>>>But we should still love our enemies.>>>
I once heard a priest explain the above statement in this way: We cannot love all our enemies. We sometimes even have neighbors we cannot like. What God requires of us is to love the soul he has created. He even said that we do not have to allow them to keep harming us. All came clear to me with that statement.
First, I think your priest friend is at least partly wrong, assuming we are only talking about our human enemies. Paul says we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but powers and principalities in high places. If jihadists are monsters, they are but the Frankenstein creations of an even greater horror, and that being is our true enemy.
As for my fellow humans, even the worst of them, I do not read where Jesus grants waivers to His mandate: We are to love our enemies. It’s not optional. But we cannot love our enemies in the power of our own flesh. Only God’s Spirit can put that supernatural kind of love in our hearts.
But yes, I agree that we cannot allow ourselves to be duped into becoming weaklings and doormats in the name of love. That would be a false love. Even Jesus told his disciples to go about armed, after a point. Defense of self and family is a good thing and a Christian duty.
But there are many behind the lines, in the hardest evangelism battlefields of the world, taking daily risks to bring the Gospel to those living under the darkness of Islam. These are among Christianity’s bravest and most effective soldiers, and they are driven by love, not hate:
Luke 10:2 Therefore said he unto them, The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest.