This author has been a consistent voice through Twitter to avoid the dangers that exist in narratives of social polarization or the valorization of centrism. Through the book, she is able to expand her thoughts more completely and argue for the ethical practice of conflict in pursuit of liberation.

The writing is clear and direct to move beyond platitudes and wrestle with what it means to live faithfully in a world that requires restorative justice.

Melissa Florer-Bixler is a writer and Mennonite pastor with degrees from Duke University and Princeton Theological Seminary. (The Mennonite tradition centers peace-making.)

Throughout this book, Florer-Bixler discusses what it means to love our enemies. She shows how loving our enemies does not mean staying silent in the face of injustice. Jesus certainly didn't. She rejects any kind of call for superficial "unity" or a shallow forgiveness without repentance. We are not called to passive acceptance of injustice. Because the Jesus way is about peacemaking, not peacekeeping - this is the way of liberation. She writes, “enemy-love offers to tear apart broken systems and rebuild a world with imaginative architecture that emerges from lives stayed on liberating love” (98).

I appreciated this book and definitely recommend it to others to read as well. It is well written and accessible.

I have mixed feelings about this book. Overall, I learned a lot of new terminology, arguments, and had intrinsic feelings stirred up a bit (in a good way), to refocus and self-reflect. For this intent, this book is a home run.

The book discusses righteous anger vs. self righteousness, how to focus and delineate what an “enemy” is, and ways to better understand and love your enemy. There are many Biblical references throughout, discussions of the early Church versus historical Roman society, and how the United States of America’s challenges are synonymous to those from the New Testament times. Examples include discussing the Roman society hierarchy, how Jesus came to upset and rewrite this social order, and implications to American society today. The author clearly has a goal and purpose for writing, and overall I think this is met.

The main weakness are I do question some of the references used (particularly newspaper articles), and at times, the book seems disorganized, with multiple sections of the book I would describe as “flight of ideas”, a medical term to describe a thought flow following many topics in line that are hard to follow and seem out of place. New topics and references are often brought in at times that do not make sense to me. Perhaps I do not understand the concept myself.

My main recommendation for future updates of this book as a reader is to reconsider the organization of this book. The chapters are very long with varied topics; perhaps breaking each chapter into smaller sections to better focus the topic and intent of each would be a positive addition, ease the read and improve referencing.

Despite my criticism above, I am thankful for this read and recommend all consider reading!

There is a misconception that practicing non-violence means being a doormat and letting people walk all over you. Along with that is the misconception that pacifists preach a utopist Gospel that sees everyone as a friend. Neither of these are true and Melissa Florer-Bixler makes that point well in How to Have an Enemy: Righteous Anger and the Work of Peace. The question isn’t whether or no we have enemies, but who our enemies are and how they should be treated.

Florer-Bixler begins by recounting the story of the Christmas Truce in WWI. For the uninitiated, the Christmas Truce is a real event where opposing forces in WWI laid down their weapons to play football (soccer) and sing Christmas carols. Look at how these enemies became friends! But, as Florer-Bixler notes, they picked up arms the next day and returned to war. She then compares this to a church that participated in a communion service on Election Day in America. No matter political leanings or preferred candidates, Christians then came together to be united in Christ. Which sounds good, and it all well-intended. But, she writes, “It turns out this kind of unity—the kind that was achieved in ritual but not replicated in life—was a myth.” Unity is more complicated than that. Indeed, superficial unity usually only serves those in power.

It’s a bold and paradigm-shifting introduction to readers hoping for easy answers or hoping for vindication in righteous anger. She holds the values in tension, rightly noting that a superficial unity is no unity while calling believers to do the hard work of righteous opposition. Love your enemy, after all. As How to Have an Enemy unfolds, Florer-Bixler combines historical anecdotes with contemporary stories. She brings her theories into practicality, writing about division in the evangelical church over issues of healthcare, government, and social justice. She writes from a Mennonite perspective, commonly called the left wing of the Reformation, a group that’s theologically evangelical but not the kind that you see dominating Republican politics. As such, her words about how to handle division and dissention within your own “tribe” are quite important.

Her chapter on “undoing family” is probably the most powerful and contentious that follows that theme of opposing those like you. It’s so important because I’m seeing so many young people be divided from their families and their evangelical upbringings because of their desire to advocate for equality. And yet, “family values” and “the nuclear family” have long been a foundational part of a lot of Christianity. How to Have an Enemy reminds us that following Jesus can undo our closest relationships as we rearrange our priorities to put him first. Jesus is calling people to a new family: “He calls us out of systems of primary loyalty to our kin and binds us to those to whom we have no natural relation and from whom we can extract no economic benefit.” Being a part of God’s kingdom not only challenges ideas about who our enemies are, but who our friends are as well.

How to Have an Enemy is a powerful, convicting book tackling important issues ranging from LGBTQ+ rights to racial reconciliation to economic justice. She moves our idea of “enemy” away from individuals to systems. She calls for us to love those who are our enemies and uphold unjust systems. She asks us to have enemies as Christ would have them: to call them out with prophetic boldness but also pray fervently for their inclusion in the Kingdom. This is a needed message in a world that is weary of fight. Whether it’s COVID, racial justice, or political leanings, the conversation from both sides has become hateful and vitriolic. Florer-Bixler calls us to do better, to be angry in Christlike fashion, and do the hard work to bring peace.

I really appreciated this book's wisdom and challenge. It was a convicting and grounded look at the realities of what American Christianity too often has become but also on what it could be if we were to take the teachings and actions of Jesus seriously. This book sparked a lot of conversation and thought in and around me as I read it.

I've read both of this author's books now. I'm thankful for the way she challenges me. Demonstrating an ability to exegete truth from scripture, and an impressive amount of cultural and historical research, Florer-Bixler leads the church to a better way, the way of Jesus.

I enjoyed reading “How to Have an Enemy”, I truly did. Florer-Bixler brings out essential theology and delves into what it means to be a Christian. It doesn’t mean being a conqueror, it doesn’t mean pointing fingers and screaming “I’m right, you’re wrong” (although there is a time and place for that); what it means to be a Christian is to act like Christ, to care for the poor and the downtrodden, to stand for justice, to lose everything in order to gain everything. Florer-Bixler is explicit about this and about how the church often, and through history, exerts its power, over those it is suppose to love and protect. She discusses how many churches force their own congregations, who include victims of trauma, abuse, and racism, to “forgive”, even though that isn’t as easy as churches make it out to be. Florer-Bixler points the reader to the Psalms which are chock full of powerful laments of human suffering. “The psalms that call for God’s intervention are written as a reminder of the enormity of human suffering within systemic and sustained forms of violence that cannot always be rectified by good work, good intentions, or reasonable dialogue” (Florer-Bixler, 2021). Yes! Enter God, who can rectify the situation and who encourages us to express our anger, our pain, our rage against injustice. The church should be a place where we can stoke “communal anger [and] create communities that share burdens and creatively enact justice” (Florer-Bixler, 2021).

The book is full of research, examples, and inspiring writing that will cause you to reflect on how you’ve embodied God’s call to justice, loving the poor, and being Christ-like. She shares passages from the Bible, real life experiences and stories that force the reading to consider what else God is calling us to do. The points in here are important and well written.

However, the book needed to be organized better. At times I felt bogged down by all the quotations, the examples, and I was wondering what Florer-Bixler was going to do with all that information she just shared. I found myself asking, “How does this tie in with the title of the book?” and sometimes my tired mom brain could not find the answer. As I said, everything in here is important, but I’m not sure if everything in this book is a true reflection of the title, “How to Have an Enemy”. After reading this, I felt inspired to do more to stand for justice, equity, for the Kingdom of God, but I was also left feeling a bit muddled. Do I have more or better knowledge on how to navigate having enemies? I can’t say that I do, and Florer-Bixler is explicit that this isn’t a book on how to handle racist family members (she gives a great example of this! I can’t find the quote, but it’s in there, all about the racist uncle at Thanksgiving), so for me, the title of the book and the content don’t mesh. There are also a few places where the Bible was misquoted and where I would have liked to see the Bible reference (for example, she discusses Mary’s song, but didn’t include the verses).

Overall, this was a great read—very informative and thought provoking. Everything you want in a nonfiction book. My qualms are with the organization and the editing of the book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Herald Press for providing me with an ARC.

As a parish priest, I've been urged by well-meaning members to make sure the words we preach and the prayers we pray don't leave anyone feeling uncomfortable or excluded, whether because of their identity, values, beliefs, or political choices. I understand where that caution comes from. We often talk about Jesus's inclusive love and his preference for the people on the margins of society at that time. And Jesus DID tell his followers to love their enemies and pray for those who persecute them (Matthew 5:44).

But too often, the Church has chosen to keep her enemies comfortable instead of loving the enemies' victims by speaking up for them and confronting the wrongdoers. In How to Have an Enemy, Melissa Florer-Bixler offers a robust theology that makes space for the community of faith to face our enemies with tough honesty, lament the harm done and the cycles of violence and trauma that result, and seek repair and reconciliation together, when possible.

This is not an easy book-- not to read and not to apply to painful situations. There's no quick fix, no bandaid to slap on to trauma. But Florer-Bixler's deep well of faith and hope in God's ultimate just, healing love of the world soaks every word of even the hardest paragraphs. I will be using this with parish leadership and will surely be preaching and praying with it long after this first reading.

Thanks to NetGalley and Herald Press for a free Advanced Reader Copy for review.

This is a book I will reread and recommend to anyone and everyone I know. How to Have an Enemy takes a look at what enemy love can look like when we abandon a safe and comfortable centrism in favor of advocating for the marginalized and oppressed, illustrating how unity for unity's sake is ultimately harmful and counterproductive to the kingdom of God. The focus is largely on bigger enemies, power structures, and systemic evils though she does also examine how our alignment with those power structures are detrimental to the life of the church. This is a must-read especially for those in church leadership and a helpful challenge to those of us who tend to be conflict-averse. This book was informative, insightful, challenging, and encouraging and I think most lay people will find Florer-Bixler's writing approachable.

I loved every chapter. This is an anti-capitalist, anti-racist understanding of the Christian faith, showing the ways that Jesus didn't come to be nice, but to subvert hierarchies and topple the powers that oppress and control. It points to a new way to be, a new way to understand who or what is our enemy. It won't be an easy read for everyone. I think a lot of mainstream Christians might have a hard time with it. But it's a balm to those who feel crushed under the status quo. I love the honesty and straightforwardness of author Melissa Florer-Bixler, how she admits where she was wrong in the past, and is committed to being on the side of Jesus. I want to share it with everyone I know, I find it energizing, and a spark to living a meaningful, compassionate life.

I had been looking forward to How to Have an Enemy with some anticipation. Perhaps strangely, it’s only been in the past ten years or so that I have realized that I have actual enemies, people and their structures that actively seek to do me harm. Because Jesus calls us to love and bless our enemies, I am grateful to learn that others are willing to claim enemies; we cannot love or bless that which we believe we do not have.

Florer-Bixler does not provide a handbook or plan d’attaque, but rather attempts to show us how to “both humanize our enemies and stand firm in a collective vision for the reign of God.” Partially, this is by showing us how to distinguish between the tolerable and the intolerable, and by naming the most powerful enemies within American culture, especially white supremacy and racism, hetero-patriarchy, the nuclear family, Mammon in the guise of capitalism, antisemitism, and ableism. Partially, this is by choosing to be on the side of the powerless, “the side of the line where Jesus walked,” to join in God’s new community.

This is not a gentle book; its subtitle is Righteous Anger and the Work of Peace. For readers (such as I) who benefit from being one of, or benefitting from, the enemies Florer-Bixler names, it is uncomfortable and disconcerting. These readers (such as I) need to be shaken until “what cannot be shaken may remain.” It does suffer from being doctrinaire, from over-quotation, and from being more a series of sermons than a well-structured work. But so too, I guess, does the book of Isaiah with its patchwork of oracles. It’s not a book you’ll give to your right-wing uncles expecting to convert them. But it will challenge those with ears to hear and perhaps provide hope for those who view the Christian task as primarily concerned with the struggle for socioeconomic liberation.

Melissa Florer-Bixler is a writer and pastor with degrees from Duke University and Princeton Theological Seminary. Her ministry at Raleigh Mennonite Church has been featured in The Atlantic and Sojourners.

With "How to Have an Enemy: Righteous Anger and the Work of Peace," Florer-Bixler calls us into living more like Jesus did by naming and confronting our enemies as an essential part to loving them.

Florer-Bixler becomes the latest contemporary theological writer whose work I've largely followed through social media before I've first set my eyes on their writings. While I had a strong sense that my own theological views were in line with those of Florer-Bixler, partly because of that social media presence and partly because we share a history in historic peace churches (mine being Church of the Brethren), the truth is that I'm not sure I was prepared for the power of Florer-Bixler's theology and the words she lays down in "How to Have an Enemy."

The foundation of "How to Have an Enemy" lies in the central question "Does Jesus' call to love our enemies mean that we should remain silent in the face of injustice?"

There are a myriad of ways to approach this question whether it be through the lens of racism or the church's long-standing discrimination against the LGBTQ community or the church's failure to address violence in its midst or in a myriad of other ways.

It's a personal question. It's a universal question. It's a vital question.

For Florer-Bixler, it begins with the acknowledgement that, yes, indeed Jesus does call us to love our enemies. It's a seemingly lofty call that Florer-Bixler richly humanizes. As Florer-Bixler explains, to even begin to love our enemies, we first have to acknowledge their existence, understand who they are, and recognize the ways they are acting in opposition to God's good news.

In "How to Have an Enemy," Florer-Bixler examines closely what the Bible says about enemies - —who they are, what they do, and how Jesus and his followers responded to them.

It's what Florer-Bixler does next that makes "How to Have an Enemy" such a powerful book. Florer-Bixler's resulting theology is one that allows us to name our enemies, honoring our histories and cycles and traumas, as a form of truth-telling about ourselves, our communities, and the histories in which our lives are embedded.

It is through doing this that we can begin to grapple with the power of the acts of destruction perpetuated by our enemies, whether a single incident or a seemingly insurmountable cycle, and invite them to lay down their enmity in an effort to open the path for healing, reconciliation, and unity.

Florer-Bixler doesn't simplify the journey. Not at all. She doesn't pretend that there's a magic wander that will cure all of our hurts and societal ills. Instead, she creates a path for unity by writing of a community that stands in the gap with one another and truly bears one another burdens while moving toward healing, reconciliation, and unity.

Florer-Bixler identifies clearly that Jesus did, indeed, have enemies and so will we. It's how we have enemies that allows us to live more like Jesus as we seek to live and love another way.

"How to Have an Enemy: Righteous Anger and the Work of Peace" is written with a rhythm of life and passion and it felt at times as if I was in the pulpit listening to Florer-Bixler preach these words. At times, I found myself having to read them over because what Florer-Bixler writes so accessibly is actually so incredibly rich and profound. It does help, I would say, to have some foundation of biblical understanding and a theological background as Florer-Bixler weaves into the tapestry of her writing biblical stories and testimonies and an abundance of Scripture. However, she writes so beautifully that I found myself caught up in her use of language and her ability to make complex theological concepts quite understandable.

If I had any minor concern with "How to Have an Enemy," it would be the lack of mention of the disability community when she so often refers to those communities hurt by the church and hurt by society. I found multiple places within the text where such a reference easily fit and it seems a lacking of the book that those with disabilities are set aside here.

However, this is a fairly minor quibble given the richness of the text and the challenging issues that Florer-Bixler does choose to address. Let's face it. You can't address them all.

Destined to be one of my favorite Christian writings of 2021 I'm sure, "How to Have an Enemy: Righteous Anger and the Work of Peace" does, indeed, affirm that my own theology is very much aligned with that of Florer-Bixler and I marvel at her ability to intelligently and compassionately tackle a difficult subject with understanding and grace.