LOVE your ENEMIES: where Jesus goes wrong

by Terry 127 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  not a captive

  I'm sad for what your uncle did to your daughter, Quentin. My sister was raped by a neighbor when she was in kindergarden.I often feel that the greatest gift you can give a child is a childhood free of molestation. I have several friends who have suffered these things. The world is full of heartless creeps who cannot feel a shred of self-control or remorse for the evil stink they leave in other's lives. In a child's life.

  I don't think Jesus tells me that I have to feel the same feeling for the guy who hurt my sister as I do for my sister. I try to understand.

  The best I can do is think how when we have our first kid we learn what love is; we have our second kid we learn what real justice is. We are all God's children. If we are God's children but one does something horrible to the other, even though he loves them both , the harm one has done to the other must not be ignored. That would be really, REALLY wrong. Not to let the injured child know that they were wronged would block the first way path to healing. And the abuse must not be allowed to go on and the abuser punished.

  The saying "Least said, soonest mended" is not true. Oh, how wonderful it would be if saying nothing would heal the child. My parents tried that, but it didn't work.

  But what about a perpetrator? They have to be outed for the wrong, call the evil act what it is it is. "Anyone who causes one of these little ones to stumble it would be better for a millstone to be tied around his neck and be thrown into the sea." It is at the discretion of the victim to cover over or not. But a criminal on the loose is a sentence of the same crime on another child.

  Jesus was not passive as regards these things--not as I see it. He looks for restoring the injured one first. I believe the greatest freedom is when the victim reaches the point where they can leave the shame and the criminal has to bear it. Those who cover and protect a wrong and the wrongdoer are as guilty as the one who did it. They make the victim bear the burden of pretending nothing happened.

  I believe this discussion of Jesus and love gets derailed because we don't talk honestly about things that are truly wrong. That is what make "faders" sick inside.When people have to stuff their feelings, pretending things are fine when they are not. But that is another topic. Jesus spoke out and they killed him.

  That said he did forgive the ones that nailed him dow(but not the pharisees)

  Sorry for talking so much. Your post hit a nerve. I'm sorry for you and your girl, Quentin. I am hoping you all get better. Maeve
• 

  Quentin

  Thank you for your kind and insightful thoughts...

  I suppose, since we did not know until she was in her late teens what had happened, being the person I was then, when it happened, I would have killed him, without remorse. Finding out at a later time kept me around to be here from then till now. That is the problem with Jesus sayings. There is no justice, no recompense.

  Life is filled with evil. Where is God? Many posters ask that question. Many turn away from Diety for that reason.
• 

  possible-san

  Probably, about this subject, I answered briefly before.
  And that is recently.
  http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/bible/191456/2/A-serious-question-for-Christians-and-Non-Christians-How-Can-Love-Hate

  Well, do you live in the United States?
  The "New Thought" churches are in that country.
  Although I do not know correctly, probably 100 years - 50 years ago, I think that they were telling you that answer.

  Fundamentalists cannot answer that, IMO.
  First of all, they cannot love real enemies.
  Fundamentalists' main features are not accepting except their "orthodox" creed.

  possible
• 

  not a captive

  My one of my daughters went to Calcutta and taught children at a school that was for children of prostitutes. Desperate women worked the only job they had available to feed their children. After a while she saw that no amount of teaching these wonderfulchildren could remake the society that reduced their caste-bound mothers to sex-bondage. She would watch a child whose hair she had just combed the lice from wander unprotected into the slums, taking their chances in a world where they would never, ever be valued.

  Now this daughter of mine hates JW religion--for good reason--but I have always told her "Don't throw Jesus away with the JWs" And I had talked to her about that before the JWs tore that Jesus from us one little rip at a time--like a bandage over the wounds of our life. It left our hurts exposed and painful. Unprotected. That's how it seemed to me.

  She wanted to help these children into jobs when they had achieved so much--they could do work that could raise them from poverty but it turned out that their own world had no mercy. She said after a while she saw the problem of these people, the children, as needing not a redistribution of money but a redistribution of worth. Because there was nothing she or anyone else could do to remake their world. It is a world that men have made for them.

  Jesus gave me the assurance that I have worth. Why would I deny that sense of personal value to a person no matter how they are treated by others or by what is done to them. I believe I have value even if I am treated like shit by others.

  Don't know if this is of interest to you--but it has helped me through a manure-filled life and I know of others it has helped too. No I don't mean the JWs.

  Maeve
• 

  Terry

  So, was Jesus right or wrong about Love your Enemies?

  To Love is to hold in the highest possible esteem and to greatly value.

  If you "love" somebody you would even lay down your life for them, presumably.

  Think about that before you answer.
• 

  possible-san

  Terry.

  So, was Jesus right or wrong about Love your Enemies?
  To Love is to hold in the highest possible esteem and to greatly value.
  If you "love" somebody you would even lay down your life for them, presumably.
  Think about that before you answer.

  When you demand an answer, may I express my own opinion boldly?

  My answer is ...
  Jesus is not wrong, but your interpretation is wrong.
  So, it is wrong to say "Think about that" on the basis of your interpretation.
  For me, Seemingly your interpretation is "fundamentalism."

  Although enemies may be in your surroundings, there are real enemies in your heart.
  Therefore, when you continue having "worry", "fear", "anger", and "hate" to those enemies, your health and family may be damaged soon.

  So, the word "Love your enemies" does not mean "Invite the persons who rape you, and your murderer and terrorists, and make friends with them."

  And I said that probably such explanation was told 100 years before at the New Thought churches.

  possible
• 

  jeovagood

  Didn't Jesus also say 'do not cast your pearls before swine'? He also eternally dammed his follower Judas.
• 

  not a captive

  I believe Jesus said that we are to love our enemies as we love our neighbors. We make anyone in need our neighbor by rendering help when it falls to our hand to do it. Apparently that neighbor can be a person who has been or is our enemy. All these are his teachings.

  And Jesus said "No greater love has no man than this, that one lay down his life for his friends."

  I've given this some thought because of the soldiers I've known. The war stories I've heard. I've given this a lot of thought because we have had some violence in our family. Sometimes theology in these instances involves calling the authorities. Friend and foe are not always easy to discern. Sometimes a measure of physical contact is the only way to show love. There is a lot of adrenaline pumping. And jail.

  And there are times I believe that if we can love our husbands we can love anybody.

  So without hashing this around too much I will say that Jesus didn't get it wrong. I am always re-calibrating my perspective on my own worth versus people whose behaviors disturb or anger me. I remember some of the disgusting things I've done and the people I've hurt. The mistakes I've made. But over time the counsel Jesus gave has brought a measure of healing to some bad, very bad situations.

  That said, I think the ultimate test is when a life is on the line. I have wondered if at Abraham's test the question came up: Are you really there God? Have I simply been delusional? I have imagined Abraham and Isaac talking as they piled one rock on another and seeing there was no lamb around but Isaac--I wondered if they just said "Screw it , let's do this thing. If he isn't there then there isn't any point in any of this mess anyway." So I think like that.

  Same with Jesus at Gethsemane. In such a world of beauty it must seem silly to sweat blood over the idea of Truth but this world is also a world full of hurt.I do not believe in false hope having any value. I really love being alive a lot of the time. And more now since I am free of the Witness Organization. But I am determined to find out what I can of what life is supposed to be.

  I do believe that God is love; I don't believe that I have got that love thoroughly integrated into myself. I want to cast out that fear of there being no redress for wrongs, no healing mercy.

  If the occasion presented itself in a way as obvious as Abraham's or Jesus'-- that it was time to put up or shut up-- I might sweat blood too. But I would have to go for it. I think there is a larger meaning in the expression " In the mountain of Jehovah it will be provided."

  Thanks for asking, Terry. You ask good questions and I appreciate you not letting me get by with a cheap answer. Maeve
• 

  BurnTheShips

  LOVE your ENEMIES: where Jesus goes wrong

  Jesus preached a personal ethic, not a political system.

  Love is not incompatible with justice, or forgiveness.

  Taking Terry's argumentation to its logical conclusion precludes forgiveness for being wronged.

  BTS
• 

  PSacramento

  Love is the only thing that can break the cycle of Hate.

  It must however be combined with Justice.

  We extend our love to those that most needed, we give it freely knowing that we can't expect anything in return, though we hope that love will change the hate.

  We do NOT allow a crime to go unpunished by the justice system that is in place, someone that commits a crime must do his time to society.

  But in tempering our justice with love as opposed to hate, we present the oppostunity for the cycle of hate and violence to be broken.