Loving one’s enemies?

For two nights, my Christian friend Tony and I have been discussing Jesus’s teaching of loving one’s enemies. Tony observed that I don’t like Republicans or Christian fundamentalists very much. That is true.

In Matthew 5, Jesus did say “ You have heard it said, ‘Love your neighbor, and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Is Jesus asking us to do the impossible? We should note that loving is different from liking. A spiritual person does not have to LIKE his enemies. That is too much against human nature, and Jesus did not teach any method for doing so. Jesus himself did not seem to like the Pharisees too much. In fact, he cursed them. A Bible commentator made this remark about this interesting verse:

There are two kinds of love, involving the same general feeling, or springing from the same fountain of good-will to all mankind, but differing so far as to admit of separation in idea. The one is that feeling by which we approve of the conduct of another, commonly called the love of complacency; the other, that by which we wish well to the person of another, though we cannot approve his conduct. This is the love of benevolence, and this love we are to bear toward our enemies.

I can agree with this interpretation. Certainly, we don’t have to approve of our enemies’ behavior. But hatred does not solve any problem. It was Buddha who said that “Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule.” Hatred breeds more hatred, and violence is…