I often see - and have even said myself - "they'll never change" or "it's no use."  That is occasionally, I suppose, true - but the moment we cross that line - the moment we refuse to believe that our adversary is capable of change - we have committed ourselves to a path of violence.  It may not be armed warfare - but our goal has become to make them lose.  How much better off we are when our goal is to create change.  It may well involve winning an election - I'm not saying that's not a worthy and necessary goal - but when we embrace our adversaries capacity to change - we retain our own ability to persuade.

On many issues it's not enough to win - that just means we'll keep fighting the battle at the next election.  What we really need is change.  

For Gandhi and King, to "love" our adversary means that we respond to our adversary guided exclusively by the principles of "ahimsa" or nonviolence. Gandhi said it this way. "No physical, verbal, or psychological violence." In King's words, "No violence of the fist, the tongue, or the heart."

Mel White of Soulforce, Inc. says

Of all those seven beliefs about our adversaries, I find it most difficult to believe that their motives are as "pure as mine." I want to believe that my adversaries are waging this war against me to raise money and mobilize volunteers.
Before I discovered Soulforce, I felt a growing rage at these religious leaders "who should know better." But I worked as a ghost writer for many of them. I know my adversaries intimately. They are sincere, though sincerely wrong. And though they do use the untruths to raise money and mobilize volunteers, they do believe the untruths and are themselves victims of those same untruths.

I've often used the phrase "when we become that which we are fighting, then that which we are fighting has won."

These principles have been life changing for me.  I used to be an extremely angry person - I rarely resorted to physical violence - but mental, verbal was constant.  

You know what - it didn't do any real harm to my adversaries that I was angry at them - but it was eating me alive.  It was ruining my life. It harmed my relationships, it harmed my work, it made me ineffective in bringing about change.

How much more powerful - how much better at both resisting and persuading I have become having started to embrace the principles of soulforce.

I've heard this story several ways - sometimes Dr. King is the speaker - I think it was more accurately another preacher - but the power is the same.

Once during the Civil Rights Movement, a crowd in Selma, outside Ebenezer Baptist Church, heard that Sheriff Jim Clark's deputies were brutally beating college students. A ripple of rage flowed through the crowd, until a clergyman stepped up to the microphone, "Do you love Martin King?", he sang out. The crowd enthusiastically sang back, "Certainly, Lord. Certainly, certainly, certainly, Lord."

The clergyman went on, naming leaders in the Civil Rights Movement. "Do you love Medgar Evers?  Do you love Charles Steele?  Do you love Rosa Parks?" Each time he sang a name, the crowd sang back, "Certainly, certainly, certainly, Lord."

But then he sang, "Do you love Sheriff Jim Clark?"   "Cer . . . tainly, Lord.  Cer . . . tainly.  The point was made. So the clergyman continued, "It's not enough to defeat Jim Clark. We need to convert Jim Clark. If we hate our enemies, we're no better than them. We've got to love them until they change."  And finally Jim Clark did change.  Years later he publicly repented of his prejudice and bigotry.

Sometimes the immediate need is to stop the overt suffering - that may take a near term defeat of our adversary.  Certainly I want to defeat Bush and Falwell and Robertson and Dobson - but ultimately we'd all be better off if they changed his ways.

I can't make any of them do that - but I can relentlessly present my understanding of truth in love.

And again - it's really not about them - it's about me.  If I become what I'm fighting, then I've lost the battle.

I hope you find this helpful.  I welcome questions and caution again that I'm by no means an expert or a shining example - but these are my goals, they are one way I try to make sure I'm being productive.

It's too easy to fight and divide - to stomp off in a huff or draw lines.  To make the person I'm fighting with the enemy - but it's really the untruth that is the enemy - not the person - and we are both capable of being wrong, and capable of change.   It's much, much harder to engage and work to arrive at new understanding - but ultimately I think that may be what we're here to do.

I'll have more on Soulforce and related concepts again soon. Namaste.