlough. Foreign aid was frozen and USAID workers were placed on leave. Mass immigration arrests were initiated and gender affirming resources were wiped from federal websites.

As I watched President Donald Trump wield fear as a weapon to intimidate his opponents, I found myself meditating on bell hooks’ warning that “fear keeps us from trusting in love.” 1 John 4:18 calls us to resist fear with love: “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear[.]” It is completely, utterly irrational — not to mention incredibly difficult — to love people who think and act against our existence and well-being; who cling to the world’s wealth at the expense of our life, planet, and health; who attack our identities; who deport our friends and family; who defund our futures. And yet, this is exactly what both Jesus and hooks call us to.

Choosing love at a time like this is not a logical or easy thing to do. But I believe it is an exceptionally revolutionary thing to do. Bell hooks, writing about the exceptionally difficult task of choosing revolutionary love, explains that the people “who have offered their lives in service of justice and freedom” did so not because they were “any smarter or kinder than their neighbors but [because] they were willing to live the truth of their values.” Hooks asks us to change our thinking and begin seeing ourselves as capable of this exceptional love, too.

In this moment, when the Trump administration seeks to gain power by making us feel powerless, afraid, and confused, bell hooks reminds us that love is the only effective antidote to fear and oppression, and that it must be politicized. Hooks’ writing challenges our society’s dominant narrative on love. Love is not a grand romantic musing, a good and blissful feeling, or something we would be lucky to fall into. According to hooks, love is definable, intentional, and a decision. Love must be practiced moment by moment. As Martin Luther King Jr. said in his Nobel Peace Prize lecture from 1964: “When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response which is little more than emotional bosh. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life.”

Those of us who have been fighting for a politics of love have not failed. Trump’s reelection is not a time to lose hope; it is an opportunity to ask what still must be done to bring others along with us as the arc of history continues to bend toward justice.

Bell hooks’ five actionable dimensions of love — commitment, care, truth, knowledge, and respect — offer us a playbook by which we can cast out fear, communicate our vision, and resist this administration through love.

1. Love is commitment. Stay in relationship with people who think differently from you. Dedicate time and constancy to them. If you want to change a person’s mind, you have to stay committed to maintaining a relationship with them. Like all meaningful relationships, it is important that it be based on compassion and not a desire to “win” an argument.
    
2. Love is care. Seek to be intentional about expressing care for those you are committed to loving. Acts of care — including service, generous giving, listening, forgiveness, affection, and kindness — lay the foundation for strong, meaningful relationships. Make offering your time, resources, attention, and compassion part of your daily practice.
    
3. Love is truth. There is no love without honesty and authenticity. When the time comes to discuss the politics of love versus fear, do so courageously and truthfully. Practice vulnerability by sharing from your personal experiences. Ground your sharing in sound science and policy, drawing from balanced, accurate sources. Share with the motivation of expressing truth and not convincing or converting. Importantly, ask them what they think about what you shared and be willing to listen to their feedback.
    
4. Love is knowledge. When you listen to their feedback, listen to understand. Ask questions. If they are fearful, what are they fearful of? Seek to get to know a person as a whole human being and not just their politics.
    
5. Love is respect. Shame is not productive in politics. Shame creates defensiveness and an inability to hear, grow, and change. Shame also teaches people that they should not ask questions about their beliefs or explore them in conversations with others. Stop shaming others for their politics of fear. Seek instead to connect. As bell hooks explains: “When we choose to love we choose to love against fear—against alienation and separation. The choice to love is a choice to connect—to find ourselves in the other.”

We must learn to see ourselves as capable of doing exceptional things. We must make the small, daily choices that convert our commitment to a politics of love into a profound and lasting social impact. And for love’s sake, let us dedicate ourselves to bringing our neighbors along with us as we march forward.