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I believe that it is morally necessary to keep hate out of one's heart. "Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you" is the correct path forward.
On the other hand, it does no good to pretend that they are not actually your enemies, or to imagine that this path is likely to result in net-positive material outcomes. It's how you secure your soul, not your life. Further, most people are not actually interested in securing their souls, so it is not a good framework for predicting behavior at a population-level.
You do not live in a world compatible with "the moral high ground" in any real sense. You can adopt the moral high ground regardless, but you should do so with the understanding that the likely consequences are net-negative for you from a materialist perspective. Certainly you should not expect the majority of those around you to adopt such a position.
My take for many years now has been "turn the other cheek" in personal matters, but don't allow the wicked to cause harm unabated to others. Forgiving others their trespasses against me, even seven times seventy times, does not mean allowing their trespasses against other innocent people to go unopposed.
I can only comment that, in my own personal experience and in observation of numerous others, it is both very easy and very attractive to launder one's own hatred into faux-altruism. I know that I wish to do this, and so I know I cannot trust such convenient constructions. Especially when the forgiveness is nebulous, and the "righteous anger" is focused and specific.
I've certainly caught myself doing that more times than I care to admit. It's definitely something more aspirational than what I am actually capable of consistently living up to.
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“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.”
This is an aside, but as an extremely imperfect Christian who is trying to be better, how do you do it? I don’t think I hate anyone, but I certainly have a hard time loving and praying for my enemy. I’ll take any advice you got.
Poorly.
In my experience, the starting point is to confront the fact that when he says these things, he's talking to you, specifically, about your hatred, specifically. If your response is "yeah, this is a lesson that other people really need, they should listen to him", you have already missed the point.
The next step is to recognize the specific parts of your thinking that are hateful. Sin starts as a choice and becomes a habit, a reflex, an instinct. Resisting it means pushing the other way, to gain awareness of the sin as sin, usually in retrospect to start with, but with the goal of gaining awareness of the sin in the moment, and ultimately at the moment of choice. From "I've hated", to "I am hating", to "I am about to hate".
Once you have awareness of the choice, you have to choose righteousness. The best way I've found to approach that is to precommit and practice, to make your decision as much as possible in advance and in a position of strength, rather than trying to choose well in a moment of weakness. For me, hymns help a great deal; it is difficult to maintain hatred while singing It is well with my soul. The hymns do a good job of giving me a model to validate my thoughts against, an example of what a Christian's thoughts should be. In difficult moments, they can pour cold water on the embers in your mind. The ultimate goal is to make obedience habitual, instinctive, to make the right choice until it ceases, as much as possible, to be a choice, but simply part of what you are.
You have to remember and to internalize that you are not better than those you hate, that your hate is not righteous or justified in any way. You, like them, are a sinner. You, like them, were once under condemnation, and your debts are forgiven in exactly the way you are willing to forgive the debts of others. This is not optional, and Jesus is explicit that forgiveness is the standard by which your immortal soul will be judged.
You have to remember that no human is in control, and that there are no ends in this world to judge means by. This life is transient, all humans die, justice is fleeting at best, and suffering is and always will be the common lot of all humans on this Earth. There is no progress, there is no arc of history, there is no glorious victory to be won in any meaningful sense in this life. It does not seem to me that this view demands pacifism, but it does demand a cold, hard realism on what is actually achievable from conflict, an understanding that conflict has far less upside than the world may recognize, and that we should be far more wary of it than the world would think. If your side wins, that fact alone means nothing in the grand scheme of things. If your side loses, that fact alone likewise means nothing. If God's design hinges on some outcome, you have no idea what that outcome is or why it is necessary, and certainly no reason to believe that it coincides neatly with your worldly preferences for ease or glory or the defeat of your enemies. Maybe it serves his purpose for you and all you know and love to die in pain and horror and darkness. It was so for the Japanese Christians, and for many others, and he has promised to wipe the tears from every eye.
The ingrained instincts of the world and of one's own nature fight and scream against every part of this process. It is not easy, and you will regularly fail, but the point is to repent and keep trying. There will be no shortage of opportunities.
This is months after you wrote this and I was not the intended audience, but after re-seeing this by chance of you linking it in another post I want to leave my regards to it. There is hard-earned wisdom in this that speak to me. It has been an aid in resisting certain mindsets I am not immune from, and I would be a lesser person without it at times, which is to say I would be a better person if I remembered it more often.
Thank you for writing it, and I hope you keep linking back to it in the future.
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I find myself thinking of this comment often. I am having a hard time not being happy about the misfortunes of the people I consider “my enemies” and the “bad guys.” I know it’s wrong, and I catch my thinking, but it comes so naturally, almost like an instinct.
I also struggle with my temper. I’m not hot tempered, per se, but I get aggravated easily and have a hard time controlling it.
Finally, I am having a hard time praying and easing Scripture daily. I am attempting to pray the Daily Office but finding the time and effort is hard.
Sorry, I really only meant to post the first paragraph, but it turned into me whining and venting.
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This is amazing and very insightful. I think you hit the nail on the head with the idea of being aware of the choice to sin just before it happens, so you can address it. Thank you.
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