Love your enemies, pray for your persecutors
But what does that mean? in 2025?
This isn't a question I haven't thought about; I have even written about it. And yet I was reminded recently of how vital this is. Serendipitously I have found myself revisiting the Sermon on the Mount, both because I have some study materials to prepare on it, a sermon on the horizon, and totally unrelatedly my bible reading plan threw it in my face.
I think politics is important, because the human is a political animal. We are made for (civil?) society, to live in relation to others, and this shapes who we are and what we are. Furthermore, because we live in the body, what we do in the body and with our bodies and other bodies, matters. I do not subscribe to a view of religion that simply partitions it off from politics and says, "well, religion is more important than politics, so never get mixed up in".
At the same time, I do believe that the realities of temporal, earthly politics, of the rise and fall of empires, of the minute portion of existence that each of us inhabits, compared to the grand scale of eternity, and the sweeping purposes of a God whose redemptive history plays out on a cosmic scale, mean that there is a limit to the importance of the here-and-now of politics.
Those two things need to be kept in tension, I believe, for a Christian approach to the present time. I watch, or more importantly read, all that is going on since the Trump administration took power, and I have deep-seated fears for both the USA, and the world; I think if you look at the hallmarks of historical fascism, then it is fair to call what is occurring in the states, a fascist take-over of the American government, which is being systemically dismantled. The sheer number of illegal and unconstitutional things being done by those in power, and those illegitimately and illegally in power (Musk), is dumbfounding.1
Compounded to this, when I read the words and look at the actions of MAGA Christians, I cannot help but conclude that it is a heretical denial of historic Christianity. Even when I read the writings of conservative Christians who would distance themselves from MAGA, or exist in different spheres (e.g. Australia), the sense of "this is a real 'vibe shift', and we should celebrate the move towards conservatism and the opportunities for Christianity" feels me with despair and anger. Hitching your social conservatism to (21st century) fascism will do no good thing for the gospel.
I'm not in America; I'm not American. I don't have any direct or meaningful role to play in resisting American fascism. But I still am angry. I still want the defeat of my enemies. I still lament the vast scale of human suffering that is beginning to be unleashed, and I rage against the pervasive and piercing injustices taking place, and this is only three weeks in.
And then Jesus says, "love your enemies; pray for those who persecute you", and I have to be called back to myself to remember that genuine love for enemies means desiring and acting for their good, and praying for them. Here are six reflections on that:
Pray for arms to be broken and fangs to be smashed.
Psalm 10:15 Break the arm of the wicked
The arm is consistently used in the Bible as a metaphor for action and agency, the power to act in the world. The prayer to "break the arm of the wicked" specifically prays that God will intervene to remove, restrict, and disable the power of wicked people to do wicked things. That's a right application of applying imprecatory prayers today - to ask God to intervene to uphold justice, and to do so by limiting or eliminating the power of people to do evil.
Pray for knees to bow.
Phil 2:10 Every knee should bow
The eschatological picture of Jesus' victory is that every knee will bow to him. The temporal hope is that rebellious people will bow before his return in judgment, and will bow in repentance. If, as a Christian, I want the good of others and think that good is primarily found in repentance and faith in Jesus, then I should long especially for enemies to repent of their evil and subject themselves to Jesus in true conversion.
Pray for humans.
The act of praying for others humanises them in my own eyes, as I recognise their common humanity in which I share, and which they share with me. Our consistent temptation is to de-humanize our enemies, and so strip them of inherent dignity and worth (the very thing many of them are in fact doing!) To do so is really to turn to the dark side, to give in to our own hate, and so to become the very thing we are fighting against.
Pray for ultimate good(s).
To love is to seek the good of the other, in God, and so the shape of prayers for enemies seeks their ultimate good. That means that I should want and hope nothing less for them than that which I want and hope for those nearest and most loved by me. Which is nothing short of them knowing God who is goodness itself, and to behold and enjoy him forever.2
Love means saying no to evil.
Job 29:17 I shattered the fangs of the unjust and snatched the prey from his mouth.
At the same time, points 1-4 do not abrogate or nullify our responsibility to resist evil in a cruciform, Jesus-following way. Apart from being a great verse about vampire-hunting, Job 29:17 depicts Job as an upright person who actively went out and pursued justice by intervening for victims. It is not loving to victims of injustice, nor to perpetrators of injustice, to acquiesce to evil; but rather to speak against it, pursue justice by non-violent means, and be willing to suffer for the cause of good.
Love means triumphing over evil by good.
You cannot achieve a just outcome by unjust means. Which is why love triumphs over evil only by good. Or, perhaps this is interchangeable: good only triumphs over evil by love. The truest victory over enemies is not to seem them destroyed, but to see them transformed. That enemies repent of their evil deeds, receive forgiveness from God and from their victims, to seek restitution for their crimes, and to brought into a community of love that radically transforms who they are. That's a victory beyond what most of us hope for, but it's not beyond what is possible, nor is it beyond what we ought to hope for. It is precisely such unimaginable transformation that God makes possible.
I don't have any interest in cataloguing all these things here; you can read 1001 pieces on what's going on, and if you just read a handful of them that should be enough
If you sneakily unite Aquinas and the Westminster confession