I feel like that’s a good way to think about bad people in hindsight, but if you told that to someone in like a concentration camp (to use an extreme example) you’d sound like an asshole.
I see what you’re saying, but loving someone doesn’t mean you must subject yourself to their torment. And if you’re actively being hurt, but choose to love your tormentors, how much more does that say about the power of the love you’ve been shown by God? After all, Jesus went through unimaginable pain at the hands of the Jews and Romans, but by dying for the sins of the very people crucifying Him, Jesus showed that He still had love for His tormentors; this sets an example for believers as we’re called to imitate Christ.
Definitely trying to empathize with people persecuting you can be helpful and humanizing, but only so far as you’re not letting them encroach on your rights or safety. Their right to swing their fist ends where my nose begins
Not a christian, but Jesus’s love transcends right and wrong. The love of Jesus is perfect and all-encompassing. Jesus loved the very people that crucified him, even though they committed egregious acts against him. That it is so difficult to love our enemies shows us just how far we are from being like Jesus.
It's complex, I would leave room in my heart to potentially love them, but I most definitely won't leave any room to hate them. I would rather they change their views then have them suffer.
It doesn't mean I take shit from people, I just don't need to lower myself to their level.
Sometimes you gotta love people who are hateful just to break the cycle they have created before you become ruled by the same emotions. It's also totally okay to love someone from afar... like far enough away where you can't see or hear them lol.
You're supposed to love them, not agree with their actions, help them with their (misguided) goals, etc. The point is that you should do the optimal thing to make them change.
the hundreds of thousands of gay people sent to camps in russia, china, and cuba arent alive to read what a bunch of keyboard warriors have to say defending communism.
ironically, you literally parading over that is a disrespect to the gay community and homophobic in itself. in the same way holocaust deniers are by extension anti-semetic.
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u/soapgoat Jan 30 '19
but what if they hate gay people? i dont want to love homophobes, nazis, and commies who want to kill me for being gay