One woman's view: Love overcomes hate
In the book of Proverbs we are told, "If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; if he is thirsty, give him water to drink. In doing this, you heap burning coals on his head, and the Lord will reward you." Although this lesson is reinforced in the New Testament when Paul quoted it in his letter to the Romans, I have always found it puzzling. For one thing, loving our enemies is very difficult. But if we do love them, why should we want to heap hot coals on their heads?
Recently I read a news story about Johnny Lee Clary and the Rev. Wade Watts that shed new light on that familiar passage of Scripture. Upon their first meeting in 1979, Watts and Clary seemed to be the very personification of love and hatred. Watts was a Christian minister and civil rights activist. Clary was a Grand Dragon in the Ku Klux Klan who had set fire to Watts' church. The two men were scheduled for a radio debate.
When they met at the station before the program, Clary was astonished when Watts smiled, offered his hand and told this bigwig in the KKK that he loved him. Although the Klan has a strong taboo against touching a black person, Clary found it impossible to refuse to shake hands. He could not help recognizing Watts as a truly good man.
Although the expression of Christian love did not instantly purge the evil from Clary's heart, he began to find it more and more difficult to accept the racist doctrines he was teaching. In the next 10 years, he rose to the rank of Imperial Wizard and engaged in an inner struggle. Whenever his friends in the Klan talked about killing all the African-Americans, Clary would remember that gentle black minister and wonder if he would really want any harm to come to him.
Finally in 1989, Clary quit the Klan. A couple of years later, he felt the call to preach. At this point, he called Watts and asked his forgiveness. The two became close friends and traveled across the South together preaching against racism.
The pastor's widow Betty says Clary became like a son to them. The former Imperial Wizard now heads a ministry he calls Operation Colorblind, which tries to deliver others from a life of racism.
The troubled teenager who had joined the Klan to find a place to belong has at last found a greater, more fulfilling place to belong — the body of Christ.
Clary's story reminded me of something I once read about George Fox, founder of the Society of Friends, or Quakers. Fox spent much of his life imprisoned for his faith. One of his jailers, who had treated him with particular brutality, brought him from his cell in the middle of the night to ask how he kept responding to the jailer's hateful treatment only with love and gentleness. Fox explained that it was possible because of Christ within, or the inner light, which is the main doctrine of Friends. The jailer accepted the Lord as Savior, because he wanted what Fox had.
The world has just been given another example of returning good for evil in the experience of Martin and Gracia Burnham. In spite of the crimes committed against them, they continued to pray for their terrorist captors and consistently treated them with kindness, even sharing their meager food rations with their guards.
Although we do not yet have evidence of a transformation in their kidnappers, I think such Christ-like behavior must have had an impact. After all, it took Clary 10 years to withdraw from the Klan, but the seed had been planted in his heart.
I've decided the coals of fire in Proverbs are not meant to maim and destroy but to purge and heal. Violence begets violence, hate gets hate, but (praise be to God) love begets love. Never forget that in a confrontation between love and hate, love will ultimately win every time.
Jane Vajnar
