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Linda Kollacks's avatar

I always find your comments pushing me to reevaluate my position on many subjects. In this case I would like to take issue with your idea that mercy is something we used to exercise, but today do not.

I am married to a Naturalized German. When he arrived in 1949, he was not treated mercifully. America at that time was bitter towards its enemies, and this still exists today. I often hear careless comments during Veterans Day, Memorial Day, etc. about how the Allies saved Europe for democracy ignoring Eastern Germany and all the other Eastern countries that were under the heavy yoke of Communism after the Second World War. One would accept our nationalism, if honestly claiming that Western Europe was saved.

Without boring you, there were so many incidents

of discrimination against my immigrant husband, not to mention that the most successful movies that came out of Hollywood were anti-German...and still are. America then and now continues to ignore the terrible crimes perpetrated against the enemy. I mentioned to you quite awhile ago the expulsion of about 10 million Germans who suffered ethnic cleansing before the term was ever invented. You had commented that you never even heard of this expulsion. This was no surprise to me as the only stories America ever puts out there are those that show us victorious with morality on our side. This is not truth, not merciful and not

removed from our culture. My

husband has suffered enormous emotional and sometimes physical harm because of this anti German attitude. An acknowledgement of some of the crimes that the Allies committed against Germany at that time would go a long way to alleviate the obnoxious attitude of Americans today who continue to see Germany as the eternal bogeyman! Where was mercy then, and where is it now?

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Richard Bell's avatar

I understand mercy as described here to be Christian love -- acting in the best interests of another according to God's will. So understood, it is the greatest virtue, according to the apostle Paul. And it is a Christian's duty to love universally, even to love enemies of self and of God. But what is described here is not specifically mercy. Mercy is just one kind of charity.

As for mercy proper, its occasion is when one has another under his legitimate power to cause the other's detriment and its act is forgoing exercise of that power. So, the Christian duty to grant mercy is like the duty to grant forgiveness (although the latter duty may be limited to forgiveness of fellow Christians and conditioned on repentance). Both granting mercy and granting forgiveness are specific ways that we Christians walk in love as He loved us.

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