Defense and Offense

How many people, when they are frightened, don’t do well loving others?  

If someone is seen as a threat to a person’s livelihood, pride, sense of honor, or life, isn’t the first response often to fight back?  Would the human race be killed off if we didn’t do this, and if that is true, then how does Jesus’ command to love one’s enemies work?  

I get the impression from reading Paul that he habitually and unwillingly did, or had to do, things that he knew offended nature and the will of God – this from a person deeply committed to the teachings of Jesus.  

It’s World War One and a German soldier is pinned down in a bomb crater with a French soldier who he has mortally wounded.  The French soldier can’t speak anymore, but is able to reach into his pocket and pull out a photograph of a woman and two children, his family.  It’s then that the German soldier realizes that he has killed another human being in defending his own life and it breaks his heart. 

I think we cross a line when we glorify “defense” over all else and use defense as an excuse to commit offense.  We’ve become morally lazy, and it’s easier to shoot through a closed door and kill the girl on the front porch who is begging for help in a dark and strange neighborhood, instead of speaking to her.  I would be more willing to call myself Christian were I to work harder at calming my own spirit, taking some risks, and persistently struggling with moral issues that, at first, seem to have no solution.