One of the repetitive things about American culture is how much we need there to be a bad guy. Sure, it's in our movies, books, television, and so on, but it also filters into our lives in unexpected ways. Being wrong is something no one likes to be, so it's easy to blame someone or something else. Truly, it was their fault - truly, I only was wrong because someone else was cheating or doing things the wrong way.

For followers of Jesus, we are always balanced on a slippery slope. We have a Savior who called us to pray for our enemies, and yet our Savior also called those who seemed to oppose the establishment of God's kingdom bad names like "hypocrites" and "brood of vipers". It's very easy for us to slip into this good guy/bad guy routine if we want. Our enemies can change week to week if need be, since there are always plenty of them to go around it seems.

Our enemy might be atheism one week. I've heard more than a few Christians claim that godless atheists (redudant, right?) are going to take over our schools and topple our culture. More and more, intelligent atheists, like Dr. Richard Dawkins, are using science to raise deep, unsettling questions to Christians about their understanding of the world. Is faith something we compartmentalize from education and culture? Is the Bible a scientific treatise? We can't simply ignore their questions - they are good questions. So, do we make them an enemy?

Our enemy might be some sort of sexual deviancy another week. Our good book does have laws and writings which should make us pause seriously. God does seem to give the "death penalty" to certain types of activities. But is that God speaking or is that ancient culture speaking? Did people interpret those commands differently over time and why? Who did Jesus exclude from his radical vision of community, and does that change the way we answer? The bottom line is - they make us uncomfortable. Can we all just agree to make them our enemy for a while at least?

Our enemy might even be ourselves. One group in the church wants things this way, and another wants things the opposite. Can't those other people wake up and realize what God is really calling us to do? Am I really supposed to love my neighbor even when they seem out of their mind? Surely, things would be better if I had my own church where we could do things my way. Anyone who doesn't like it the way I do it is my enemy.

I think the question I am trying to raise is this -- in a world of immense conflict, do Christians have enemies? Or is there another way to handle the conflicts we find ourselves in? Is there a way to disagree but remain in relationship? Can we build a model of faithful living that allows no one to become an unredeemable villain of our world? What do you think Jesus would think, and what would such a community look like?

Please share your thoughts in the comments section or write your own blog post as an answer to this week's spotlight.