Christian Hatred

February 16, 2013

             Many Christians love to hate. We are well justified in our choice to face the evil of this world with our righteous hatred. Romans 12:9 calls us to hate evil. Yet, when hatred becomes a Christian mantra, it calls up a form of evil that is extremely destructive.

            In our modern world, there are many realities that Christians find abhorrent. Sometimes, we Christians have little difficulty differentiating between the things we believe are evil and good. Frequently, however, Christians will divide over this basic analysis of our world. This reality challenges us, as brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ, to prayerfully consider what it means to live out Paul’s call for faithfulness in Romans 12.

            There is, first of all, a fundamental difference between hating evil and living in hatred. To hate evil, or abhor evil as some Biblical translations interpret the Greek, is to be so disgusted by its presence that one turns away. The problem is that many Christians fail to turn away from evil. Instead, we feel a need to take it on with all the righteous anger and power we can muster. Like a warrior going into battle, rather than simply naming evil, we arm ourselves with hatred for the enemy and charge forth with the weapons of anger, rage, and abhorrence.

            As this plays out in the popular culture, rather than simply turning from the powers and principalities that are hostile to God and God’s righteousness, we tend to put a face on evil—the face of the person or people we do not like. In turn, we then run the dangerous risk of living in hatred.

            Such hateful living is most commonly expressed when whole groups of people who do not think, act, or believe exactly as we do are labeled in derogatory terms, branded as categorically wrong, and discounted as destined for destruction.

            Our popular culture perpetuates this sinfulness when Christians are labeled in broad, prejudicial, and biased strokes as being “liberal” or “conservative” or when whole political parties are deemed as absolutely righteous or sinful.

            Romans 12 clearly calls the Christian to turn from the evil in our world. Yet, it also anchors that abhorrence of evil in terms of Christ’s love and transformative grace. We are not to be bound to the hateful and angry rhetoric of this world. Our love must be the genuine characteristic that guides our live, not our prideful hatred of evil. We are to love one another with the same love that Christ poured out on a cross so that we may live.

            Understandably, there is a time for Christians to stand in opposition of evil and to resist the powers and principalities that oppose God’s place in the hearts and minds of Christians. To resist evil with hatred is, however, just as evil as the very evil we seek to overcome. It is, fundamentally, a demonstration that we trust our own anger and fear more than we trust the sovereign Creator of the universe.  

            Are there things, people, institutions, and practices in our world today that we do not like? Absolutely, yes! Did Jesus Christ die a brutal death so that the world may be redeemed from such evil? Again, yes! Our loving response to these realities needs to be faithful prayer, not the evil of hatred. Fundamentally, Christ died that we may engage the world out of his sacrificial love, not that we may feel justified perpetuating hatred in his name. 

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