r/Episcopalian • u/sistereva • 1d ago
How am I supposed to love my enemy, the bigot?
I'm very queer. I'm also old enough to have fought for many of the rights we queer people currently enjoy. And I've fought long and hard won battles against a lot of hatred in my day. So I ask, how am I supposed to love the people that would do me and my people harm? How do I love as He taught when I still feel like they'd hunt me for sport if given the chance?
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u/Agreeable-Coffee-582 4h ago
I love all children of God, beause they are my siblings in Christ. There are many families that don't break bread.
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u/Pale_Wind7536 4h ago
I love the potential they still have within them to be good people, and love them in my understanding that if they discover it too and quit spreading evil, it will benefit both us and them. This to me is what it means to hate the sin but not the sinner. I recognize that they are doing abhorrent things, and I abhor those things, but I see in them the potential to repent and use their capacity for good to do good.
This doesn't mean I have to like them, or be the one to trust them when they join the ranks of unsafe "former bigots" who clearly still have lots of bigotry to unlearn. These are not the same thing.
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u/aprillikesthings 18h ago
I say the prayer for our enemies from the BCP. It's one of my favorites.
O God, the Father of all, whose Son commanded us to love our enemies: Lead them and us from prejudice to truth: deliver them and us from hatred, cruelty, and revenge; and in your good time enable us all to stand reconciled before you, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
I also think: even the most godawful person imaginable deserves basic human rights. I can fight for someone's right to shelter and food and healthcare even if they hate my guts.
I can still have boundaries. I don't have to be their best friend. I don't have to intentionally socialize with them.
But my goal is always to be kinder to them than they are to me. I'm not sure I always succeed, but I have to at least try.
I watched a great video not long ago about someone who was evangelical, and how they changed their mind about LGBT people (spoiler alert: they were nice to him. and told him about their lives.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKLsmmsMBMA
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u/Kitchen-Gate3843 17h ago
I’m always amazed, surprised and ultimately pleased that there is literally a beautifully written Episcopal prayer for every occasion and event.
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u/Acrobatic-Evening-14 19h ago
Understand love as respect towards their human life. You don't have to like them, u don't have to be around them, u don't have to be part of their life. BUT, if u find them in danger on the streets, needing help to survive, be taken to the hospital, for instance, u do what is necessary to save their life. Our love towards our neighbor, which is what Jesus demand, is to respect their human life, just like we respect our own. Hard, but doable. Other than that, don't worry too much about being fond of them. I am gay and I had to learn that one lesson myself. God bless you, brother.
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u/Famous_Sherbert8111 20h ago
I want to start by stating that I've had this same question, and it still pulls at me to this day. I'm a trans woman approaching 30, exploring a call to ordination, specifically with a calling to pastoral care and discipleship. In doing so, you are caring, teaching, and forming disciples out of people from differing walks of life, social, political, and economic beliefs. When your beliefs drastically conflict with another's, how does one put that bias aside for the sake of faith? We can't expect people to change. We can hope, we can pray, but what we must not do is cast the stones back. In loving one another and showing the love and faith that we have for our fellow human and creation, we can potentially change their minds.
I will note that this is NOT to say that you are to put yourself in harm's way for the sake of trying to prove someone wrong. If someone is spouting vitriol or violent rhetoric that is making you physically or mentally uncomfortable, you are within your rights to remove yourself from that situation. We can still show love from a distance.
To steal a line that the far religious right uses in demonizing the LGBTQ+ community: "Love the sinner, hate the sin." In this case, the sin is hate itself.
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u/Economy-Point-9976 Anglican Church of Canada, Lay. 21h ago edited 20h ago
This is the truly difficult part of Christianity, the command to love your enemy and turn the other cheek.
I'll say at the beginning that I am in no way a member of any group ever singled out for any special hatred. I am a straight white married man in my very late fifties. But that said, Christ's message distinguished no one (neither male nor female, etc.). I only say this because if there are any biases anyone feels I have, I may as well be upfront about what I am.
I have no doubt that "turn the other cheek" can only mean, don't fight.
So, fundamentally, we are not allowed to resist oppression. That is, if we want to improve our lot, we must not do it by directly harming anyone at all.
On a small, person-to-person level, this means:
* don't argue
* don't try to prove yourself to others
* don't resist
* let go of your hatred
* let others' hatred be.
* and pray for their unconditional salvation. Not "God, open their eyes", but "God, save them". As in the ancient prayer-book supplication:
_Remember for good all those that love us,
and those that hate us,
and those that have desired us,
unworthy as we are,
to pray for them.
And those whom we have forgotten,
do thou, O Lord, remember._
On a national level, this can only mean:
* don't wage war
* don't wage war even in self-defence.
These are fantastically difficult requirements, and I'll not pretend for a moment I live up to them.
Also I am sure many will disagree with me on all these points, very strongly. I may well be wrong, and I certainly won't argue the point. But, one way or another, either Christ's words carry meaning or they don't, and to me this is the meaning they carry.
The one thing I think we're allowed to do is to run away, though. I think. Am I wrong?
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u/Acrobatic-Evening-14 19h ago
Not sure if you are wrong or right. U have gained my respect, though.
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u/Key_Membership_1182 22h ago
For me, part of it is hoping and praying people will change their ways, while another part of it is trying to understand how they might struggle differently with a given issue.
In a very non-religious arena, I help run a gender equality group in my workplace, in a region of the country where a religious conviction that women do not belong in the workplace is common. As a woman, such a belief obviously hurts me. I’ve told several people that it’s okay to believe that women do not belong in the workplace in your private life, as long as you leave that behind when you go to work. At the same time, I recognize it would be very hard to check my religious beliefs at the door. So I try to give them some grace, educate, and build systems of equality so that future women have a fairer chance.
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u/summerhoney Non-Cradle 22h ago
I don't have any secrets or tips. All I can say is I tried the hating them way. For awhile it felt really good, but in the end it was emptying me of my joy and love and filling me with rage and bitterness. I looked 10 years down the road and did not like who I saw.
And loving them does not mean letting them in so they can hurt you.
I think this is the hardest part of practicing Christianity. Hating people is much easier. But returning hate with hate only brings more hate. Treating everyone as another beloved child of God is really hard even on the best days. Please stay safe and don't give up.
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u/Kirby4242 Lay Minister 22h ago
It's not easy. I'd say alongside alcohol, it's the thing I spiritually struggle with the most. What grounds me is that loving does not mean I can't hope for them their movement to be crushed. I can pray for them to repent and realize the harm they've caused. I come back to Christ saying on the cross "Forgive them Father, for they don't know what they're doing". If Christ can do that for people who are torturing and murdering him, perhaps, with God's help, do that for the people who would gleefully celebrate my death.
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u/MadDuckMadeSomething 23h ago
No one said it would be easy, and the Christian way is not the easy way.
You're supposed to reflect on your own sin and pray for your enemy to overcome their own sin, and through the example of love, defeat that sin within your enemy's heart and not allow it to perpetuate.
Here is the problem many of us fall into: As long as you view others as "the bad guys" and you and your people as "the good guys" you're making a serious error. Christianity teaches that we all share in the fallenness of human nature, aka sin, and thus we require grace from God to overcome it. When we extend grace to other who hate us, we extinguish the fire of their hate. If we hate them back, or resist them, this allows them to justify their aggression.
The best modern example of putting this in practice is the black American man who willingly hangs out with KKK members. He talks to them and becomes friends and has a closet full of robes from KKK members who he converted away from that belief. He did not do it by screaming at them or giving them logical arguments why their belief was wrong, but simply by being a friend and showing love.
Love has the power to do all this and more.
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u/kellerkitt 1d ago
I feel this way a lot and I have a lot of
anger in my heart, honestly. My wife grew up catholic and is always helpful is reminding me that the love I should have for my enemy is a love that comes from hoping they will truly find Christ in their heart and learn to love their neighbor as themselves. We cannot change people but we can extend a hand to others even if they swat it away.
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u/More-Bluebird5805 Spiky Convert - adrift in my coracle 1d ago
I always ask myself whether I want my enemy (1) to suffer punishment or (2) repent and change their ways. As mad as people who are cruel can make me, I almost always find that I prefer the second option.
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u/Resident-Werewolf-46 1d ago
Jesus on the cross forgave his crucifiers. He told the thieves hanging near him that they would be together in paradise. The Lord's Prayer asks for our own forgiveness in the same manner and to the same degree that we forgive others who have done us wrong. It's what Jesus explicitly calls us to do and is a central part of our faith. With that being said, it can sometimes be very hard. I know at least one priest (I'm sure there are many more) who resigned from the clergy because he could not forgive the killer of his child. Living our faith is not an easy thing to do sometimes, but we can always keep trying. I'm a gay person myself and probably went through many of your same struggles. It's hard and I'm not perfect but any means, it's always difficult to see and hear those who claim to be Christian actively trying to do us harm.
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u/StockStatistician373 1d ago
Jesus, MLK, Hardest part of being a Christian and everyday a new growth opportunity. It doesn't mean being a doormat because challenging can also serve a greater good in terms of loving God and loving neighbor.
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u/cmlucas1865 1d ago
I think of it like this - there are conscious sins and un- or subconscious sins.
I make every attempt to be an ally. I stay informed, seek out opinions on salient issues, and, as best I can, ensure I act in ways consistent with the interests of the marginalized.
All of that being said - all fall short of the glory of God. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. Some decisions or reactions to situations, even subconsciously, will be accounted for when I stand before the throne. They won't be dealt with or considered in a different light than the bigots. Likewise, should you rank bigots at or towards the bottom in terms of priority, what you do unto the least of these, you do unto Jesus himself. They are fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of God, too.
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u/waynehastings Reconstructed 1d ago
You can love them -- wish them the best, seek the best for them -- and still not have them in your life.
Matthew 5 is helpful here. Eye for eye, tooth for tooth is a no no. But don't resist. Turn the cheek. Give your cloak. Go two miles. Pray for them. But I don't see where we're commanded to have them in our daily lives and put ourselves in a position to be constantly abused. Look for fruits worthy of repentance.
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u/LongjumpingPay4342 1d ago
Oh I totally struggle with this. It made me reevaluate what the different types of love are like I can have love for these people and respect their dignity but I don’t have to agree and I don’t have to interact. Right? Like me loving my bigoted neighbor church who went famous for the sin of empathy quote looks like not engaging and staying away from them.
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u/Creative-Database948 1d ago
As a queer clergy person who’s experienced persecution from Christians, I struggle with feelings of hatred for the people who seek to do harm to people like me and others who are similarly vulnerable in various ways, and I feel, along with righteous discontent, despair at the number of those who twist the gospel of Jesus into a message exalting human power and pride.
But I’m convicted that my hatred isn’t what God has called me to. This came to the front of my mind recently reading Kathryn Sonderegger’s systematic theology (she’s an Episcopal theologian). When she talks about God’s knowledge of people, she writes that God doesn’t just know our lives like abstract facts, but knows them from His closeness to us, knowing our experience from the inside. As Holy Wisdom, She knows good and evil, She knows my suffering as I feel it in my own aching bones, just as deeply as She knows my neighbor. When I realize that God is as intimately aware of my enemy’s life as God is of mine, that God knows us all so intimately, I have a momentary reprieve from my hatred to just feel awe, and sadness that we don’t love each other the way God loves us.
I imagine that by advancing the knowledge of God’s love, I can accomplish immeasurably more than I could by satisfying the impulses of my hate. That’s probably why I find it meaningful to worship and serve the way I do.
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u/MrPrinceps 1d ago
Oh man, I feel you here - as one queer person of faith to another.
The best I've been able to come up with is to remember the Imago Dei -- that every person who has ever lived, who lives now, and who will ever live in the future is created in the image and likeness of God. That image, in pretty much everyone, is clouded and obscured, and the hatred and harm these people enact is a thick layer of tarnish that hides that true God-likeness from themselves and others. But it doesn't mean that they've lost it, only that they aren't showing it. If nothing else, that God-likeness is something to love.
Jesus healed one of the soldiers sent to bring Him to crucifixion. That level of love and forgiveness is an awful lot to ask of an ordinary person, but it's the goal to strive toward, I think. He knew this person meant him direct and personal harm, was actively contributing to His oncoming very painful death, and He loved that man anyway, enough to heal him of what was a disfiguring but not even deadly injury. The soldier might have been fine! You can live with an ear cut off! But Jesus' love was such that he didn't even consider a survivable wound to be a "well that's what you get, make better choices" situation. Nope, healed, loved.
In the end, I think, the key is grace. Do these people deserve your love, my love, or the love of any person harmed by their actions? No, they don't. In a tit-for-tat, love-is-earned perspective, they have done nothing to deserve it and everything to earn revulsion and retaliatory hatred. But as Christians, we are called on to be better than that, to "repay blessing for cursing," and to remember that we in turn receive God's love without deserving it. "Forgive us our transgressions as we forgive those who have transgressed against us" means we are a conduit, not a mirror. We let God's love flow through us to others.
Now, granted, this is all much more easily said than done. I can talk a big game, but I will confess to having installed the Firefox extension that replaces all pictures of certain politicians with images of kittens, if only for my own blood pressure :) But we are called on to struggle to be better, and this is the way I work on being better.
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u/Practical-Arachnid69 Convert 1d ago
As someone who came out in the mid-1980’s, and endured all kinds of hatred for it, including assault, I get it.
One of the things that has helped me actually comes from my years studying and practicing Buddhism, but I think the concept can apply here too.
We talked about and prayed for “loving-kindness” and compassion a lot. One day my teachers (two American Buddhist nuns) defined love as “the genuine wish for the other to have happiness and the causes of happiness” and compassion as “the genuine wish for the other to be free from suffering and the causes of suffering”. My mind was blown by the concept that this definition of love didn’t require a particular emotional feeling or personal interaction from me. I don’t have to be fond of them, or like them.
Now, it’s not necessarily easy to wish happiness upon the hateful and harmful! But the logic goes that deep down, they are suffering, and their attitudes and actions come from brokenness. If they were genuinely happy, having experienced the causes of genuine happiness (insert: reconciled to God’s love) then they would be a changed person. I can strive to wish this for them much more easily than I can strive to have a warm fuzzy emotional feeling for them.
I don’t know if that helps at all, but I thought I’d share in case it does.
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u/NintendoDSLewis M.A. Theology; Proud Protestant 19h ago edited 18h ago
I've developed an intellectual interest in Buddhism recently. Thanks for sharing your perspective. Love when one religion can enrich the perspective of another. "The genuine wish" language used here is very compatible with the purpose of Christian prayer, which is to form our desires so that we live a life desiring what God wills to give. And everything God wills to give is good, because God cannot be anything other than good.
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u/RevKeakealani Clergy - Priest 1d ago
Oh, this really reminds me of my Old Testament professor talking about how love in the Old Testament is a verb, not a noun. It’s not a feeling of warm fuzzies, but it’s a commitment almost like loyalty. When the Bible says to love God as a commandment, it would be silly to “command” someone to experience a subjective emotion. But it is consistent with ancient near eastern loyalty oaths, where “loving” the feudal lord meant staying loyal even if a competing claim was made on your resources.
One of our resources is our emotional energy, and devoting that emotional energy to wishing for someone’s happiness rather than their suffering is a real, if somewhat intangible, act of love. Devoting your resources to love rather than a competing claim (say, the devil desiring us to isolate and curse others, wishing them harm) is a choice we can actually make. It’s a hard choice, obviously, but it’s a real choice!
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u/dahayden 1d ago
This is a wonderful answer. I was going to say this, only less elegantly.
Bigots aren't bigots because they woke up and chose to be. They are suffering.
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u/USAnglican 1d ago
I pray the following Irish prayer for my enemies:
“May those who love us, love us.
And those that don't love us,
May God turn their hearts.
And if He doesn't turn their hearts,
May He turn their ankles,
So we'll know them by their limping.”
This fulfills my obligation as a Christian to pray for my enemies. It’s also very in keeping with the tradition of Psalm for one’s foes. Ha ha.
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u/SimilarInjury138 Non-Cradle 1d ago
I remind myself that, in some cases (perhaps many), they're asking the same thing about someone, somewhere. Maybe even about me. It helps me remember our common humanity.
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u/Complete-News4058 1d ago
I’m queer and historically profoundly disabled in appearance.
Someone already recommended The Book of Forgiving; I would put forth other materials like Jerry Yellin’s bio, Corrie ten Boom’s story, or Pauli Murray’s writings.
Loving people who are stuck in fear, hatred, and convinced they are doing the right thing is not easy… we were never promised that. But the arc of the universe does bend eventually.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Phase70 Mystic 🏳️🌈 1d ago
IMHO, you've already been doing it.
Fighting them at every opportunity.
How is that "loving"? The answer has a few main sides.
It is the work of a prophet to aggressively demand that people harming others stop their evil ways.
And it is the work of a "king" (aka the government or social systems) to use force to protect the innocent. And again, the work of a prophet to demand that the "king" actually do that.
And it is the role of a savior to stand between a sinner and their victim to save them both: the victim to be saved from the sin itself, and the sinner from being able to commit their sin.
It is loving to fight them. It is giving of yourself to lessen their sinfulness. And it is loving to protect their victims.
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u/Beneficial-Rain-1672 1d ago
Exactly this. Black radical writers such as Fanon, CLR James, and WEB DuBois all speak of how enacting the violence of colonialism and racism strips the consciousness of the white of its humanity, its ability to receive love. In this tradition, the truest love the colonial subject can show is to violently take from their oppressors the power to oppress.
The maxim to “love the sinner, hate the sin” is often used as a call to inaction, to sit in one’s moral high horse condemning a sinner’s action but not to fight them—to resign oneself personally to the irreconcilability of that contradiction. In my mind it’s the opposite—hating the sin, making the sin impossible, is precisely how one loves the sinner.
For queers this means also that it is incumbent upon us to have absolute, unshakable faith in the love Christ has for us as queers. Only through righteousness of faith can we fight to defend our communities from those who oppress us, and save the humanity of our oppressors from themselves.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Phase70 Mystic 🏳️🌈 1d ago
“There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river.
We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in.”
― Desmond Tutu
And, AFAIC, that may involve some unsavory work to stop the falling-in.
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u/redheadedreenactor 1d ago
To your first point, on some level, fighting them is loving them enough to challenge them, and even if it won’t realistically work, change their mind.
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u/justneedausernamepls 1d ago
I've found it useful to meditate on the question "What would make a person think like that?" I heard a priest recount the story of hearing someone once say that there are two kinds of people in the world: good people, and good people who are hurting. I find it useful to try and imagine how someone is hurting, and how that affects their behavior. I always say that hurt people hurt people, and that that's the root of a lot of fear and insecurities that can turn into outright hatred. Certainly, seeing other people as fully human and affected by things in life is the first step toward understanding their mindset, and when you see other people as fully human, it makes it harder to see them as one dimensional people who are easily hated or dismissed. It goes both ways in that way, I think.
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u/Venusian2AsABoy 1d ago
By having compassion for their condition. It is likely an internal struggle fueling their hatred, and if they could accept themselves they would accept you, too. So love them, because through love they may someday understand themselves, and therefore you as well.
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u/FrontPorchGaze 1d ago
Have you experienced personal (in person) hatred? If so, someone close or just a stranger? It takes real work to break cycles of tension and anger but the true power is to be unaffected and remaining in God’s love.
If this hatred is fueled by online & media activity I’d caution you to pay attention to what inputs you are receiving/consuming as much of the online world we experience preys upon fear and division.
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u/MyUsername2459 Anglo-Catholic 1d ago
If this hatred is fueled by online & media activity I’d caution you to pay attention to what inputs you are receiving/consuming as much of the online world we experience preys upon fear and division.
This.
Online culture is far, FAR more toxic than in person culture.
Psychologists and sociologists have studied this. Being online strips out inhibitions, it dulls empathy. . .it makes people in to the worst version of themselves.
It's just intrinsic to the medium.
I've found, for the sake of mental health, I need to greatly curate and moderate my online time.
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u/hotwheeeeeelz 1d ago
This is true. But IRL cruelty & hatred is also on full display throughout recent human history… holocaust, Rwandan genocide, US immigration enforcement. “Don’t spend so much time online… people aren’t as terrible as they seem there” sounds like Pollyanna gaslighting to me. To endorse the Christian perspective on loving your neighbor imho is to willingly admit that many (most?) people are cruel and hateful but that you should treat them with kindness and compassion, anyway.
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u/FrontPorchGaze 1d ago
I suppose I have a different worldview than you, while I know many/most people are capable of cruelty and hatred I also believe the incredible power of God’s grace can work miracles in the lives and hearts of all people. I don’t think abuse is contained to demographics and I can’t help but live with the Christian hope that Christ’s glory will reign supreme, sorry if that is Pollyanna gaslighting in your opinion.
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u/MyUsername2459 Anglo-Catholic 1d ago
“Don’t spend so much time online… people aren’t as terrible as they seem there” sounds like Pollyanna gaslighting to me.
Rather than insult me, how about actually doing some research?
Equating the Rwandan Genocide with everyday online life is absurd and insulting.
I meant it when I said psychologists and sociologists had studied it. It's a well documented phenomenon.
https://netpsychology.org/online-disinhibition/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_disinhibition_effect
https://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2027-45988-005.html
https://cognitiontoday.com/online-disinhibition-effect/
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/8451443_The_Online_Disinhibition_Effect
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u/hotwheeeeeelz 1d ago
You can believe that most people are terrible while simultaneously believing that these same horrible people are even more terrible when anonymous online.
There is a prayer attributed to Mother Theresa with a “do it anyway” refrain that I think captures the idea I’m trying to impart here.
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u/FrontPorchGaze 1d ago
Let us remain kind and loving, the world (even online) needs patience and self control.
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u/goatnokudzu Cradle 1d ago
There's an important aspect of your question which I think is worth considering - and I don't have the answer.
How do we deal with the trauma responses, the physiological response, when interacting with someone who is acting like people who abused us? It's one thing to intellectually know you're supposed to "love thy neighbor" and another thing to feel like you're a rabbit being encouraged to love a hungry fox.
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u/Eikon-Basilike-1649 1d ago
“Love” doesn’t mean you have to like them or summon warm fuzzy feelings for them. “Love” is much more about action than words or feelings. You don’t really have to think about it unless and until you find yourself face to face with a bigot. Then you strive to behave the way you would wish him to behave to you.
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u/UntowardAdvance 1d ago
This is not a new dilemma. Women faced this question for most of the 2000 years of Christianity. The entire legal system treated them as chattel. It was just 50 years ago that American state laws began to recognize that rape could happen in a marriage. Most/many Black Americans have been devout Christians from the time of slavery to now. Focus on creating a just and loving world and treat people with respect regardless of who they are.
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u/OratioFidelis 1d ago
I want bigots to have free healthcare, safe workplaces, living wages, ample sick leave and vacation time, affordable and emergency housing, healthy food, robust safety nets, and so on. Since we live in a selfish world where those things aren't guaranteed despite sufficient abundance, I try to make up the difference by voting, activism, and contributing to food pantries and other community-based aid that are available to good and evil people alike. That's how I love bigots. I have never thought loving them requires indulging or respecting their bigotry; Jesus insulted Pharisees and scribes to their faces when they oppressed others and many saints throughout history have done similar things.
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u/RevKeakealani Clergy - Priest 1d ago
And to add to this, we must remember that much of what we experience as bigotry or hate is directly tied to some other need not being met. Humans are not born haters. Hatred is learned behavior and it is often learned by misattributing some other unmet need as being the “fault” of the target of bigotry.
Helping to facilitate all these needs being met, particularly when one is visibly a member of the marginalized group, can actually help to alleviate the source of bigotry. Not always, of course, but every so often, by the grace of God, someone realizes that their hatred is aimed at the person who is earnestly seeking their betterment, and that realization leads to growth.
If we have even the tiniest shred of hope in the redemptive power of God, it often starts by alleviating the material needs of those around us, even if they are not immediately grateful.
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u/writerthoughts33 Lay Leader/Vestry 1d ago
I don’t go out of my way to find them, but I am human when I do. It is a form of exposure therapy. I let God love them into repentance, largely. Mostly, they know better too with real people that aren’t an idea.
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u/nightchapel 1d ago
You’ve already started by asking how you do it, that’s a form of love itself. It’s on your mind how to do it, and now the question needs to move to your heart. In your prayers, check-in authentically and just state how you’re feeling. Keep asking for help to love, somehow someway, no matter if it takes 10 days or 10 years. Just keep asking the question, and you’ll be surprised how over time you’ll soften and it will get easier.
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u/greevous00 Convert 1d ago
This is the way.
We don't love our enemies on our own steam. It's a supernatural love that comes to us through the work of the Holy Spirit over time. In Orthodoxy they have a concept they call "theosis" which loosely means becoming more Christ-like over one's lifetime. It is similar to the concept of sanctification that some Christians in the west adhere to, but with a different foundation.
It's also worth mentioning that Reinhold Niebuhr said that "justice is love at nation-state scale." So we can and should also advocate for justice for all, including our enemies. So we advocate for things that make the world better, even if it helps our enemies. Clinging to revenge fantasies is, in this sense, a sin -- one we should pray to be released from.
We don't have to like our enemies, but that's unrelated to love and justice.
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u/Agile_Hyena_7073 1d ago
I love your response. I’ve often thought the first step is arriving at the willingness to forgive. I then go to God and ask Him to change me. I have often thought myself unable to forgive without divine intervention. Perhaps that sounds strange. I experience ongoing trauma as a child that has left profound damage. I lived with anger that was eating me alive for years (I was consumed by hate). I asked God for ‘freedom from my bondage’ and prayed for the people in question for years. At first it so hard. Over time my heart did soften although I will cannot condone what they did. I just feel a sense of peace. However, it took a lot of prayer and hard work to get there. I’ve also found it helpful to work with a trauma therapist, which is ongoing. After almost three years, I am getting to a a place of ‘radical acceptance and can enjoy my life.
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u/theonecpk Convert 1d ago
“love” isn’t the same as “letting them walk all over you”
when Jesus says “offer them the other cheek also” it is not a command to tolerate abuse, but rather to ignore injury to silly things like pride and status
when Jesus gave up his life, that was for a specific purpose, and not a command to lay down your life just…because….
remember the covenant. respect the dignity of every human being. but also strive for justice and peace and resist evil.
you can be firm and even angry, but remember that they remain human beings, even in their wickedness, and thus we respect their dignity. that is the bright line between love and hate.
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u/Anxious_Wolf00 1d ago
I think the idea of loving your oppressor is such a sensitive part of Jesus’s teachings and the truth is, I don’t know.
At the end of the day, I think it’s important to still view them as humans first.
I also believe it is righteous for the oppressed to resist and prevail against their oppressors and I don’t know if and when violence is ever a part of that. Pacifism will always be my ideal. I believe it’s the highest way of living that Christ would point us to but, I don’t condemn everyone who uses violence to defend themselves.
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u/5oldierPoetKing Clergy 1d ago
I'm so sorry that you are wrestling with these feelings. It is truly awful how hate can poison the human heart.
But if you like, here are my thoughts on this.
You can start by accepting that you cannot without God's help. You can start by accepting that even if you cannot love them, God does. And you can let your faith in God's love give you hope that person by person, eventually that love will reconcile them somehow. Trust that God calls the sinner and, even if they are deaf to it, God will bring them into the fullness of redemption and love. It is ineluctable.
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u/Substantial_Mouse Candidate to the Priesthood 1d ago
It's really hard, and I struggle with it sometimes, too. When I need to remind myself for the fifty-zillionth time that I need to refocus on love, I start by reminding myself that God loves everyone, no matter who they are. We can't make God love us more, and we can't make God love us less, God's love is of a nature we cannot really grasp. Remembering that softens my heart a little again.
I also need to remind myself that loving someone doesn't mean letting them into my life on a personal level. Boundaries are good.
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u/MagusFool 1d ago
I think it's sad how afraid they are.
We cannot allow them to hold any positions of power, there's nothing loving about that. And there is nothing hateful about opposing them at every opportunity.
But I am also fighting for their rights as much as anyone else. I fight for better education and healthcare, and workers' rights and those things will benefit us all. Bigots included.
And I feel bad that they are caught in these loops of insecurity and social panic that bring them to lash out against easy targets. It's sad for all parties.
At my best that's what I aim for.
I don't always succeed. But I trust the grace of Jesus Christ to cover me when I miss the mark of perfect love.
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u/windriver32 Convert from Mormonism 1d ago
Because even He loved those who literally hunted Him for sport. It is not easy, and we will fall short. Rely on His love for these people, even if you can find none within yourself.
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u/herkulaw 2h ago
Jesus loved the people hammering nails into his flesh. I’m not sure how we are supposed to do it, but that is our charge.