An Activist Faith Week 4: Actually Loving Your Enemies
Reflections on "Loving Your Enemies"
Matthew 5:43-45:
43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be children of your Father in heaven, for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.
King, “Loving Your Enemies”:
“Of course, this is not practical. Life is a matter of getting even, of hitting back, of dog eat dog.… We have followed the so-called practical way for too long a time now, and it has led inexorably to deeper confusion and chaos. For the salvation of mankind, we must follow another way.”
So one general contention I have is that no one, practically, actually lives out sola scriptura (the idea that Scripture alone should be our only authority to judge things). Regardless of how much we champion the doctrine in our theology (and that is an important distinction), we inevitably use other sources like reason, tradition, and experience when trying to interpret Scripture for our own current day contexts. This usually comes up over a whole host of current-day topics like LGBTQIA+ inclusion and gender roles, where Scripture is deployed as the singular argument to defend a more traditional interpretation. However, when one goes beyond to hard things like pacifism most Christians suddenly lean upon every other source of wisdom to blunt passages like “turning swords into plowshares” or the Apostle Paul’s dictum that vengeance is God’s realm, not ours, or use reasons to rationalize why the natural application to the rich young ruler isn’t to similarly give all we own to the poor.
Yet my evangelical background does give me a love of Scripture, and I do think that there’s a lot in the Bible that’s worth taking seriously, including the verses above, which are found in Jesus’ famous Sermon on the Mount. Despite some recent headlines, I still imagine that most Christians are familiar with Jesus’ command to love your enemies; similarly, anyone with passing knowledge of King and nonviolence shouldn’t be surprised that he refers to the same concept. So the thesis of today’s post, that there’s value in trying to live out nonviolence, is probably not surprising.
But I think there’s value in looking at it again with fresh eyes. Despite general knowledge of King, I don’t think we realize how much of a hard sell King had in regards to nonviolence: there’s credible historical arguments that self-defense and guns not only forestalled more violence but also forced segregationists to allow demonstrations and concede to protest demands. King himself had to be taught nonviolence: Bayard Rustin notes that when he first visited King in February 1956 his friend nearly sat on a pistol, and claims that he’s the one who convinced King to give up his own firearms.
And headlines in Black newspapers underscored the danger of simply existing while Black back then: as much as today isn’t great, it is better than 1963. For example, in 1959 in Tallahassee, Black university student Betty Jean Owens, with three friends, was coming back from a party when four armed white men pulled her car over and threatened her at gunpoint. Her friends escaped and notified the police, who actually did respond, and they were able to locate the car after a chase. The officer stood firm and forced the white perpetrators out, and they found Owens bound and gagged. The perpetrators also cheerfully admitted to raping Owens seven times.
This case evoked an national uproar and protests: one protester stated, “it was as if all of us had been raped.” and during the trial, the defendants continued to admit to sex, claiming poor judgment as a defense. With that, the jury found them guilty, but still recommended mercy for them anyway; a judge had to step in and change that to life imprisonment. Meanwhile, Roy Wilkins, of the NAACP, pointed to the obvious parallel of Emmett Till, who had been brutally beaten, lynched, and thrown into a river for allegedly whistling at a white woman, and Mack Charles Parker, also lynched for an unproven rape accusation.
And so people in local communities listening to King knew tens of people whose lives had been similarly upended long before there were national conversations about safety. And they would tell you that loving your enemies is hard, and nothing guarantees that loving them will inevitably result in them treating you back with any type of respect.
But rather than waffle, King doubles down on this idea: even though it’s hard, even though it’s not natural, even though it’s not practical, we should love our enemies because Jesus commands us to do so and because it is moral (see initial quote above).
And at this point, maybe you’re imagining the people you dislike and want to turn it back on King: how much did he actually care about nonviolence? Like if he had to be convinced to give up his own guns, maybe this is yet another case of a public figure saying something in public yet doing something else in private. It’s a fair argument: there are aspects of King’s life that we’ll never really know about, and historical accounts have their own built in bias, etc. But I will note that King seemed to really believe this in his own life. As proof, I’ll cite that in September 1962, at a SCLC convention, a literal Nazi jumped onto the stage and hit King with his fist. Rather than push back, King took the blow and did not retaliate; according to eyewitness reports he even engaged the other man in conversation after others stepped in. Now, that didn’t mean that the two became best of buds – the Nazi would later celebrate slugging King in right-wing publications, so clearly not reformed. And on the other side, King saw the same man four months later in Chicago and rightfully felt afraid of him. But as one observer put it, “when I saw him throwing his hands down when somebody hit him … I really felt he meant it.”
Of course, loving one’s enemies is more than not retaliating: it’s not like segregationist governors or senators ever challenged King to duels, yet they caused havoc in a lot of other ways. So in the sermon, King lays out three general principles on how we should love our enemies.
1: Extend forgiveness and seek reconciliation, especially as the injured party.
This is pretty stock standard in conflict resolution and looks different in specifics, but a typical sticking point is that a lot of people don’t want to. In the previous sermon “Love in Action,” he notes that typically people find this hard, even Biblical heroes: “Samson, eyeless at Gaza, prays fervently for his enemies–but only for their utter destruction.” However, Jesus acted differently at his death, praying instead for forgiveness. As King observes, Jesus, “although crucified by hate, he responded with aggressive love.” King states that it’s ultimately necessary as a step of love.
2: We should view the other as an “enemy-neighbor” instead of just “enemy,” and realize that they have some element of good in them.
I really like this insight from King because it doesn’t just call people to dismiss or ignore the wrongs done (again: King’s audiences would not buy that logic). This isn’t simply apologizing to someone else even though they’re in the wrong: it’s reasonable, and natural, to have hostile feelings toward those who have done things to engender said feelings.
What it does, though, is place that hostility in a broader context. The idea of “neighbor” relates pretty well to Good Samaritan logic (for those of you following the series), and so what does it look like to realize that you’re not only having to help out someone else on the Jericho Pass, but it’s someone whom you dislike on top of that (as we don’t even need commentaries to note the hostilities between Jews and Samaritans, for that appears in our Bibles). This can be understood as part of the imago dei, to use Christianese: the idea that God, in creating every human, has placed in each person some aspect of Himself.
And relating this to contemporary politics, national commentators have observed a general decline in civility and mutual understanding. It is a bit jarring to think that someone could despise me simply for being a “Democrat,” especially since I’m technically an independent voter and have very little emotional attachment to the label, without actually engaging with my specific ideas and rationales. So, in turn, who am I to belittle people solely for their political views? I still reserve the right to disagree vehemently when it comes to things I view as wrong, but there is a value in recognizing that there’s a complex human behind such views and maybe we can find points of commonality as well.
3: We’re called to love them, not like them.
As King put it: “How can we like a person who is threatening our children and bombing our homes?” So we’re not called to be affectionate to those we are in opposition with or have to pretend like things are okay when they’re not, even though that’s often how people try to apply this message. King instead uses the concept of agape love here: that God’s love should guide how we act around our enemies. To boil it down, it means extending goodwill to them and seeking their betterment. To move from politics, if someone suddenly rides my butt in traffic, then speeds ahead of me and cuts me off, agape thoughts isn’t to pretend that they didn’t just do that but to assume that they’re frustrated for other reasons and to not take this action personally (disclaimer: I do not always have agape thoughts when it comes to traffic). In other individual cases, it means still drawing boundaries around problematic behavior but not letting said behaviors become the totality of the other person.
So that’s how to love them. And none of this is easy: as someone with a relatively quick temper, trying to apply this in my own life has been a struggle (anger does not engender love). So it’s probably helpful to also detail King’s four given reasons about why we should do this:
1: Eye for an eye logic leaves everyone blind.
To again cite “Love in Action,” King notes that “history is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-destructive path” of vengeance, and it’s evident what this looks like on a global scale. In the recent study I led, to illustrate this, I casually dropped the mention of the legacy of World War II in China/Korea/Japan (specifically Japan’s refusal to take as concrete steps to apologize as Germany did postwar), not really thinking that I was addressing a mixed study with people from each of those countries, where I also was one of the younger people in the room. And that got a bit more intense than what I was hoping, because people began sharing their learned experiences growing up just shortly after the war and how every one of those countries had suffered as a result (in very legitimate and valued ways). Current day media from at least China does play up the war as a way to promote nationalist sentiment. What does it look like, instead, to push for a constructive way forward, acknowledging the painful pasts but also the possibilities of cooperative futures? That’s a question that America, when it comes to race, also has never really resolved, to its detriment.
2: Hate has corrosive aspects that hurt us in the end.
Again to reference the recent study I led, there were several health professionals in the group. I defer to expertise a lot, and King was from an older generation, so I wanted them to check his claim that “psychology recognizes what Jesus taught centuries ago: hate divides the personality and love in an amazing and inexorable way unites it.” They at least were willing to state their experience caring for others continues to confirm that statement: holding on to hate shortens lifespans, reduces quality of life, and the like. So in this case loving one’s enemies can be like a recommended treatment/improvement on quality of life, like a medicine that doesn’t initially taste that great or like just starting an exercise regimen: even if it’s painful in the short run, it has the potential to provide better quality of life in the long run.
3: Love has the potential to be more transformational than hate.
King cites the historical example where President Abraham Lincoln put a critic, Edwin Stanton, as Secretary of War in his Cabinet. Even though both initially disliked each other, they were able to set their differences aside and work together. To again take up the idea of contentious national histories, it’s not exactly helpful to vow continued lifelong vengeance for past wrongs; but the idea of working through past hatreds to build cooperation is something that could then lead toward actually positive outcomes like peace, economic prosperity, and the like. This is also how family relationships can often overcome stressors that would overwhelm a friendship: when four-year old me derailed the family caravan to Disneyland because I was hungry even though they had just stopped for lunch an hour earlier and I didn’t eat then, my parents were annoyed but they forgave me because they love me a lot.
4: The same logic that started this blog piece: as Christians we’re commanded to do so.
Regardless of how you feel about how practical the Sermon on the Mount is, it’s still something to aspire to. I’ve heard a lot about steps of faith from my religious background, inspirational stories of people who are willing to uproot their lives and change careers simply because they believed God was telling them to do so even if it didn’t make financial sense for them.
And to end on a more personal note, I will say that for me nonviolence is more about morality than practicality. As noted, historian me can easily recognize that its impact on civil rights has been overstated; with that, I rarely will try to convince others that it’s the logical or reasonable thing to do. It seems silly to shame protesters about nonviolence when they run into everyday structured violence; much as it feels wrong for me to belittle the effective organizing from other activists like Robert F. Williams who took more militant stances to protest injustice.
But I do try to live out nonviolent principles in my own life because of faith: I think that’s how God would want us as Christians to interact with those who we’re in opposition with. The Bible definitely holds its own stories of violence and war, complete with heroes of the faith valorizing themselves in combat like my namesake. However, I think Jesus, Paul, and New Testament behavior tells us that we should instead extend love to all, seek others’ betterment, and strive to work together to build the Kingdom of God. And I often don’t see the results of what I labor toward in this sense immediately, or ever. But I’m not called to work miracles so much as be faithful in the things I do have control over. Even with that theological framework it’s not easy (and I’ve definitely fallen short of even this standard, yet alone God’s standards), but, this has felt more honoring to Scripture and true to me than other teachings I’ve tried in my faith journey.