Love Of Enemies

NATIONAL BESTSELLER To get ahead today, you have to be a jerk, right? Divisive politicians. Screaming heads on television. Angry campus activists. Twitter trolls. Today in America, there is an “outrage industrial complex” that prospers by setting American against American, creating a “culture of contempt”—the habit of seeing people who disagree with us not as merely incorrect, but as worthless and defective. Maybe, like more than nine out of ten Americans, you dislike it. But hey, either you play along, or you’ll be left behind, right? Wrong. In Love Your Enemies, social scientist and author of the #1 New York Times bestseller From Strength to Strength Arthur C. Brooks shows that abuse and outrage are not the right formula for lasting success. Brooks blends cutting-edge behavioral research, ancient wisdom, and a decade of experience leading one of America’s top policy think tanks in a work that offers a better way to lead based on bridging divides and mending relationships. Brooks’ prescriptions are unconventional. To bring America together, we shouldn’t try to agree more. There is no need for mushy moderation, because disagreement is the secret to excellence. Civility and tolerance shouldn’t be our goals, because they are hopelessly low standards. And our feelings toward our foes are irrelevant; what matters is how we choose to act. Love Your Enemies offers a clear strategy for victory for a new generation of leaders. It is a rallying cry for people hoping for a new era of American progress. Most of all, it is a roadmap to arrive at the happiness that comes when we choose to love one another, despite our differences.

A “New & Noteworthy” selection of The New York Times Book Review “Alexis Clark illuminates a whole corner of unknown World War II history.” —Walter Isaacson, New York Times bestselling author of Leonardo da Vinci “[A]n irresistible human story. . . . Clark's voice is engaging, and her tale universal.” —Jon Meacham, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power and American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House A true and deeply moving narrative of forbidden love during World War II and a shocking, hidden history of race on the home front This is a love story like no other: Elinor Powell was an African American nurse in the U.S. military during World War II; Frederick Albert was a soldier in Hitler's army, captured by the Allies and shipped to a prisoner-of-war camp in the Arizona desert. Like most other black nurses, Elinor pulled a second-class assignment, in a dusty, sun-baked—and segregated—Western town. The army figured that the risk of fraternization between black nurses and white German POWs was almost nil. Brought together by unlikely circumstances in a racist world, Elinor and Frederick should have been bitter enemies; but instead, at the height of World War II, they fell in love. Their dramatic story was unearthed by journalist Alexis Clark, who through years of interviews and historical research has pieced together an astounding narrative of race and true love in the cauldron of war. Based on a New York Times story by Clark that drew national attention, Enemies in Love paints a tableau of dreams deferred and of love struggling to survive, twenty-five years before the Supreme Court's Loving decision legalizing mixed-race marriage—revealing the surprising possibilities for human connection during one of history's most violent conflicts.

Coping with anger and pain is more challenging than ever in these times—and more necessary. Two acclaimed Buddhist teachers offer strategies and wisdom in a book that’s been called “possibly the most inspiring and liberating meditation on love ever written.” When people and circumstances upset us, how do we deal with them? Often, we feel victimized. We become hurt, angry, and defensive. We end up seeing others as enemies, and when things don’t go our way, we become enemies to ourselves. But what if we could move past this pain, anger, and defensiveness? Inspired by Buddhist philosophy, this book introduces us to the four kinds of enemies we encounter in life: the outer enemy, people, institutions, and situations that mean to harm us; the inner enemy, anger, hatred, fear, and other destructive emotions; the secret enemy, self-obsession that isolates us from others; and the super-secret enemy, deep-seated self-loathing that prevents us from finding inner freedom and true happiness. In this practical guide, we learn not only how to identify our enemies, but more important, how to transform our relationship to them. Love Your Enemies teaches us how to . . . · break free from the mode of “us” versus “them” thinking · develop compassion, patience, and love · accept what is beyond our control · embrace lovingkindness, right speech, and other core concepts First published in 2013, Love Your Enemies is, more than ever, required reading for navigating our world. Throughout, authors Sharon Salzberg and Robert Thurman draw from ancient spiritual wisdom and modern psychology to help you find peace within yourself and with the world. * Includes new prefaces from both authors *

The classic collection of sixteen sermons preached and compiled by Dr. King As Dr. King prepared for the Birmingham campaign in early 1963, he drafted the final sermons for Strength to Love, a volume of his best-known homilies. King had begun working on the sermons during a fortnight in jail in July 1962. Having been arrested for holding a prayer vigil outside Albany City Hall, King and Ralph Abernathy shared a jail cell for fifteen days that was, according to King, ‘‘dirty, filthy, and ill-equipped’’ and “the worse I have ever seen.” While behind bars, he spent uninterrupted time preparing the drafts for classic sermons such as “Loving Your Enemies,” “Love in Action,” and “Shattered Dreams,” and continued to work on the volume after his release. A Gift of Love includes these classic sermons, along with two new preachings. Collectively they present King’s fusion of Christian teachings and social consciousness, and promote his prescient vision of love as a social and political force for change.

An innovative study of empathy, sex, and love between prisoners of war and German women during World War II.

Jesus commands us to love our neighbors. So why are so many Christians taught to fear their neighbors? The American church is known as a people who are afraid, who have been nurtured through fear into hatred, and who have moved from hatred to violence--or at least to neglect. This fear, too often lived out boldly in the name of Jesus, is a false religion. God instructs us to welcome strangers. We are not to withhold hospitality or help from anyone in need. So why do we fear strangers, especially those needing hospitality, afraid that their presence may threaten what we have? Jesus taught us to love our enemies. We are to pray for those who actively harm us. Instead, we create enemies in our minds, seeing anyone who thinks, believes, looks, or lives differently from us as dangerous, a threat to our way of living. The Christian community exists to declare and demonstrate God's love and to follow Jesus in practicing love over fear, even in unsafe times and places. It's time to reclaim our brave fear of God and risk transformative love for the sake of our neighbors, the strangers among us, and our enemies. We are people of the Kingdom. Fearing Bravely teaches us that we have nothing to fear. Instead, we can respond to our fear problem with a brave love that emerges from choosing to let our fear of God overcome our fear of everything else. Catherine McNiel writes with conviction, wisely guiding us to recognize our fear and, with God's help, not let it limit us to love courageously all who are among us.

The author examines the theological bases of just war theory and pacifism, espcially in the light of the concept of God, as that motif illuminates Chrsitian discipleship. Differences between the theory of just war and the practice of pacifism are highlighted in the overview of the history of Christian thought on the subject, and the inclusiveness of the ideal of the kingdom for pacifism is emphasized.