Are we ready to love those whom we are told to hate (such as political and social opposites)?

Lisa Sharon Harper

We don’t really like to talk about “enemies” in the church. I mean, who likes to think they walk around with people out there who mean to do them harm? Jesus said it plainly, though: “Love your enemies” (Matthew 5:44). Jesus knew that sometimes, for whatever reason, we will have enemies. They will actively or passively wish for, work toward, or plot our ruin. Still, the command is to love.

I’ve had a few enemies in my life.

Brian was a friend of mine in junior high. I moved from Philadelphia to Cape May, New Jersey—from a mostly black world to a world that was so white, the 4H club was huge. Brian was one of the first friends I made in my new home. We grew apart in high school, but I always considered him a friend.

One day during my senior year in high school, two guys showed up at our family’s home at 12:15 AM. They parked their car, got out, and yelled at our house: “Niggers! Go back to Africa! We don’t want you here!” and stuff like that. They yelled for about 15 minutes. Then they drove off. They came back and yelled at our house at 12:15 AM, every night for two weeks. We didn’t know who it was. Finally, one night my dad hid in our car and followed them when they drove off. He got the license plate number. The plate traced back to Brian.

How do we deal with enemies? My response then was to do nothing. Brian was found guilty and sentenced to community service, and we didn’t speak again until our 15-year class reunion.

Four years before the reunion, I was on staff with Intervarsity Christian Fellowship, and I led a Bible study for non-Christian students at UCLA. We studied Matthew 5:43-48. Jesus says the weirdest thing at the end of that passage: “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” In context, “be perfect” means love perfectly. What it looks like to love perfectly in the text is to love your enemies. (And here’s the kicker…) That’s what Jesus did with the Pharisees who plotted to kill him. And it’s what the Father did with us. The Father loved us—his enemies—by sending Jesus to die for us—his enemies.

I thought of Brian. Could I “love” Brian? Eleven years later, I was still angry. I was still hurt. I still saw him as the enemy. I prayed. I asked for God’s eyes to see him. What I saw was disarming. I saw a broken boy made in the image of God. I released him of his debt to me.

It was about 11 years after the fact. I lived 3,000 miles away and didn’t have a clue where he lived anymore, but I got an idea. I made some phone calls and tracked him down. I bought a cool Los Angeles key ring and placed the key ring inside a simple envelope. I wrote a note letting Brian know he’d hurt me but that I’d forgiven him—completely—and that I was praying for him and for his well-being. And I wrote, “Every time you look at this key ring, I want you to know you are forgiven.”

Four years later, I saw Brian for the first time in 15 years. And he said simply, “Forgive me.”

“I already have,” I said, smiling.

Love your enemies. It seems that nowadays, political enemies are the hardest to love. I’m a Democrat, and I’m in the middle of writing a book with a Tea Party Republican. The book’s title is Left, Right & Christ: Evangelical Faith in Politics. We’re both evangelicals, but our experiences of the world and our approaches to Scripture have shaped vastly different political passions. As a result, we often find ourselves on opposing sides of the public square.

I wish I could say I have loved perfectly. I haven’t. Maybe society has done an outstanding job of dehumanizing the political other lately. It’s much easier to hate and fear people when you can’t see their humanity—when you can’t see the image of God in their eyes.

Remembering Brian gives me hope.

Lisa Sharon Harper
Author, Evangelical Does Not Equal Republican…Or Democrat (The New Press)

Co-founder and Executive Director, NY Faith & Justice President, National Faith &

Justice Network Board Member, New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good (Speaker/Activist/Author/Playwright/Poet)

Having worked with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship as an Arts Specialist and as the Greater Los Angeles Director of Racial Reconciliation, Ms. Harper helped develop the Ethnic Reconciliation tool “Race Matters” and co-wrote the “Race Matters” Handbook. She conducted ethnic reconciliation training conferences and wrote analyses of and consulted with IVCF campus movements throughout Southern California. She also conducted staff training in ethnic reconciliation through Intervarsity’s National Institute of Staff Education and Training (NISET) and spoke for students throughout the U.S.

Dave Rahn

This question must be personalized to make sense. A sociological survey might allow us to say that 38% of us are ready. But this isn’t really satisfying, and we could hardly make sense of such data anyway.

Then there’s the moment-in-time aspect of this question. If I can say yes today… If I could say yes for each of the past 14 years without interruption but cannot say yes this afternoon when an opportunity presents itself to love my local liberal or crazy conservative, it doesn’t count that I’ve accrued previous credit, does it?

I’ve probably got a pretty erratic résumé when it comes to loving everyone, especially those I may have permission to hate. But it’s not because I dispute in any way that this is my obligation.

I am convinced that we Christians are to be a holy people, set apart by our distinction so the God of all creation might be known by the truth-bearing weight of our lives in Jesus. As Paul told the Athenians, in God we live and move and have our being. Our lives, the apostle wrote the Colossians, are hidden in Christ, who is our hope of glory. But today, in spite of Jesus’ clear warnings to double-minded or less than earnest followers, it is too frequently culturally acceptable to assume a personal editorial posture when we consider the words of Christ.

The very notion of following has been co-opted by our Facebook-Twitter way of relating to each other. We can watch what others say or do as often as we want and engage in any way we want. Customize. Personalize. This is my social network so I can make it work to my taste.

This may be a fine formula for popularity contests, but it’s a lousy way to discover objective, absolute truth that requires a reversal of my own self-referential tendencies. We don’t easily embrace lifestyle expectations that challenge what we already believe. And if we take seriously the call to follow our Lord (boss, right?) Jesus and what he taught us to obey (ugh, can’t we soften that word?), we will inevitably be forced to make changes that are not personal-preference friendly.

We may admire the theoretical teaching of Jesus about loving enemies because it so clearly would make the world a better place. But we don’t like to linger in front of expectations that demand we make personal changes so that we accurately represent the King and his kingdom in 2011 America.

Back to me. I use deflection to disguise the gaps in my own practice of the great commandment. If we begin talking about loving those who live outside the realm of political or social acceptability, I can come up with a few stories that will get me off the hook. (This is a tactic many underprepared students use—offering an early response in a discussion can make them less likely to be called upon later!) But there are entire groups of people with whom I never engage relationally. I easily ignore both the opportunities and obligation to love them as I hasten along to my preferred target of lost teenagers.

This would be a sad confession if it weren’t for the fact that it doesn’t tell the whole story. By God’s grace, my extremely long list of acceptable exclusions to be loved has dwindled over the years. It keeps shrinking. And the biggest reason is that I have come to believe that I truly deserve to be on such lists myself.

I suspect that more of us will become more ready to love without qualification when we truly recognize that the love of God we enjoy is totally undeserved.

Chris Folmsbee

I really dislike this question. It bothers me on several levels. First, the fact that we even have to ask it to evoke a sense of clarity around this subject is disturbing to me. It makes my stomach hurt.

Second, I’ve never been told to hate anyone and can’t imagine that this is true for any person. If this question genuinely represents the way some people think about others, then we are much more distant from shalom than I had hoped we might be at this point in history. And if that is true, then that just sucks because that means that the church is doing a horrible job of living missionally.

I suppose that, for people who use the words tolerance and love as synonyms, this question might be helpful to evoke deeper thought on the subject. I suppose I’ve been taught to tolerate the views of others but not to hate them. But tolerance isn’t love. Love envelops tolerance, but tolerance is too small of a human quality to envelop a robust theology of love.

I think Christians are ready to love those with differing convictions and beliefs. My use of the word ready, however, is to mean prepared, not necessarily willing. We have everything we need in order to love others. Here is what we have that prepares or readies us:

• A God who values peace and wholeness
• A God who values community
• A God who commands that we love others
• A God who models how to love others
• A God who continues to transform a people to mediate God’s love for the sake of the world
• A God who desires that kingdom principles are active on earth as they are in heaven
• A God who gives us biblical teachings in which to embrace and engage

So the question has straightforward responses. But are we willing? Now that is a different question with a whole other set of responses. In my mind, to be willing is to be eager or to be enthusiastically looking for opportunities to unreservedly love others. This is a much different scenario from being prepared.

To be willing to love others who have differing convictions and beliefs requires that we be people who:

• Are culturally sensitive
• Are aware of our contexts
• Are humble
• Are a praying people
• Are aware of the needs of others
• Are a forgiving people—the first to forgive
• Are the first to admit wrongdoing
• Are seeking ways to right the wrongs in the world
• Are good listeners
• Are people of hospitality
• Are people who believe proximity and time are essential to community
• Are people who see with compassion, not comparison

Are we ready to love those we are told to hate? Yes, as Christians, we have everything we need to ready ourselves for that privilege. Are we willing to love those we are told to hate? I sure hope so, since that is the whole point of Christianity.

Are we ready to love those whom we are told to hate (such as political and social opposites)?

Lisa Sharon Harper

Dave Rahn

Chris Folmsbee

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