Bridges Built With Principalities Burn
“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood…” -Ephesians 6:12
There is a lot of understandable emphasis among Christians in the U.S. to reject constructs of “us versus them.” I’m sure some of it comes as instruction to resist the American culture wars (good idea). Some of it corresponds with heeding Jesus’ teaching to love our enemies (never more relevant). And the call of Christ to be people who embody humility and reconciliation (amen!) certainly influences the exhortation. All of these reasons to denounce “us versus them” dichotomies are valid to the degree they help us avoid insidious pride and tribalism as the people of God. Full stop. But recently I’ve wondered if we espouse a posture of relating to people, as well as understanding our world biblically, that actually augments violence. What do I mean?
If I could attempt to distill a message we often hear today it’d be something like:
Guard against the superiority of labeling any one or group “them” and instead pursue the way of Jesus. We are to love, pray for, and bless our enemies!
This statement is full of truth(s) and would be universally accepted by many (most?) Christians today. It deserves a roaring commendation—except that it conflates the full counsel of Scripture, which upholds a category of “them”, who co-conspire with evil, defame the character of God, and require the repudiation of Jesus’ disciples.
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I felt an ocean-deep quake of disturbance in my soul with the events—and war of truth—surrounding racial violence in recent weeks. It felt like rage but with a halted-in-my-tracks sobriety. Re-upped revelation. I have known for a long time that the rhetoric in our polarized society is toxic. Every national story that offers us a moment of reflection and moral clarity now entrenches the nihilistic stench of our politics. Pilate’s abdication, “what is truth?” when Truth Himself beheld him echoes our current woeful crisis. We are gravely ill.
Anyone who’s been abused by a spouse, parent, boss, pastor, or group will recognize the language of abusers:
“After everything we’ve done for you...”
“It’s just never enough for you...”
I hope we recognize this language—and who’s playing what role—in our current discourse about race. I do not (and may never) align with a political party. I don’t watch cable news. There are far more ideas and worldviews represented in our country than ‘left’ or ‘right’. Regardless, it takes some mighty maneuvering to deny the atrocities and systemic injustices our black and brown brothers and sisters continue to face. The lucidity this moment has offered pertains to spiritual dynamics and how we are to engage people within them. When Christians rightly preach Jesus’ command to love our enemies, we must also recognize our potential naiveté to enlist with principalities.
Both the Old and New Testaments seem more willing than many Christians today to describe people according to their lack of character as guidance for how we ought to engage them. While we decry “us vs. them” in the church today (perhaps in the spirit of grace), the Bible unequivocally warns that some people are interested in neither grace nor unity, except to exploit them. Many of the people you and I would call our enemies that Jesus teaches us to love are also people Scripture warns us not to waste our time with. Here are just a few examples (emphasis mine):
Whoever corrects a mocker invites insults; whoever rebukes the wicked incurs abuse. Prov. 9:7
Drive out a scoffer, and strife will go out, and quarreling and abuse will cease. Prov. 22:10
Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you. Mt. 7:6
But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people. What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked person from among you.” 1 Cor. 5:11-12
Sometimes in order to hope for real unity we need to disassociate from supposed believers 1) whose behavior is destructive and 2) who align themselves with powers governed by darkness. We do not possess the perfect, divine discernment of Jesus who heard the words of beloved Peter and [behind them] rebuked the voice of Satan (Mt. 16:23). But by doing so Jesus did reveal a principle of spiritual reality we must uphold, namely that the enemy co-opts people unwittingly—who have aligned with Jesus—as evil’s coagents. Sometimes people who belonged to us become so entangled with darkness that we mustn’t trivialize the spirits at work by offering our fellowship.
Loving our enemies who claim Christ might mean rebuking them publicly for unrepentant sin if they are in power (1 Tim. 5:20).
Loving our enemies who assent to faith might mean naming the truth (1 Cor. 13:6) of their behavior as a mercy to them and everyone else.
Loving our enemies might mean releasing them from among us (1 Cor. 5:12) when their syncretistic religion is a lethal leaven in the body of Christ.
We can’t reduce this high call to niceties, nor can we welcome heartily the prince of this world to dinner tables and dialogue. The stakes are higher than we think. Are there people with ideological differences within our spheres that God is inviting us to engage for the sake of love? Absolutely. Are there people so defiant against God and everything God loves who would love nothing more than for you to engage them and indulge their stiff-necked belligerence? Yes there are. Some enemies repent. But many enemies who are listed in our prayers should never be our friends. I hope we are ascertaining the key to sorting this out in community: discernment given by the Spirit.
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The same Jesus who forgave his enemies also rebuked them and warned his followers about them: domineering rulers, goats who deprive the least of these, a brood of vipers, false prophets, dogs, pigs, ravenous wolves, etc. Despite our rhetoric today, which risks flattening the field, Jesus (and other authors of Scripture) actually expects us to have the wherewithal to deal with people according to the abundant fruit of their lives (Mt. 7:20). If it walks like a scoffer or a wolf…
We do not get to decide ultimately who is “us” or “them.” Salvation belongs to the Lord. Yet we see a pattern in Scripture of men and women marked by humility who are A) willing to stand up for their own integrity and B) quick to renounce evil even at the cost of relationships. “I’m no better than the wolf or oppressor” is a feigned humility that incentivizes abuse.
In this discussion I’ve avoided the pejorative labels of tribal American politics (that’s deliberate). What must be illuminated and recovered is the spiritual terrain beneath our polarized, disembodied warfare. I realize that any tribe will leverage the language of evil against its foe to campaign its own nobility; it’s the most exhausting chaos. Nevertheless, God’s enemies are the “them” who with their power-lust and militarized religion stoke wildfires of violence in the name of unity, mocking both the oppressed and the One who suffered for them.
Selah
Keep watch for the good. There are quiet currents of Kingdom force moving in our communities. God will not be mocked by anyone who marries his gospel with cultural power—left, right, or otherwise. He is obliged to stand eternally with the suffering and oppressed while empires (which may include churches) dissolve. God’s people are the “us” who love and lay down our lives for our neighbors. We follow the Christ who waived his “rights” and love our enemies even when they can’t hold space in our lives.
‘The Pharisees Question Jesus’ by James Tissot