BoppWeBlog

Now that’s a catchy title. Might be good for grabbing someone’s attention.

So Christians are supposed to love their enemies. I’ve mentioned in previous blogs how this can be much more difficult than just learning to love the dude that cut in front of you at the store. So what does it mean to actually love these people that we have, as a culture, been conditioned to hate?

One pastor’s words once said this. “If I preach on Sunday about feeding the poor, finding shelterand clothing for the homeless, counseling unwed mothers and helping with the adoption process, then this is praised with ‘God bless’. But what if instead I preached about providing medical aid to Iraqis, loving Muslims, befriending gang members, comforting the families of suicide bombers, loving rapists, wife beaters, tourturers and pedofiles? I’d most likely be thown off a cliff.”

I’d like to believe this is a bit dramatic, and ridiculous, but it does raise a pretty good point. It is really hard to love those whom we have been conditioned to hate. After all, the Christian love we profess MUST be strong enough to engage these “so called” enemies. We can’t, as Christians, pick and choose who we will associate with. Not that I or anyone should or would condone any of these awful things. But we need to embrace the “unembraceable”, just as Jesus did.

So why is ‘loving terrorists’ such a big deal? This is precisely what we are called to do by Jesus Christ. I hope that I’ll continue to learn more and more what it means to live this out every day of my life.

I read this quote the other day by Hanan Ashrawi, a proponent of nonviolent resistance in Iraq. “Everyone knows what kind of war the United States can make. We long to see what kind of peace the United States can make”. To take this even further Rose Berger, an editor of Sojourners says based on the previous quote. “Everyone knows what kind of war Christians can make. We long to see what kind of peace Christians can make.”

These quotes really resonate with me. They convict me as a Christian, and as an American. It gets me thinking about the violent things Christians have participated in over the years. The crusades to even aligning with Nazism. Now these are extremes, and I don’t want to dwell on these sad historical events, because there have been countless great things accomplished in the name of Jesus as well. But it does seem like there are far too many Christians willing and almost eager to resort to war or violence. It should be just the opposite. Its seems to me that to be a ‘Christian’ by definition is to be an advocate of peace at whatever cost. Insted, it seems that it’s the so called liberals who are the peacemakers and those who represent Christ to many are remaining quiet, or even advocating military action.

In the words of Lee Greenwood “I’m proud to be an American”, which is why I want so badly to help our nation become even greater by demonstrating what it is capable of. Not in terms of military force, but through the power of peacemaking. To many people in the world the US represents Christianity, which is why as a Christian I feel so strongly that we do what we can to change the perception of our country.