Reflections: On Enemies
Quotations to stir the heart
and mind on hatred and forgiveness.
| posted 01/08/2002 in Christianity
Today
It is hard to make your
adversaries real people unless you recognize yourself in them—in which case, if
you don't watch out, they cease to be adversaries.
The Habit of Being:
Letters of Flannery O'Connor
Whoever fights monsters should see
to it that in the process he does not become a monster.
Friedrich Nietzsche,
Beyond Good and Evil
Unity will always be something imposed
from outside rather than growing from within: and so it comes about that states
need enemies.
Rowan Williams,
"Politics and the Soul: A
During times of war, hatred
becomes quite respectable, even though it has to masquerade often under the
guise of patriotism.
Howard Thurman, Jesus and
the Disinherited
As Christians, we must develop a
will to embrace and be reconciled with our enemy. This will to embrace is
absolutely unconditional. There is no imaginable deed that should take a person
outside our will to embrace him, because there is no imaginable deed that can
take a person out of God's will to embrace humanity—which is what I think is
inscribed in big letters in the narrative of the Cross of Christ.
Miroslav Volf,
ChristianityToday.com
All wars are civil wars, because
all men are brothers . …Each one owes infinitely more
to the human race than to the particular country in which he was born.
François Fénelon, quoted at A.Word.A.Day (www.wordsmith.org/awa)
Our enemies can often correct our
faults by their disparagement, just as the flattery of friends can corrupt us.
Augustine, Confessions
The gift our enemy may be able to
bring us [is] to see aspects of ourselves that we cannot discover any other
way than through our enemies. Our friends seldom tell us these things; they
are our friends precisely because they are able to overlook or ignore this part
of us. The enemy is thus not merely a hurdle to be leaped on the way to God.
The enemy can be the way to God. We cannot come to terms with our shadow
except through our enemies.
Walter Wink, Engaging the
Powers
We too often have difficulty in
loving our enemies precisely because we are afraid they might repent. Such was
Jonah's problem . …Jonah is unable to cope with the
loss of his enemies . …He would rather die than face a
gracious God and the Ninevites as potential friends.
Gregory Jones, Embodying
Forgiveness
Christ made peace with all our
enemies too, on the cross. Let us bear witness to this peace to all.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, A Testament to Freedom