Enemies

Here is an address I gave at NSA graduation, May 12, 2004.

Graduating Seniors, Parents, Friends of the College, Colleagues:

It is a great privilege to address you all this evening, especially the graduating seniors. I am more grateful than I can express that I have had the privilege of teaching you, most of you for two full years. You have been a model class, and have set the bar very high for future students. We will sorely miss your many contributions to the life of the college ?Eyour energy, your curiosity, your joy, and above all your enthusiastic, if somewhat gullible, submission to every experiment the faculty wanted to try out on you.

Our goal at NSA has never been merely to train minds; our goal has been to train men and women. We aim not only to help you think rigorously; we aim to help you to live vigorously. In this my final opportunity to talk to you as a class, I want to address one of the most important but usually implicit lessons we have tried to give you at NSA. This lesson was implicit in philosophy classes and in Mr. Wilson?s preaching; in theology and history and in the Psalms you?ve learned to sing. It was evident in the conflicts over the history conference and in the tedious debates on the newspaper editorial page and community discussion boards. This evening, I want to make that theme explicit, and to set it in a larger cultural and political context.

Let me identify the lesson by quoting one of NSA?s favorite pagan prophets, Friedrich Nietzsche. Near the middle of The Anti-Christ , Nietzsche mocked Ernst Renan?s life of Jesus for attempting to convince the world that Jesus was a ?hero.?E Nothing, Nietzsche said, was less evangelical than heroism, for ?What the Gospels make instinctive is precisely the reverse of all heroic struggle, of all taste for conflict: the very incapacity for resistance is here converted into something moral: (?resist not evil!?E?Ethe most profound sentence in the Gospels, perhaps the true key to them), to wit, the blessedness of peace, of gentleness, the inability to be an enemy.?E

While Nietzsche meant this as an attack on Christianity, many Christians would agree, and see it as one of the chief virtues of Christianity that it deprives men of the ability to be an enemy. Liberal theology means many things, but one of its central themes is the denial of enmity, and especially the denial that God has enemies. On this score, however, ?conservative?Eevangelicals are on the same page as liberals. Nowhere is this more evident than in hymnody, always a key barometer of theology and piety. As Mr. Wilson has pointed out, for someone raised on nineteenth-century revival hymns, the most surprising thing about the Psalms is the prominence of enemies, and the Psalmist?s militant reaction to them. For many Christians, Nietzsche?s description is precisely accurate.

At NSA, we have attempted to train you to take a different stance in life. We have taught you to expect enmity, and we hope that we have given you the rudimentary skills to be an enemy, and an effective one.

Eliminating the category of ?enmity?Efrom social and political theory has been one of the grand projects of modernity. Liberal political imagination, inspired by Kant?s 1795 treatise on perpetual peace as well as by Locke and Adam Smith, insists that men rationally to achieve their own interests. An enemy who seeks to harm even against his own best interests is a surd, a pure irrationalism. Liberalism can make no sense of the enemy. ?Liberalism,?ECarl Schmitt wrote, ?has attempted to transform the enemy from the viewpoint of economics into a competitor and from the intellectual point of view into a debating adversary.?E Sociology and anthropology re-imagine the ?enemy?Eas the ?outsider?Eor the ?stranger,?Eas a member of an ?out-group,?Ewhile postmodern philosophy is obsessed with the ?other.?E Economists have offered a ?heaven on earth?Ethrough rising standards of living or through expansion of trade, and this earthly heaven is a heaven of peace: Put a MacDonald?s and a Gap in every major Middle Eastern city, and terrorism will drown in a wave of Happy Meals.

When liberal modernity has not simply ignored the existence of the enemy, it has denied the existence of enmity that cannot be cajoled, coopted, convinced, or smilingly coerced to become an ally. Strangely, it is not just abstract theorists who hope for a world without enemies, but politicians, even in the aftermath of the attacks of September 11 and the Madrid bombings earlier this year. In his highly acclaimed little book, Of Paradise and Power , Robert Kagan notes that after World War II, “European strategic culture” set out on a program of “conscious rejection of the European past, a rejection of the evils of European Machtpolitik.” As Joschka Fischer, Germany’s Foreign Minister, puts it, “The core of the concept of Europe after 1945 was and still is a rejection of the European balance-of-power principle and the hegemonic ambitions of individual states that had emerged following the Peace of Westphalia in 1648.”

What makes this proposal so attractive is that it has a track record of notable successes. Kagan notes that “it is the integration and taming of Germany that is the great accomplishment of Europe ?Eviewed historically, perhaps the greatest feat of international politics ever achieved . . . . European life during the more than five decades since the end of World War II has been shaped not by the brutal laws of power politics but by the unfolding of a geopolitical fantasy, a miracle of world-historical importance: The German lion has lain down with the French lamb.” This was accomplished through “diplomacy, negotiations, patience, the forging of economic ties, political engagement, the use of inducements rather than sanctions, compromise rather than confrontation, the taking of small steps and tempering ambitions for success.” And this is not to mention the remarkably peaceful dissolution of the Soviet bloc, and more recent efforts to reintegrate those nations with Western Europe.

Giddy with these achievements, Europeans have taken it as their mission to lead the world into a global post-modern version of Kant’s perpetual peace. If Germany and France could be cajoled into peace, why not Palestinian and Jew, Iraqi and Iranian, North Korean and South Korean: “The extension of the European miracle to the rest of the world,?EKagan says, ?has become Europe’s new civilizing mission.” It is the new ?White Man?s Burden.?E

To some extent, this theoretical and practical removal of enmity is a product of the gospel and the culture of the gospel that we call Christendom, for the foundation of Christendom was the destruction of ancient enmities. Yet, it simply will not do for Christians to ignore the reality of enmity. Eliminate enemies from the biblical story, and you eliminate most of the biblical story. Certainly, you delete the early chapters of the story. As soon as Yahweh had placed Adam in the garden and given him a bride to protect, the conditions were set for enmity. And immediately, there was an enemy at the gate ?Ethe enemy ?Eseducing and tempting and breathing threats. Enmity arises before the fall, and Adam?s sin from one angle is his inability to recognize an enemy or, more accurately, his refusal to be an enemy.

Enmity only intensified after the fall, as God Himself had told Adam. You cannot read far in the Psalms before you encounter David?s enemies: O Lord, how my adversaries have increased; many are rising up against me (Psalm 3). O Lord, lead me in Thy righteousness because of my foes; make Thy way straight before me (Psalm 5). My eye is wasted away with grief; it has become old because of all my adversaries (Psalm 6). Save me from all those who pursue me and deliver me, let he tear my soul like a lion (Psalm 7). When my enemies turn back, they stumble and perish b
efore Thee (Psalm 9). And that is all within the first 10 of 150 Psalms. Nor is enmity a harsh Old Testament notion; the New Testament repeatedly speaks of enemies of the cross and enemies of Christ and enemies of the church (Phil 3:18; 13:10; 2 Thess 3:15), and no OT passage is quoted more often in the NT than Psalm 110, which promises that Christ?s enemies will be subdued beneath His feet.

Far from deleting enmity from history, in fact, Christianity immeasurably deepens it. Nietzsche pointed to this, though in a typically distorted fashion, when he compared the classical notion of ?noble adversaries?Eto the biblical conception of ?evil adversaries.?E The pagan ?desires his enemy for himself, as his mark of distinction; he can endure no other enemy than one in whom there is nothing to despise and very much to honor!?E Ajax and Hector fight to a standoff on the windy plains of Troy, and then remove their armor and exchange gifts to formalize a friendship. Plutarch?s treatise on ?How To Profit By One?s Enemy?Ebreathes a similar spirit, though in a more philosophical idiom. Classical enmity was functional, strategic, temporary, and superficial. For ancient heroes, enmity always played out under a canopy of basic agreement; battles were fought under the aegis of a code of honor to which both sides adhered, but there was no battle over the code.

Christianity and postmodernism agree in this: No such universal canopy exists.
As a result, for the Christian there can be no compromise with the enemy, but only battle until victory. Can anyone imagine Moses combating Pharaoh through eight plagues, and then calling it all off and moving back into Pharaoh?s palace? Can anyone imagine David and Goliath fighting to a draw, and then going off to share a pint? We might as well imagine Jesus dining with the devil after His temptations in the wilderness. Pagans were happy to incorporate any new god into the Pantheon, including Jesus; but Paul asks, What harmony has Christ with Belial?

However much the modern assault on enmity owes to the influence of the gospel, it is ultimately and fundamentally a perversion of the gospel. The church?s refusal to shoulder the burden of enmity is another sign of our worldliness, our conformity to modernity. And, as James says, this love of the world, like all love of the world, makes us enemies of God.

Few writers have perceived the importance of this ?battle for and against enmity?Emore clearly than the German Catholic political theorist Carl Schmitt, a Nazi apologist who has ironically become a popular writer in some leftist circles in recent years. For Schmitt, the political realm is defined by the opposition of friend and enemy, just as the aesthetic realm is structured by the opposition of the beautiful and the ugly and the moral realm by the opposition of good and evil.

Schmitt?s emphasis on enmity grew out of explicitly theological assumptions. Recognizing that Satan is the great adversary for Christians, Schmitt pointed out that Satan is a master of deception and disguise, and the greatest deception must be the promise of the end of enmity. Schmitt?s position has been summarized as follows: ?how could the Old Enemy prepare his victory more cunningly than by making men forget the enmity that is sown between him and them, and how would such forgetting be brought about with greater prospects of success than through the promotion of the errant faith that they no longer had any enemies or that without exception they are well on their way of getting rid of them? How could he disguise himself more perfectly than by disavowing enmity and proclaiming its conquest??E This temptation, the modern liberal temptation, must be resisted as strenuously as any temptation; and ?whoever wants to withstand Satan must insist on enmity.?E The battle for or against enmity is, Schmitt believed, ?the political ?theological criterion of the highest order.?E Those who wish to eliminate enmity are our enemies. Strange as it sounds to Christian ears, we must stand FOR enmity and against all theoretical and practical projects to eliminate it.

All projects, of course, but one. If Kant, Adam Smith, Locke, and the other founders of liberal international order pursue a secular elimination of enmity, postmoderns inspired by Schmitt and others insist on enmity without hope of reconciliation. Neither of these is a Christian option, for we proclaim a gospel that announces the breaking down of the dividing wall and of enmity between Jew and Gentile. Crucially, however, this project is not based on d?tente, on negotiations, on diplomacy. The wall of enmity is destroyed because the enemy is destroyed. Enmity is eliminated because the enemy is eliminated. Now is the judgment of this world. Now is the prince of this world cast out.

Equally crucial is the fact that this destruction of enmity takes place through the cross. Lee Harris has recently written a fascinating book about the enemies of civilization that threaten America and the West. He points out that civilization depends on the renunciation of ruthless violence, and the determination to resolve disputes without recourse to war. Civilization simply is the order that results from this renunciation, and from the trust that others have made the same commitment. And it works: We can put our money in a bank run by total strangers, and still find it there a month later. We can take our car to the mechanic, and he doesn?t make off with it. We can go to the barber for a shave, confident that he won?t cut our throat.

But this renunciation of violence puts civilized societies at a disadvantage, because ruthless people remain at large, people who will stop at nothing, even death, to destroy civilization. To the extent that civilized societies are truly civilized ?Ethat is, truly based on a renunciation of violence ?Eto that extent they are tempted to forget that not everyone is so civilized. The only way that civilization can survive, it seems, is through preserving pockets of ruthlessness for its own defense. Civilized society thus paradoxically depends on the very ruthlessness it fundamentally renounces.

According to Harris, the characteristic of the ruthless is their willingness to die to achieve their aims. But Harris ignores another type of historical character who is fearless in the face of death: The martyr. Ultimately, given the inevitability of enmity, there are only two ethical and political options, apart from sheer resignation in the face of the enemy, which is not an ethic that can found or sustain a civilization. Civilization can ride on the broad shoulders of the ruthless; or it can arise from the blood of the martyrs.

With Kant and all moderns, we Christians look forward with hope to the end of enmity. Against them, we look to the end of enmity only through the paradoxical victory of the cross. Just as Jesus ?abolished in His flesh?Ethe enmity on the cross, so Christians are called to offer our bodies as living sacrifices to abolish enmity. You graduates know that, despite the fact that you are attractive, clean, well-groomed, and cheerful, you will be hated, insulted, persecuted, slandered, and perhaps even by those who you have thought friends. Do not be surprised at this. But above all, do not choose the path of the ruthless but the path of the martyr, the path laid out by Paul:

Never pay back evil for evil to anyone. If possible, as much as it depends on you, be at peace with all men. Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, Vengeance is Mine, I will repay, says the Lord. But if your enemy is hungry, feed him; and if he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in so doing you will heap burning coals upon his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

And this is the path of Jesus: I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, in order that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and t
he good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Thank you.