War, Peace and Loving your Enemy

[Roses]

Dear friends

As a continuation from the loving your enemy thread, I began to wonder how humanity can reconcile a just war with loving your enemy. I know praying for them is one way, but how does loving your enemy reconcile with blowing them up?

I suppose also that if everyone followed Christ there would be no need to blow each other up as each would be loving their enemy and war would not exist. How is war reconciled with the Christian life when even the Ten Commandments say ‘You shall not kill’ and Christ also said ‘If someone strikes you on the left cheek let them strike you on the right also, turn the other cheek’ (paraphrased).? How do a people of peace make war?

God Bless you and much love and peace to you

Teresa

 

[dumspirospero]

Just because you are a people of peace, does not mean that you will not have to fight a war. You should exhaust all possibilities before going to war…but that doesn’t mean you should never do it. Jesus said to turn the other cheek…but he didn’t say if someone rapes and murders your wife and daughter, to give them your other daughter so they can do the same. The way we love our enemy is by giving them quarter during battle…we take them in and care for them and nurse their wounds during battle and we afford them the same care and rights that we afford our own soldiers. That is loving your enemy…it is a far cry from most other nations, who put a bullet in the wounded.

Roses:

Dear friends

As a continuation from the loving your enemy thread, I began to wonder how humanity can reconcile a just war with loving your enemy. I know praying for them is one way, but how does loving your enemy reconcile with blowing them up?

I suppose also that if everyone followed Christ there would be no need to blow each other up as each would be loving their enemy and war would not exist. How is war reconciled with the Christian life when even the Ten Commandments say ‘You shall not kill’ and Christ also said ‘If someone strikes you on the left cheek let them strike you on the right also, turn the other cheek’ (paraphrased).? How do a people of peace make war?

God Bless you and much love and peace to you

Teresa

 

[Roses]

dumspirospero:

Just because you are a people of peace, does not mean that you will not have to fight a war. You should exhaust all possibilities before going to war…but that doesn’t mean you should never do it. Jesus said to turn the other cheek…but he didn’t say if someone rapes and murders your wife and daughter, to give them your other daughter so they can do the same. The way we love our enemy is by giving them quarter during battle…we take them in and care for them and nurse their wounds during battle and we afford them the same care and rights that we afford our own soldiers. That is loving your enemy…it is a far cry from most other nations, who put a bullet in the wounded.

Dear Friend

Not always all possibilities are exhausted before nations commence war. If someone rapes and murders there are law courts and criminal proceedings to deal with such things in a nation, this has rarely been a reason for war though those things do happen when a war has commenced and one nation wars against another or a nation rises against itself in civil wars.

To give someone quarter is not loving your enemy…how can that be when a nation has injured/murdered/plundered them in the first place.It is simply the lesser of the evil.

God Bless you and much love and peace to you

Teresa