Loving people is hard. Loving unlovable people is particularly difficult. But loving your enemy? The command seems insane! But this is the love of Christ: “While we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son” (Romans 5:10). And this is why God calls us to love our enemies. He doesn’t call us to do something that he hasn’t already done. 

Now, I don’t mean to call Doug a liar, and certainly not a damned liar. It was Mark Twain who said, “there are lies, damned lies, and statistics.” Statistics certainly have a place in the discussion, but they must be used with great caution and with studious attention to any other possible statistic that could augment or confront the statistic used to support your view. Trust me, I’ve learned the hard way! 

I want to point out up front that the stuff Doug and I keep discussing—violence in self defense—lives at the fringes of the main topic. It’s common for people to race to the “killer at the door” scenario (and its variations) without stopping to consider the main problem of militarism in the church.

In Doug Wilson’s recent Q talk, he referenced this famed saying, and, no joke, integrated it as part of his defense. “The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” 

As mentioned in my previous post, I’ve been combing through some recent books on violence and nonviolence. One of the most fascinating ones I’ve read on the topic is Ron Sider’s Nonviolent Action: What Christian Ethics Demands but Most Christians Have Never Really Tried (Baker, 2015). 

It’s been nearly three years since I published my book Fight: A Christian Case for Nonviolence. As a life-long student, I like to revisit topics I’ve written on, especially ones as volatile as nonviolence. I've been giving several talks on nonviolence this Spring, including the upcoming Q conference in Denver, where I’ll be dialoguing with fellow Idahoan (go Broncos!) Doug Wilson about gun control and enemy love. 

*The following is the complete manuscript of my paper I presented last Thursday at the annual Evangelical Theological Society's annual meeting. I was one of four participants who presented on "Just War in an Age of Terrorism." Two of the panelists were Just War theorists, and I was one of two "pacifists," though as you'll see, I don't prefer this term.