On loving ones enemies and hating ones friends
Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you…
If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters – yes, even his own life – he cannot be my disciple
Jesus, according to the Gospel of Luke
Do these words not help us to get to the heart of Christ’s anti-Empire ethic as expressed in the Gospels? In order to understand why this is we need to grasp how the family is the ultimate tribal unit: the insiders, those who are like us, who love us, who look out for us. The family, ideally speaking, can be said to be the ultimate cell of undifferentiated unity, of sameness. In contrast, the enemy is the monstrous other, the one outside our network of trust, the one who threatens it, who calls it into question, who makes unwanted demands on us. If we imagine a circle that wraps around our friends and family, those outside the circle make up strangers and enemies.
In the ethic of Empire one looks out for ones friends (inside the circle) and punishes ones enemies (outside the circle). It is an ethic that looks out for those who look out for us and loves those who love us. It is an ethic of economy (where we mutually give to one another). It would appear however that Christ ruptures this by giving preference to the one outside our systems (the alien, the enemy, the exile) over and above those privileged within our systems. This counter-ethic shows how the Christ trajectory is one that pushes outside the circle to those beyond its borders. Privileging those on the outside over those on the inside and offering a radical, impossible hospitality.
In this way, every time we draw a circle of who is ‘in’ and who is ‘out’ who we love and who we hate the Christ-action involves pushing away from those who are ‘in’ and identifying with and helping the outsiders, the scapegoat, the stranger, the monstrous other. If the Empire ethic is an ethic that seeks to draw people into the circle of exchange the Christ ethic privileges the exception. Always pushing out to those who are excluded, who live beyond the fortified boundary.
Yet there is more, not only did the challenge to love ones enemy strike at the heart of the Roman Empire, the idea behind hating ones family challenged the pagan view of the universe as hierarchical, ordered and balanced. By identifying with the outcast and breaking free from our established place in society (symbolised by the family) we disturb the strict balance and create a possibility for change that disrupts the caste systems we live in and opens us up to a world of liberation.
The word ‘hate’ may seem overly strong, yet to make this break with the inside, with the socio-symbolic universe that envelopes us and defines who we are, we need a moment of rejection. To be a disciple of Christ involves a breaking out of our established place and entering a new place beyond Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female. It offers the possibility of disturbing the balance and finding a different identity beyond the identities of nation, race, belief, gender (robbing these of their dividing power). This is a profoundly violent move, hence the strength of the language.
We will all have experienced what this is like in some small way when, for example, in our adolescence we can only really discover something new when we are compelled to push away from the old. Is this idea not hinted at in the popularity of jokes that relate to the true horror of a young person seeking to write music: the horror that their parents were lovely, caring and did everything right (thus suffocating them with the selfishness of giving them no reason to hate)?
The point however is not to give up one identity so as to embrace another, but rather so that we may inhabit a place where we no longer allow our socio-biological identities to define us.
Tags: Christianity, hate friends, Love enemies, Peter Rollins, Zizek
October 29th, 2008 at 4:28 pm
Sometimes I think there are only two compensations for the uncomfortable experience of feeling like an outsider – the awareness that Jesus wants us to welcome the stranger and the impetus to hospitably approach others who are regarded as enemies. I have a very good Muslim friend as a result of my faith and crappy personal experiences!
October 30th, 2008 at 10:34 am
“The word ‘hate’ may seem overly strong, yet to make this break with the inside, with the socio-symbolic universe that envelopes us and defines who we are, we need a moment of rejection. To be a disciple of Christ involves a breaking out of our established place and entering a new place beyond Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female. It offers the possibility of disturbing the balance and finding a different identity beyond the identities of nation, race, belief, gender (robbing these of their dividing power). This is a profoundly violent move, hence the strength of the language.”
And is this new place the position of immediate access to universality, part of the truly radical implication of Christianity?
October 30th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
“Love your enemies” – the Jesus koan. For “love” and “enemy” cannot co-exist. One will overpower the other.
Universality? In the sense that God is not a Christian, yes.
October 30th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
Right, what I meant by universality are phrases like ‘eternal life’ and such. (Sorry for the brief comments, very busy today).
December 8th, 2008 at 7:00 am
[...] This is Peter Rollins at his best. I love it: In the ethic of Empire one looks out for ones friends (inside the circle) and punishes ones enemies (outside the circle). It is an ethic that looks out for those who look out for us and loves those who love us. It is an ethic of economy (where we mutually give to one another). It would appear however that Christ ruptures this by giving preference to the one outside our systems (the alien, the enemy, the exile) over and above those privileged within our systems. This counter-ethic shows how the Christ trajectory is one that pushes outside the circle to those beyond its borders. Privileging those on the outside over those on the inside and offering a radical, impossible hospitality. In this way, every time we draw a circle of who is ‘in’ and who is ‘out’ who we love and who we hate the Christ-action involves pushing away from those who are ‘in’ and identifying with and helping the outsiders, the scapegoat, the stranger, the monstrous other. If the Empire ethic is an ethic that seeks to draw people into the circle of exchange the Christ ethic privileges the exception. Always pushing out to those who are excluded, who live beyond the fortified boundary. [...]