What Does It Mean to Love One’s Enemies?

It is hard enough to love one’s friends and even harder to love others as we love ourselves. But how can we love our enemies? In both the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:43) and the Sermon on the Plain (Luke 6:27), Jesus plainly says, “love your enemies.” 

Why do we have enemies? Are enemies people we harbor enmity against? Probably not in most cases. Why would Jesus’ first followers have had an “enemies list” so that he would have felt the need to urge them to love those on that list?

The answer is clear: our “enemies” are not primarily those we have enmity toward; rather, they are those who have enmity toward us for whatever reason. Note Jesus’ full statement: “pray for those who persecute you.” Those early followers of Jesus were persecuted, but they certainly were not persecutors.

Consider some notable examples of people who loved their enemies. First, of course, is Jesus himself. As he was being executed by the extremely painful means of crucifixion, Jesus uttered this prayer: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34).

Anabaptists (with whom I have long identified) have great respect for Dirk Willems, the Dutch Anabaptist martyr in 1569. He escaped from prison and was chased by a guard who fell through thin ice during the chase. But Willems turned back and rescued his pursuer—and then was recaptured, tortured, and killed.

Four hundred years later, Martin Luther King, Jr., steadfastly called upon Black people to show love for their enemies, the White people who had often lynched their ancestors for centuries and were still mistreating them in the present. His most well-known book is titled Strength to Love (1963).

I was certainly not a supporter of Charlie Kirk, although I grieved that he was killed. But I remain impressed by what Erika Kirk, Charlie’s wife, said at his memorial service. She forgave the shooter. Unlike the President, she expressed love and forgiveness toward him rather than hatred.

These are widely known examples of people who showed love for their enemies. Most of us, though, will likely never be in such dramatic situations. What does it mean for us to love our enemies?

“Love is more an attitude and action than a feeling.” That is the title of #25 in my book Thirty True Things Everyone Needs to Know Now (2018). In that chapter, I cite John Hick’s explanation regarding the type of love Jesus meant when he commanded us to love our enemies.

The British philosopher writes that love is “to value a person in such ways as actively to seek his or her deepest welfare and fulfillment” (Philosophy of Religion, 1963). Or, as we might say today, love actively seeks the flourishing of all people, including our enemies.

In my above-mentioned book, I also cite how MLK importantly distinguished between liking and loving. King noted in Strength to Love that Jesus did not say, “Like your enemies,” admitting that it is “almost impossible to like some people.” But Jesus’ command was for us to love people whom we don’t like.

So, love of enemies is not sentimental affection, but deliberate goodwill and moral commitment. That is the attitude Jesus calls us to have for those who say hurtful things to/about us or do harmful things to us.

Loving in that way certainly doesn’t mean condoning injurious things that are said or done, to us or to others. We can’t be neutral concerning right and wrong, good and evil. Often, we must “hate” what people do, but love them for who they are, persons created in the image of God.

We could make a long list of people who do things we strongly disapprove of. Many of us have deep dislike for the things the POTUS and his henchmen such as Steven Miller and Russell Vought say and do, and we have the right (and responsibility?) to speak out against them.

But if we are serious about following Jesus’ command that we love our “enemies,” whether they are government officials we dislike, cantankerous neighbors, or whoever, we still must seek their “deepest welfare” and their flourishing. That is both for the well-being of others as well as for ourselves.

Remember, "hate is more harmful to the vessel in which it is stored than to the people on whom it is poured."

Analyzing Assassination Culture

The news media and the internet have been awash with news and opinions about the tragic murder of Charlie Kirk last week. I was amazed that his assassination garnered such wide coverage. Earlier this year, he talked about the current “assassination culture,” a topic worth analyzing.

There should be grief first and criticism later. On the day of Kirk’s killing, some spoke negatively of him. But on that afternoon of September 10, I posted words of Doug Pagitt on my Facebook page.*

Pagitt wrote, "I am outraged by the horrific assassination of Charlie Kirk, and my heartfelt prayers are with him and his family. Political violence has no place in America.”

He went on to say, "Charlie Kirk and I disagreed on nearly everything when it came to politics, but disagreement belongs in the realm of ideas, debate, and voting, not in acts of harm.”

One of my good friends posted negative things about Kirk on Facebook not long after he was murdered, and I “scolded” him for doing that so soon after his assassination. As I said to my friend, I fully agreed with what Pagitt wrote that day.

I also disapproved of others on the political left who were quick to say harsh things about Kirk, even though they were true. I am surprised, though, that according to Copilot, Pagitt has not publicly mentioned Kirk since 9/10.

Perhaps he noted how many who spoke out against what Kirk had said through the years, and especially recently, were chastised and even fired from public positions for doing so.

Ironically, Kirk was a staunch advocate of free speech, but many who used that freedom to say negative things about him were punished for what they said/wrote—and apparently some even for publicizing what Kirk himself had said.

“Both sides” need to be analyzed accurately. Despite Kirk accusing the left of fostering an assassination culture, it seems clear that in recent decades, far more violent acts have been committed by right-wing advocates than by those on the left. I asked Copilot about this, and here is its response:

While figures like Charlie Kirk and Donald Trump have pointed fingers at the political left for fostering what they call “assassination culture,” there’s a substantial body of evidence showing that far-right rhetoric and behavior have significantly contributed to the escalation of political violence in the U.S.”

And here is what Claude, my AI “buddy” reports: “The data shows that while Charlie Kirk uses the term 'assassination culture' to criticize the left, the statistical evidence suggests that far-right extremists have been responsible for significantly more political violence and deaths since 2000.”

Claude goes on to say, “The disparity is quite stark - far-right extremists have committed over 6 times more deaths (520+ vs 78) and nearly 5.5 times more incidents (227 vs 42) than far-left extremists since 1990, with this trend continuing into recent years.”**

Take a look once again at the graph after the introductory paragraph at the top.

Beware of being misled by the Vice President or intimidated by the right-wing media. On Monday, filling in for Kirk on his regular program, VP Vance spoke about “festering violence on the far left.” He also reportedly said on Fox News that the accused assassin was “radicalized by the far left, by the social networks of the far left, by the ideas of the far left.”

Two days after her husband’s assassination, Erika Kirk said, “The evildoers responsible for my husband's assassination have no idea what they have done. They killed Charlie ….”

Gary Bauer, a well-known conservative evangelical, wrote on Thursday, Erika’s “use of the words ‘evildoers’ (plural) and ‘they’ was intentional. She was referring to the radical leftists who hated her husband, who smeared her husband, and who did everything they could to dehumanize him.”

But at this point, from what we know about Tyler Robinson, the alleged assassin of Kirk, he is not affiliated with any political party, and there is no evidence linking him to any organized leftist group or movement.

So, in analyzing the assassination culture that Kirk saw as defining the left, it seems much more likely to be a characteristic of the right, which was emphasized so much by Kirk and his organization, Turning Point USA.

_____

  * Doug Pagitt (b. 1966) launched Vote Common Good with a 31-city bus tour that began on October 2, 2018. On Oct. 14, I drove over to Overland Park, Kansas, to hear him speak and to chat with him briefly. Six days later, I posted a blog article about him and Vote Common Good (see here).  

** In the next paragraph, Claude went on to say, “This data comes from multiple credible sources, including the National Institute of Justice, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the Anti-Defamation League, and academic research published in peer-reviewed journals.” 

    After receiving the above information, I saw this article with similar content on Time magazine’s website: “Trump Called for a Crackdown on the ‘Radical Left.’ But Right-Wing Extremists Are Responsible for More Political Violence.” The graph included in the article is what I posted above.