Love Your Enemy

 Last week, I wrote "Most people in the other political party don't want to destroy your life and livelihood."

Ever since I wrote that, I've felt a little uncomfortable. The fact is, many people's lives and livelihoods have been adversely affected by policies from the other political party.

You can probably point to policies that caused your insurance premiums and deductibles to go up. You can probably point out policies that contributed to a crumbling infrastructure. The other political party has decades of racist leadership that have limited so many opportunities for so many people. They pretend to have family values but prove time and time again that they don't care about actual families. Perhaps the other party has ideals of equality and prosperity, but so far what we see is them keeping the rich wealthy while the rest of us subsist on much less.

If the politicians alone weren't bad enough, then there are the people in the other political party! They share moronic memes and parrot unhelpful rhetoric. They watch way too much TV and have no sense of decency.

And I'm not saying this with any sense of sarcasm or irony. Real people have real reasons to hate the other political party. In many ways they have behaved like your enemy. To pretend otherwise is naive. And I think I've been naive.

So I was struck by this quote from the book "Enos Jarom Omni" by Sharon Harris. She talks about how Enos prayed for his enemies the Lamanites and then asked,

"Let’s think about the present. Who feels like your enemy? The person who makes fun of your child? The unreasonable neighbor? An ex? A co-worker out to get you? The one who lies and still gets prominent church callings? Or, who as a group seems to be against everything you stand for? Socialists? Democrats? Republicans? Libertarians? Pro-choice advocates? Pro-lifers? Environmentalists? Feminists? Preppers? Neo-Nazis? Globalists? Pornographers? Suburban racists? To put it in Mormon’s terms, which manner of -ites? Whoever they are and in whatever ways they are dangerous or destructive, would you engage in a spiritual wrestle over a long period of time to secure blessing for them and their descendants? Enos’s experience suggests that the same people we view as antithetical to our ideals could ultimately play a key role in our salvation.”

If someone has done things to hurt you, I think you can acknowledge it. And perhaps, after we acknowledge our enemies, that is when we can better obey Jesus's commandment to "love your enemies."