The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Using Internet to learn how to love our enemies

Theology
#1

I documented my own experiences here: lotharlorraine.wordpress.com/2013/09/30/blogging-as-a-spiritual-experience/ .

Many people use their electronic anonymousness as an opportunity to believe like assholes towards people they dislike.
As Christians we should not only refrain from acting in this wicked way but also try to love the very persons having hurt us.

But as Stefcui recently pointed out, there is a limit if you are confronted with folks who are utterly unwilling to change their evil ways, as many pharisees our Lord confronted.

But how should we draw the line?

If you find the time, I would like you to share your own experiences and perhaps also comment on my own as I described it in the blogpost.
A militant atheist took me to task in the very same post, so it was a good test for me.

Lovely greetings from Lorraine/Lothringen, land of king Lothar the great.

#2

That is a great image on your blog:

I find that all experiences are intended to train us. When I walked home from school I encountered yards where dogs would jump out and bark at me. It terrified me! They were defending their territory; but I couldn’t work out why they were so aggressive. I eventually started to learn a route where I was snarl-free. However, I would occasionally also find one of these hostile dogs that were outside the yard… growling, snarling, ready to attack. I learnt that holding a stick or a stone was a good deterrent from an attacking dog. Even a pretend stone would make the dog run away wimping. That was interesting… they were afraid of the boogeyman, and yet they acted so tough and nasty, like many of the nasty hobbitses that you mention.

A boogeyman for most people is the ‘law’. If you threaten someone with the law they very often back-down. This is particularly interesting for atheists who are often more afraid of the law than most. Law and atheism is an oxymoron. Particles colliding do not create a moral code, or a bond of marital fidelity, or a need for insurance, or a law to protect against barbaric murders. Atheism should expect these things - it is all part of chaos and accidentally colliding atoms. Instead, atheists love their wives and children, they lock their homes, they invest their money, and they look for decency and integrity, and insure their property. They live as if God is real, yet they throw tantrums if anyone reminds them that God made us. This is just the behavior of the animal desire and sin nature. It refuses to be domesticated - and yet!!!

I think we are meant to observe this behavior and learn what we can. People eventually show what their true rebellions are based on, and sometimes it just takes a little prodding. Sometimes it is just good to avoid those who consistently snarl at you when you pass their yard. Jesus used many different methods when dealing with the hostile. Jesus even had to deny information to those who would use this for evil - even if it was his own brother (John 7:1-13). Jesus kept information secret from those who intended Him harm. We can learn a lot from examining actual examples of how Jesus “loved his enemy”.

Stefcui

#3

Your animal comparison with a snarling dog is quite appropriate. As Jesus used the phrase: “do not throw your pearls at swines unless you want them to devour you” He certainly had this type of situations in mind.

As for atheist morality, I disagree that an atheist has necessarily to give up an objective morality.

However I do believe there are extreme tensions for a materialist, as I argued in a former post.

But I do believe that many materialists are good persons who will finally accept God’s love on the other side of the grave.
But I consider extremely unlikely that this is the case of the New Atheists and God won’t force them to love Him.

#4

Hmm, maybe it says something about my twistered personality… but I remember when I was young I took great pleasure in running a stick along certain corrigated fences severely aggitating certain snarling dogs locked safely on the other side. Needless to say these fences were 6’ high and I was running - oh brave me. :laughing:

#5

Oh Davo :laughing: You were such a BRAVE boy!

Stef, excellent post. The way I deal with them is generally the way I deal here and it works for me. It’s not in my nature (well not any more, it seems) to get aggressive, but I do the broken record routine and then (if they’re on my blog) I let them know they’re required to be civil and/or say something they haven’t already said (unlike me! :laughing: ) or I’ll delete their posts (if I’ve allowed their posts). If they keep up with the circular arguments I put a stop to that too. If there are no legitimate posters, I might even lock comments. If I don’t think the comment stream is instructive or edifying or even interesting I might delete the whole thing. It’s my blog, and that’s not a free speech zone.

What I don’t do is expect to influence them toward my pov because they hate that. I just tell them what I think and why (if I’m in the mood to do that). I’m interested in them or I wouldn’t bother. Why do they feel the way they do? I suspect your two are very young, Lotharson, just based on their grammar and lack of reasoning skills. At least I HOPE they’re very young. But then I made that mistake with one guy and found out he was older than me! He was a nice guy, though he wasn’t very nice until I got to know him better and he figured out I didn’t think God was going to roast him for all eternity (though I did point out that it’s a tough road ahead if you spend your life going backward). We had a lengthy correspondence that finally tapered off to nothing. An aging atheist like that – really all I could do is plant some hopeful thoughts. Maybe they will make it easier for him to find his way in his next “phase.” Who knows?

That said, I’ve met and known quite a number of former atheists, and I guess most of them would be “new” atheists. Kids pick up this stuff in their rebellious years and it’s part of that rebellious phase. They get over it. The hormones settle down and they grow up and begin to realize maybe they were being stupid. I notice on some boards though that the “Christians” are just as militant and, well, stupid, as the kid atheists. And most of THEM aren’t kids. :frowning: It does not help to harp on how they’re going to roast in hell forever and ever (and we, being loving people, would like to save you from our monstrous god and his ugly designs for you). The kids might be stupid, but they’re not dumb. Even they can see that’s a crock. A hardened, adult new atheist is probably another thing. It will take some severe trauma to turn them around most of the time, I think. If you get a Dawkins on your site, I’d just ban him if it were me. There’s no point. Let God take care of him. He is up to it. Nothing HE sets out to do can be denied to Him, and if He wants Dawkins today, He will get him. He got Paul, after all. :wink:

Dave posted a link that you might find helpful. outofthefog.net/CommonBehaviors/Top100Traits.html Sadly nothing there is new to me. I had just never seen it spelled out so cut & dried like.

Love, Cindy

#6

Hello Cindy.

You got it, these folks have been traumatized by their childhood where they have been taught to worship a genocidal god who will eternally torture all non-believers.

But I don’t see why God has the duty to force Dawkins and Hitchen into His kingdom if they don’t desire it. I would not be really sad if they finally cease to exist.

#7

Spot on, Cindy. God got Paul, and perhaps a modern equivalent ‘gotcha’ is the former uber-atheist philosopher Anthony Flew, who famously ‘came out’ - to enormous vilification and disgraceful personal calumny from the atheist cognoscenti - as a deist, if not necessarily a theist or a Christian.

God didn’t get Christopher Hitchens or Neitzsche or Sartre when they were alive. But he will get 'em, sure as eggs is eggs :smiley: .

Cheers

Johnny

#8

Lotharson,

I didn’t say God has the duty to draw anyone into His kingdom (although I’ve seen that argued rather well, imo). What I said was that God can draw anyone into His kingdom he pleases. Dawkins is a creation of our Lord. It’s not so much whether WE think he’s worth salvaging, but whether FATHER thinks so. We’re commanded to love our enemies (and I don’t think Dawkins would dispute that he at least considers us at an impasse). If our enemies, then certainly our non-enemies and our friends. Wherever you place him, Dawkins fits in there somewhere. Loving him intrinsically includes hoping for his salvation, imo. What’s more, we’re commanded to love our enemies why? So that we will be like our Father in heaven. Father loves His enemies (good thing for us). He got Paul; He can get Dawkins if He wants to. Does He want to? Well, probably.

Love, Cindy

#9

Hi Marc -

I don’t think it is useful to compare people we have annoying and heated arguments with over internet to the Pharisees that Jesus denounced. Jesus was not simply denouncing them because they argued with him discourteously. He was denouncing them because they upheld an oppressive and expensive sacrificial cult that lead them to taxing the poor again after the oppressive Roman taxes had been paid, upholding a rigid system of religious exclusion, looking forward to God’s judgement that would massacre the impure and the gentiles in the near future, leading their people into a hate driven disastrous rebellion against the Romans, and of course plotting to entrap and kill him and so watching his every move. In their confrontations with Jesus they are invariably not only trying to best him in argument but also attempting to stir up a lynch mob against him by putting him to shame.

Someone with opinions I find offensive or just maddening and aggressive on the internet may drive me to distraction, and too much prolonged confrontation may make me despair of myself as I eventually respond in kind. At this point I think it often means that I need a break from arguing when the confrontations start to get to me deep in my guts. But I don’t feel I am confronting people who are like the Pharisees or represent the system of Pharisaic religion (although there is a bit of a Pharisee in all of us). And since the confrontation is only virtual – however maddening it may be - I don’t think I am necessarily confronting an ‘enemy’ one who wishes me harm. It simply means that we are really managing to get up each other’s noses.
Regarding Christopher Hitchens _- I remember that when he died at least one person at EU was much saddened – Andrew wrote a moving obituary and Rev Drew wrote a short prayer for him here. I also know that Alistair McGrath – scientist, evangelical theologian and biographer – debated with ‘Hitch’ once and he was surprised that he really, really liked him. McGrath is not keen on Dawkin’s whom he also knows – but Hitchens was different. He said that Hitchens’ seemed motivated by a real passion for truth and justice – there was no side to him. McGrath found himself praying for Hitchen’s health every day in Hitchens’ final illness (which HItchen’s endured with courage). Also Peter Hitchen’s – Christopher ‘s little brother how is currently a very right wing Anglican traditionalist – was glad that there was some sort of healing between them before Christopher died (they’d been rivals all of their lives).

That’s a human story about human connectedness – I’m glad Christopher Hitches lived however challenging his books may be to us.

#10

Thanks Cindy and Sobornost for your loving words.

Yes, I do hope that both Dawkins and Hitchens will make the decision to be reconciled with God, once they will realize He is not the heartless tyrant many of His followers paint Him as.

But the choice is up to them.

God won’t reproach them to have rejected a hideous idol and combated religious bigotry.

But He will hold them accountable for having constantly advocated bullying, ridiculing and mocking nice religious people.

I don’t know what awaits us on the other side of the grave.
Maybe we will see them there, in communion with God and apologizing for their misdeeds.

Or maybe we will learn that they have rejected God’s love, refused to submit to Him and finally ceased to exist.

#11

As a universalist believe that we will all have plenty of apologising to do/stuff to work through but God’s judgement is not only to bring us into communion with God but also to bring us into communion with each other. So I would think of Christians who have portrayed God as heatless tyrant needing to reach out to New Atheists as much as contra wise. Also us nice Christians will not escape judgement.

I don’t’ know about Richard Dawkins but I do note of Hitchin’s from the reports I’ve read about him that God has much good material to work with in this imperfect creature still made in God’s image. Hitchin’s was passionate for truth and justice – perhaps in a misdirected way but still the passion was there. He was capable of courage – there was some sort of healing in his relationships’ before he died.

The way i see things considering the annihilation of adversaries is hopeless. Because sin and wrath and conflict – including that between New Atheists and Christians – is mutually arising. So it requires healing rather than annihilating. And we must all be part of that healing if Christ is to make peace between us,

Blessings

Dick

#12

Hi Dick

Thanks for reminding us that not all Christians adopted a nasty stance towards Christopher Hitchens (and I read some really nasty attacks on him in cyberspace from alleged Christians, “he’s going to burn in hell” etc).

It strikes me that his infamous book, God is not Great really ought to be called The False God the Church has Portrayed for Far Too Long Now is Not Great, but the Real God Is. Or something like that :smiley: .

All the best

Johnny

#13

:laughing: Johnny! THAT is hardly a catchy title!

Lotharson, Hitchens and Dawkins certainly have God’s permission to decide as they will. They just don’t have His permission to remain ignorant, wounded, and imprisoned in lies. They (and everyone) will know the truth, and when they know the truth, that truth will set them free. Not against their will, certainly, for when they are healed of all their delusions and disorders and woundedness, they will be overjoyed to receive the freedom of Jesus Christ. These are not stupid men. But even if they were? Father would heal that, too.

Love, Cindy