Reflections from the belly
Years ago, I was in a theology class which touched on ‘love your enemies‘. To my astonishment, a pastor of a large church burst out, rather angrily, “I don’t know why we keep talking about this. We are Christians. We have no enemies.” My jaw dropped. Continue reading “Adore, endure, forgive; and a prayer for enemies”
Loving like Jesus means loving together through betrayal and beyond. (Listen.)
“Love one another as I have loved you …”: Jesus says these familiar words at a critical moment. He has just washed the feet of each and every disciple. Now Judas has left the building. He’s heading to the authorities, to hand Jesus over to be tortured and killed. Continue reading “John | Love, be wounded, forgive, repeat”
Listen here.
Some years back, I saw a woman in a carpark smacking her child. And as she smacked, she yelled, “WE DO NOT HIT IN THIS FAMILY! WE LOVE!” It reminded me of those ostensibly Biblical parenting models, in which cool and collected parents maintain discipline by spanking their naughty children—and then lovingly use the moment as a teaching opportunity. Because the people being hit are children, and because our society doesn’t rate children’s experiences very highly, we adults can miss the contradiction here. Yet if we substitute ‘women’ for ‘children’, perhaps things become clearer: even if it’s ‘just a smack’, there is a mixed message going on, to say the least. Continue reading “Luke | Winnowing out the violence”
Once upon a time, I was sitting in a class at the theological college when the concept of ‘love your enemy’ came up. The pastor of a large church became annoyed and said, “I’ve got no idea why we waste time talking about this. We’re Christians—we have no enemies!” His comment revealed what is actually a fairly common idea: Those of us who are not actively oppressed by a violent regime, and who work very hard to be nice, often think we love everyone. But is this true? And can we throw the whole idea of loving our enemy out? Continue reading “Matthew | Love who?!”
Alison and the whale 