News Health: Loving an evil enemy

Happy Sunday,

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven.”

Jesus (Matthew 5:43-45)

How do we love our enemies when they’re evil?

Last week, I sent this call to love our (political) enemies to 1.4 million people and asked people what they thought.

Unsurprisingly, I got more than a few replies.

Almost everyone agreed with the premise that we should love our political enemies, but a recurring piece of pushback was that I had confused “niceness” with “love.” People in this camp argued that the way we should love our enemies is by condemning their sin, even if that requires harshness. One person wrote, “I think your definition of love is wrong. We should not hinder each other in calling out evil.” Another said, “If speaking kindly doesn't move a heart toward the truth, sometimes becoming irritated and speaking harshly is a loving tact.”

I absolutely agree that we should speak truth and call out sin/evil, leaving no doubt in people’s minds where we stand, or what we believe is right and noble and true. 

But we are called to do that in love (Eph. 4:15), and that means with kindness and patience.

This is not my definition of love; it’s the definition given to us in Scripture. 1 Corinthians 13 says “Love is patient, love is kind… love is not irritable, and does not keep a record of wrongs.” If we speak what is true in an unkind way or out of irritation, then it is not loving—it can’t be, because love is the opposite of those things. So how do we love enemies? By being patient, kind, and unirritated with them.

Right now, I’m wrestling with how difficult it is to apply this to specific people I think are obviously celebrating evil. But I keep coming back to Jesus’s command to love my enemies. And if an enemy feels too evil to love, I shouldn’t assume love must mean something different; I should assume I just didn’t appreciate how difficult the command would be to follow. 

What do you think?
Jason

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Next week I’ll be addressing another piece of common pushback—that labeling people as “enemies” is part of the problem and is causing further division..