Peace Quote of the Day - taking Jesus seriously: proving love of God by loving enemies

“The biblical test case for love of God is love of neighbor. The biblical test case for love of neighbor is love of enemy. Failure to love the enemy is failure to love God.” 
- Wayne Northey, in the book Unconditional? The Call of Jesus to Radical Forgiveness, by Brian Zahnd


It seems fairly obvious that if people (starting with Christians) were to take Jesus' teaching seriously, and to "prove" their love of God by loving their neighbors and loving even their enemies, the impact for peace in this world would be incalculable.

Peace Quote of the Day - how can we have peace, how can we "love our neighbor," if we don't "have" neighbors?

“My concern is not that we don't love our enemies, but that we don't love anyone; that we just love ourselves and those who it is convenient to love. … In the West, now, we are lacking even a sense of community, what it means to have literal, actual neighbors. … What would it look like for us to take our literal neighborhoods seriously?”

A Pastor Who is a Participant in the "Building Hope" Conference

Peace Quote of the Day - From "Enemy" to...?

“When we look deeply into our anger, we see that the person we call our enemy is also suffering. As soon as we see that, we have the capacity of accepting and having compassion for him. Jesus called this ‘loving your enemy.’ When we are able to love our enemy, he or she is no longer our enemy. The idea of ‘enemy’ vanishes and is replaced by the notion of someone suffering a great deal who needs our compassion. Loving others is sometimes easier than we might think, but we need to practice it.”

Thich Nhat Hanh, quoted in Johann Arnold, Seeking Peace