Love your enemy

A Fallen World teaser

…‘Father, bring your…’ She knew what she wanted to pray, but the words wouldn’t come out of her mouth. She wanted to call down destruction on those men, for God to judge them and spare none of them, yet at the same time she felt convicted. She tried a different tack. ‘Father, don’t I have a right to be angry? Didn’t David call on you to break the jaw of his enemy?’

An image came to her mind that was both grotesque and shocking. The shock came not from the horror of the image, but from its meaning, which she understood immediately. A man cowering under a weight of hot coals that were piled on his head.

‘You can’t be asking me to do that,’ she gasped. ‘I can’t… Don’t they deserve your punishment?’

Don’t you, came back the reply.

‘You know I do.’

Have mercy, for I am merciful.

A battle waged in her mind as anger at the injustice fought against an unmovable truth.

‘But those visions in The Minster… they were from you, weren’t they?’ She asked in desperation.

Love your enemy. Do good to those who hurt you.

The words had a finality to them. There would be no more discussion, no more bargaining. Obey, or do not obey, but suffer the consequences either way.

‘I don’t know if I can love them,’ she confessed.

Lean on me.

‘Father, help me to love…’ could she say it? She didn’t want to say it. But how could she not… ‘I need your help, Father. Please, help me, help me to love them…’

More words came to her, along with images of men in cages, in small, bleak cells. Words of forgiveness, and pleas for mercy, for God to even bring these cruel men into his Kingdom. And even though the anger at what they had done remained, she spoke the words, and gradually, ever so slowly, began to mean them. She continued to pray, resisting temptation to focus on her discomfort, her tiredness, until she felt empty, until the prompting ceased. Then she opened her eyes and checked the clock. It was no longer early…

(Extract from Fallen World - Fallen Warriors Season Two)

This morning I was again editing Fallen World, reading more chapters and uploading them to this blog in preparation for serializing the story (sign-up below as a paid subscriber to begin receiving two chapters a week from this Friday - 10th April 2026) and read the above passage. I’m nervous about sharing extracts from the novel. I don’t want to give the plot away or spoil the surprises I have in store, yet this scene struck me as it sums up the core of the sequel which will have the tag line: Love Your Enemy.

Mary, who is praying in this scene, has already undergone a transformation in the first season of Fallen Warriors. At the start of the novel, she is busily attempting to gather allies in an attempt to get her minister ousted and thrown out of the church. His crime? He has been going to interfaith meetings. She sees this as a betrayal of their faith. However, she has never taken the time to talk with her minister and understand why he is going, and what his aims are. In truth, I’m deeply uncomfortable about the idea of interfaith meetings. I reject the idea that all faiths are equal. I believe Jesus Christ is the son of God, that Jesus’ death on the cross happened, that while I can’t claim to understand why Jesus had to die, had to suffer as he did - I believe that through his suffering and death, he paid the price for our sin that we could be redeemed, could be washed clean, and could be re-united with our Father in heaven. Then, Jesus returned to life, an amazing miracle that indicates that we too can live again. I believe the promises of Jesus are unique, that he alone points the way to God, and that all other religions and faiths have no value unless they can direct people to Jesus, to understand and accept his death and resurrection.

In Fallen Warriors, Mary experiences a Matthew 18 discipline for her sin against her minister and her refusal to back down. She is cast into the wilderness, isolated, and slowly and gently, God works in her to show how much he loves people of all faiths (not that he loves or accepts those faiths), and calls them all to himself. She is led to meet Najwa, the daughter of a Muslim family who come to play a larger role in Season Two. In part through that relationship, she begins to understand why her minister wanted to attend interfaith meetings - not to elevate those faiths, instead to take every opportunity to share the good news of Jesus with the lost.

Following the attack on York at the end of Fallen Warriors, Mary is grieving and angry. Evil men came to kill and destroy and together with the other fallen warriors, she prayed for their attack to fail. Yet, while at that time, her prayers for the attackers to be stopped were good and in the Father’s will, now that the immediate danger is over, she is convicted that God’s will is for her to show love to her enemies.

I’m not sure exactly when I first wrote the above scene. Some time early 2020 or even before. I read it again this morning and know that I still struggle with this command of Jesus: Love your enemy, do good to those who hurt you. Jesus never said this would be easy. Instead, he acted it out. Lived and spoke and modelled for us how he wanted us to show love. On the cross, after enduring the worst suffering imaginable, his words were: Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.

I wrote the above scene trying to place myself in Mary’s position - having lived through an attempt by Islamic fundamentalists to conquer her city. Reading it some six years later I am reminded that trans activists have sought to destroy my daughter and countless other young people. I have been struggling with this command of Jesus for years now. Perhaps you - for other reasons or for the same reason - also find this command of Jesus difficult. Love your enemy. How can we do this? How can we show love to those who have done evil to us or to those we love? Perhaps the simplest way, though not at all easy, is to pray for them to repent, for God to convict them and open their eyes to understand where they have done evil. If they can repent, if they can confess their sin, they can be forgiven. Fallen World attempts to explore how we as Christians should respond to acts of evil. If you would like to join me in this exploration, sign-up as a paid subscriber below.

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