How do we love our political enemies?
ChastMastr
Shipmate
in Purgatory
One of the things that I keep struggling with is a level of hatred that boils up inside of me for the vile people running the current administration here in the United States. I want to somehow do better at not hating people – their actions of course are a different matter – and to even love my enemies.
Not everyone believes that that is morally required, but I am a Christian, and this is something we are specifically commanded to do.
Does anyone have any ideas or what works for them?
Not everyone believes that that is morally required, but I am a Christian, and this is something we are specifically commanded to do.
Does anyone have any ideas or what works for them?
Comments
Easier said than done.
Also, regarding people as human beings and not depersonalising them.
We are warned that even referring to a fellow human being as a 'fool' is to risk Hell, however that's to be understood.
I think it is possible to be robust in the way we respond to those with whom we disagree politically or in other ways.
But we can do so with 'gentleness and respect' and without dehumanising people.
'In your anger do not sin ...'
Anger fan certainly be an appropriate response. The trick is to channel that anger in a positive way without it either eating us up or harming other people.
'It's better to light a candle than curse the darkness,' as the saying goes. So some form of activism or practical help towards those negatively affected by the policies of those we disagree with politically can be a way of channeling anger and frustration in a positive way.
Brooding, moaning and throwing insults around doesn't achieve a great deal. Getting involved with things that make a difference or alleviate suffering or help people in some way has to be a more excellent way.
Find a cause you agree with and support it.
I think we are expressing more anger than hate. But we do hate seeing out country going to the dogs.
But we are happy to be (Ship of) Fools for Christ! 😄
Which seems mildly shocking, since normally when the words of Christ are cited, it's to convey the idea that that they set an admirable example. But Orwell is essentially implying that there are some situations where they don't really apply.
Just so I'm clear, but you intend the quoted passage to mean something like "The only thing Christians should proclaim[boast] is the Cross, not political movements"?
I can't really repeat the whole thing here, but the thesis is that Jesus is Lord, not Trump or any mini-Trump that happens to pop up in our vicinity. When we get offered various things we want, we need to look at the price-tag (which is very often our own integrity and occasionally our souls). To grab for political power and say to ourselves, "Eh, I know it's a bit shady, but I'll clean it up later--right now this is what works, and we have to be practical, don't we?" is the kind of sin that got us into this mess in the first place. Fuck that. Find out what Jesus wants, stick to it, and if that means you never climb the ladder of success, who cares?
I'm not sure many Shipmates would either. I don't see many of us here suggesting that it should profiteth us to gain the whole world at the expense of our souls.
I agree with what you're saying but it is taking us away from the OP which is about how we love our enemies and pray for those who despitefully use us - or despitefully use our countries or those we care for etc.
However we cut it being involved with 'the polis' in any way whatsoever is going to involve us in tough decisions, in compromises, 'deals' and threats to our integrity.
Heck, we'd even find moral dilemmas if we were hermits or all went to live in monasteries.
The key thing is to do the best we can, however we can. What we see our 'enemies' doing we must do the opposite.
If they cheat, we must avoid cheating. If they insult us we must not insult in return.
Of course there are times when peace-making can become appeasement but generally speaking we must somehow cleave to the Beatitudes even when it hurts - and how many of us even do that when it doesn't?
Orwell wasn’t a Christian.
It may also depend on the make-up of the congregation. Do you have a bunch of Trump fans in there or…?
Prayers ascending! ❤️
No, but in his essay on Yeats, he criticizes occultists and fascists together for their "profound hostility...to the Christian ethical code".
So it seems as if he would normally have been a pretty strong proponent of the values expressed in the SotM. As would most of his readership, some of whom would almost certainly have been believers.
(And not that it proves a HELLUVA lot, but Orwell received, at his own request, an Anglican funeral.)
Okay. I’m still following Jesus, not Orwell, when he tells me to love my enemies. Considering that this was something we tried to do when being fed to lions and such, I don’t think I can go against it.
That doesn't mean you and I couldn't learn something from Orwell. You don't have to be following someone to learn from them. Orwell in the quote doesn't seem to be saying "don't love your enemies" but rather "making peace requires more than the uber-rich singing kumbaya." It also rather implies the uber-rich have ulterior motives for not wanting to fight the Nazis. I don't have to follow Orwell to understand that's what he's saying.
I remind myself that we don't have to agree in order to love one another. I have friends who were ardent Biden supporters and friends who were/are ardent Trump supporters. I disagree with them all at certain points and so find it best to just not engage on the topic.
I remind myself that everyone is entitled to have their experiences, and right now Trump is having his Trump experience. For now it looks like he's winning but I don't know how his story ends, nobody does, not even him.
Since I believe we write our own stories and give our consent to one another before we incarnate, there seems to me to be no point in protesting about it now that I'm here. Perhaps it's other people's stories to protest but it isn't mine. There may come a point in my story where my options are narrowed to "pick a side" and I already know what my response to that will be, and I'm OK with it.
People are going to be people. If you are going to make them into enemies then you get to have the experience of all the states of being that go with that, both pleasant and undesirable. I just prefer to allow them to have their experiences and focus on the aspects of them that I find endearing.
Everything is temporary. If I trust the Big Narrative I know that everything will be all right in the end, and if it's not all right, it's not the end.
AFF
Yes. The quote in context...
From Shopkeepers At War, Feb. 1941.
I think it’s helpful to remember that the Sermon on the Mount, with its admonitions to love your enemy and give your enemy your shirt as well as your cloak and turn the other cheek, was spoken to people whose homeland was occupied by a foreign army. So what he said had immediate, real-world application for them. And understanding that context can, I think, help us think through how they can apply in our contexts.
See, that I can agree with, absolutely. What I disagree with Orwell on is what @stetson suggested:
I don't believe that. I do believe we can try to love our enemies, even if in wartime (for example) one has to engage in mortal combat.
Lewis talks about it here in Mere Christianity:
https://the-magpie.org/2020/07/01/lewis-on-loving-our-enemies/
What I am looking for here is practical suggestions on how to love our enemies, particularly our political enemies in this time. (I'd also include overseas dictators like Putin and such.) That doesn't mean we don't have to fight them, especially since loving our neighbors and loved ones means trying to protect them from the harm that these enemies are actively doing to them (and to ourselves, in various cases). I feel enraged and helpless and angry when I read the news. I want something to help me (and others in my situation) toward a better approach as a Christian. I have to play whack-a-mole with wishing bad things to happen to some of those people, not even out of a desire to stop them doing bad things, but out of hatred and spite. I don't think the latter two are fruits of the spirit.
Of course, when you meet individuals with ill will, it's usually not particularly loving to let them have their way.
@Lamb Chopped has outlined a congregational context where there are various opposing views and where 'enemies' could be potentially be made by adopting one position over against another.
@A Feminine Force has outlined how her belief in reincarnation helps her put these things into perspective.
That's not a belief I share, so I have to find other ways of dealing with those who have radically different ideas or beliefs to me which avoids my getting angry at them in an 'ad hominem' sense.
Agreed on the latter, definitely.
So you mean that the Sermon on the Mount DOES apply to the nazis, but the pro-surrender faction were applying it in the wrong way?
If so, what would be a way for pro-surrender people, making pro-surrender arguments, to apply the SotM, that would be the correct way?
Or do you mean that it might apply on a personal level, ie. fight the nazis but don't hate them, but not used to make political arguments about whether or not to continue fighting?
Well, the British were faced with a foreign army that was killing their soldiers and firebombing their cities, with the plan of eventually occupying them, or at least reducing them to abject servitude. So I'm not sure the two situations are all that different.
Agree with me or not, as you wish, but letting those who have power off personal moral responsibility for what they do with it is about as both spiritually and ethically disastrous as it is possible to get. It also conveys to those who do not have power that if they should happen to acquire power, they do not need to recognise that they will be personally responsible both in this life and the next for how they exercise it, or for the lives of the victims in their clutches.
If you were to ask me what I thought was the prime message of Christianity to political science, that is what I would say it is.
Much of the time, one has to accept structures and material conditions as a given. For most people, it is rare that they will ever find themselves in a position where they can do anything about them, yet alone to be wise enough as to know what. Everyone, though, in whatever walk of life faces moral decisions every day, and has the capacity at least to do something about some of them. And?
I think he specified "millionaires" because they were the ones leading the pro-surrender movement. And he used the SotM because it's a standard quote mine for pacifists.
But yes. He would probably have seen some hypocrisy in the selective nature of their proof-texting.
No. I'm not talking about letting people off the hook, but about the approach to the average voter who has voted 'the other way'.
And then you exert yourself to stop them having their way (which goes rather beyond perorations over their wickedness).
Spot on
I guess that part of that was that I couldn't detect goodwill on the part of those in power, obviously Ymmv.
I have a local friend from high school who is also a Trump fan. I wrestled with whether or not to try to let go about it, but decided not to… and then she was cut off by two of her other friends over it, and it’s torn her to pieces. So I’m very glad I didn’t do that. I don’t think cutting her out of my life would help her reconsider her position on Trump and such. (If she were the kind of person who would post aggressively hateful and insulting things, as some of the Trump fans do, that would be a different matter. She’s not trying to “drink liberal tears” or worse. I think her red bubble of media is likely a big factor—when Biden won in 2020, she was crying when Cubby and I saw her and her husband—she really thought this was the most horrible thing—and when Trump won this time around, she really believed that a Harris win would mean “socialism,” and so on. I think she’s a victim of far-right propaganda. She liked and said she agreed with Bishop Budde’s sermon, in fact…
Well, we can pray for them as human beings who might have become this way partly due to various events in their lives, while it is not an excuse for evil actions (Trump’s father was horrible, for example); and for them as leaders to have guidance for right and good actions, even if it’s the “still, small voice” telling them to be less cruel, to be better and wiser, etc. I don’t think praying for them should mean praying they are successful at doing harm.
Amen! And likewise for ourselves. Jesus died for them as well as for us.
@stetson, I think the Sermon on the Mount is about how Jesus expects his disciples to live on a daily basis. It’s about the values of the kingdom of heaven compared to the values of this world. And it is specifically addressed to the powerless.
As for how its values might appropriately play out in a societal context, I’d say the sort of non-violent resistance of the Civil Rights Movement in the US provides a good example.
I've never really thought that Jesus' command to love our enemies was predicated on the idea that they might have had a hard life. I've always just seen it as unconditional, you have to love them as much as anyone else, just because they're human beings(or however their status woulda been framed in those days). But I'd be interested to know of any passages where He implies the former.
I don’t believe that it is predicated on the idea that they might’ve had a hard life. But thinking about such things helps me to recognize that they are human, and that they were likely shaped by things at least partly beyond their control. Again, it does not justify evil behavior.
Well, if that's your example of a relevant societal context, then I think the SotM is totally inapplicable to Britain in February of 1941, pre-Barbarossa, pre-Pearl Harbor, when they really were standing alone against the nazi war machine. As opposed to the US Civil Rights Movement, which had allies(albeit not always the most reliable ones) in Washington DC who were eventually willing to use force to push through integration, and the rest of the world looking on in abject horror at conditions in the South, including the Soviets, who were definitely playing it to their geostrategic advantage.
I’m trusting you know that the US Civil Rights Movement was about conditions throughout the US, not just the South, that real discrimination existed throughout the US, and that not all the rest of the world looked on in abject horror at those conditions and that descrimination.
Though speaking more generally; many of the feted non-violent resistant movements were contemporaneous with much more militant movements, and there was sometimes an element of the former being successful because of the spectre of the latter.
So then how is that different from my saying that, in Orwell's view, "the words of Christ", ie. the SotM, "don't apply" to the nazis?
Although Jesus asked us to love everyone, he didn't ask us to like everyone.
The former suggests it’s only because the Nazis are really, really bad that Jesus’s command that we love our enemies surely can’t apply when it comes to them. The latter suggests that Jesus’s words are being taken out of context from the get-go.
It’s the difference between doesn’t apply when those people are involved and weren’t meant to apply to a situation like this.
I can only think of one occasion when I had a notable enemy actually BELIEVE in the mercy my family was holding out to him, and he made use of it to basically slide back into the community as if nothing had ever happened, and everyone around him behaved that way too. And nothing's ever been said about what triggered it all. Everybody is just carrying on like the events of that year never happened. (But what a hoot it was to see the face of an upper-level administrative person who stuck his head in one morning to find the whole group peacefully having tea together, when he had been in on the whole mess and hadn't heard about the reconciliation...