How Are We To Deal With Our Enemies?

I used to do a lot of "dialoguing" with people opposed to a Christian worldview, friends on the left and people of different and varying viewpoints. Unless the person was very open and searching, I found it to be ultimately a fruitless endeavor. I will talk with anyone, anywhere, at any hour of the day or night about Christ if they are even the slightest bit open. But I have found, at least in my experience, that while "dialoguing" may lead some to a bit of understanding, it ultimately does not lead to conversion or repentance.

Maybe it is the times we are living in, but I feel much more of a sense of urgency today than I may have ten or twenty years ago. Dialoguing for the purpose of education is one approach, I suppose, as I have seen Bishop Robert Barron do in his talks and Word on Fire videos to engage with atheists and non-believers. But it's my contention that most people are not moved to conversion by arguments. If anything it can lead to a kind of com-box theological masturbation. And I need to keep a lid on it sometimes to keep from exclaiming, "WE DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THIS, JUST GET ON THE ARK FOR GOD'S SAKE!!"

Actually, these days I don't know what moves people to belief. Is it beauty? For some, I suppose, and liturgists would argue that it needs to start here. Is it crisis? I think this can be a catalyst as well, though I have also known people who have lost/abandoned belief after the death of a child or other tragedies. Is it the Church's intellectual tradition? For many the intellectual arguments carry a force that Protestant Christianity simply cannot match, and draws them to the Catholic faith. Is it the Holy Spirit? Faith is a gift of grace (Eph 2:8), so undoubtedly; but what then when you have such hardness or heart and darkening of the intellect?

I vacillate between a kind of idealistic sense of opportunity that the time is ripe for the gospel, and a kind of hardened dejection at the mass apostasy and stiff-neck nature of the world in which we are living. I'm not naive to think my street evangelization will bring about any kind of mass conversions or lead to much more than public humiliation or derision. But even if I am able to plant a seed in one person that takes root years later, I would still do it. A total failure, by worldly recruiting standards, a fools errand. But we continue to do the work, God is the only one that can change hearts.

In Luke 10:29, a lawyer asks Jesus, "Who is my neighbor?" It's a loaded question, and Jesus refuses to play his loophole game. Instead, he relates the parable of the Good Samaritan and claims that the one who showed mercy was neighbor to the beaten man. This seems fairly obvious to be as a Christian. What is harder is answering the question of who my enemies are.

Lately I have been more cognizant of the "enemies of the cross of Christ" that are working for our destruction, which Paul speaks about in Philippians 3:18. I'm talking about the obvious: Islamic extremists and oppressive governments, but also the less obvious--those who oppose the Gospel while claiming the be open-minded and tolerant of opposing viewpoints, who attempt to subvert through sweet talk and perverted deception, even those who would go after our children through deviant corruption. As David laments,

"Help, LORD, for no one loyal remains;

the faithful have vanished from the human race.

Those who tell lies to one another

speak with deceiving lips and a double heart." 

(Ps 12:2-3)

They may be those obvious leftist blocs--Planned Parenthood, the LGBT lobby, militant atheists--that oppose Christ and seek to punish Christians. But it may also be those in our own families and among our own friends who are enemies of the cross. When Jesus shares with his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer and be killed, Peter opposes him, "God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to you." He turned and said to the future first pope,

"Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me. 

You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do." 

(Mt 16:21-23)

When we restrict ourselves to the things of this world, seeing only what is on the surface and attempting to thwart the designs of God, we make ourselves enemies of the cross. 

And yet, how we treat our enemies says a lot about us as Christians. For what does the Lord call us to do? 

"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? Do not the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brothers only, what is unusual about that? Do not the pagans do the same? So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect." (Mt 5:43-48)

We are entering dark days. How we stand in the face of persecution against those with deep pockets who seek to "punish" Christians for holding beliefs counter to the pagan sexual ideology of the day and who pay dearly for it, against those who burn our brothers and sisters over open flames and sever their heads in Muslim countries for being slaves to Christ, against those in our own family and friends who we find ourselves divided against (Mt 10:35), determines our witness. When we refuse to heed this almost offensive command to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us, whether because of hurt or righteous indignation, we deny the very command of Christ. Perfection in faith is forged in this radical approach to repayment. St. Paul tells us to "bless, and not curse" those who persecute us, and not to repay evil with evil, not to look for revenge but leave room for wrath. (Rom 12:14-19). 

When I regard those who oppose Christ, as a collective "I have nothing but hatred for them; I count them my enemies" (Ps 139:22). And yet I would invite a member of their army to dinner, give them a bed in my house in their poverty, and love and pray for them. Not for the purpose of fruitless "dialogue", but as a means of opposition, for as St. Paul writes, "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by doing so you will heap burning coals upon his head" (Rom 12:20). We can only forgive, pray, bless, and love in this way by the power of God. It is too radical, and too extreme, for us to do under our own power. 

When dealing with your enemies, don't forget this: Saul was an enemy of Christ, persecuting and killing followers of the Way with gusto. And yet when the Lord called Ananias to approach this enemy of Christ--who was to become a chosen instrument of the Lord's to carry His name before Gentiles, kings, and Israelites--and lay hands on Saul, the "scales fell from his eyes and he regained his sight...and was baptized" (Acts 9:18). We cannot discount our enemies as having no part in God's plan for salvation, for they may just be the person who comes to Christ and does one hundred fold more than we could ever do by our own power. We are called to love them, and pray for them--even when they sue us, when they seek to corrupt our children, when they seek to usurp God's authority and when they seek to do us harm. This is what it means to be a Christian. How we treat our enemies has everything to do with what it means to be perfect, as our Heavenly Father is perfect.