Allowable Hatred

February 21st, 2011 Posted in writing

Jesus said, “You have heard it said that you should love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But Jesus saw things differently. He taught that all men and women were brothers and sisters, children of the same God.

Some people may think this is naïve. But if a little boy asks his mother if he can hate his cousin or a little girl asks her father if it’s ok to hate her sister, should the parents say, “Dear, you can love whomever you like and hate whomever you don’t”? Isn’t the right answer, “You may not like them, but you shouldn’t hate them. They are still part of the family”?

If we took that approach to relations between people, religious communities, even nations — in other words, if there were no “allowable hatreds” — how different would our lives be?

Sorry, comments for this entry are closed at this time.