An Awful Thing Happened On the Way to Kumbayah

KABOOM. I had just started in on writing my weekly column yesterday afternoon when the news broke onto the TV screen: Explosions at the finish line of the Boston Marathon.

The weird part about it has to do with what I had intended as the subject of my column — that is, until the news of the terrorist attack came on.

Not kidding; I was going to title my piece for this week “Learning to Love the Left,” and I was all set to expound on Jesus’ sometimes seemingly impossible teaching about loving our enemies, not resisting evil, turning the other cheek, and so on.

I figured I’d discuss personal struggles with, and usually stubborn ambivalence about, paradoxically actually helping an enemy (and thereby “heaping burning coals of shame upon his head”–Proverbs 25:21-22), as opposed to forcefully doing various kinds of battle against him. I honestly wanted to address what sometimes troubles me as a rather glaring and irreconcilable conflict between the idea of righteously and aggressively confronting and smashing evil, versus the mysterious, divinely abstruse (to me, anyway) Christian doctrine that commands the very opposite, as the Godly way of nonetheless defeating evil, by doing good to evildoers. No less than loving and helping our enemies.

Speaking of paradoxes — just to get into the mood and spirit of having to crank out what I anticipated to be a somewhat tricky piece of writing, I had started playing a YouTube version of Elvis Costello’s (written by Nick Lowe) gloriously thunderous classic anthem, “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding.” It’s one of my all-time favorites, hands down.

For those unfamiliar with that particular piece of rousing rock music, it’s a message of desperate yearning for hope and renewal, of disillusionment and bitter cynicism crying out for reconciliation and

I was going to title my piece for this week “Learning to Love the Left,” and I was all set to expound on Jesus’ sometimes seemingly impossible teaching about loving our enemies, not resisting evil, turning the other cheek, and so on.

Listen bro, I or we will never relent on ethics and morals. When Obama stated saving one child or hundreds or thousands, I ask what about Gosnell?

What happened to the mandatory sentencing laws, especially carrying an illegal gun. There’s a law I want passed and enforced

I figured I’d discuss personal struggles with . . . doing good to evildoers. No less than loving and helping our enemies.

I consider myself a devout Christian, a committed conservative, and one who loves his enemies.

However, I mean "love" the same way I love my children - by doing what is best for them, not what they demand in a screaming fit. I've never had a child throw much of a fit in public, but I've seen those fits on occasion, usually with a liberal parent waffling as the child rolls on the floor and demands "ice cream" or something similar in a screaming wail until the alleged adult gives in. That is not loving on the part of the child or the adult. One thing my kids know as a certain fact is that misbehavior is never rewarded, not even to stop unpleasant behavior. I actually love my children, and I understand love, so I hold them, look out for them, comfort them, and do what is best for them from my long-term perspective as an adult, not what they as toddlers/pre-teens/teens think would be the most fun.

As for liberals, I am far too loving to endorse their bad behavior. I will not tell a gay Christian that I think it is okay to ignore the Bible or that I think God was wrong when He condemned homosexual conduct in scripture, no matter how much they want to hear that from me. I will not tell a gun-grabber that it is okay to subvert and weaken the Constitution. I will not tell a physically capable third-generation welfare addict that it's okay to be a burden on others. I will never endorse the moral relativism that claims the Boston Marathon bomber's murder or women and children was just as morally acceptable an action as an EMT's efforts to save lives and limbs after that evil attack. Loving? I can't imagine anything more loving that helping people to learn and to grow.

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