Friday, October 26, 2007
Who Do You Hate?
Justin Taylor was wondering about hate. He does so based on trying to understand passages like Psalm 11:5-6, in which it is declared:
How do we decide who is worthy of this hatred?
If you read this stuff closely there words are much more intense than merely "sinner" - words like "wicked" and "evil," even "violence" keep creeping in there. If we examine the condemnations of Christ Himself, His hatred seemed reserved for "special" sinners - it was not broadcast to all of us, and after all, we are all sinners.
If we believe our own theology, "sinner" is a state, not an action. Again, if we hate the sinner, we would have to hate everybody, so it is more than just hating the sinner, some judgement must be involved as to who is worthy of this hate.
"Violence" is definitely something we do, not something we think or an attitude we have. While as sinners, we all have evil and wicked hearts, hearts Christ could clearly see, yet Christ did not hate us all, then hatred must be reserved for those that somehow manifested that evil and wickedness in extraordinary ways.
I am forced to conclude that while we are indeed called to hate some, we do so on the basis of behavior, not belief or attitude, or state. So what behaviors fall into this "hateable" category? Well, unwarranted violence, meaning excluding the violence of self-defense or just war, seems pretty clearly indicated. Fair enough, now we are justified in hating Hitler, Stalin, and the like and its not so hard to pull the death penalty switch anymore. But then I think most conservative Christians had no problem with that before.
Where did Christ aim His hatred? At the money changers. At those perverted the Law for personal gain. Whoa - now it gets tricky because of course that is pretty much a definition of sin. But there is a key difference - this perversion of the Law was presented with a false representation of God's authority, and as such carried with it an inherent threat of violence, particularly when "the church" had the civil authority it did at the time.
Dangerous ground this - where's the line? Oh sure putting Benny Hinn or Joel Osteen on the "hated" list seems an obvious notion - their profiteering is too obvious. But what about the Pope? Some popes have been pretty awful fellows, but then again, some haven't.
Which brings up another pretty interesting point about all this - hatred is an individualistic thing, not class-based. We can hate a pope based on what he does with the office, but I don't think we can hate the office just because it has had some bad actors in it.
I have rambled on about this primarily to make a point - ETHICS MATTER. It seems like we have worked so hard to reduce Christianity to a few platitudes, a nice worship service, now fill the plate. But the truly transformational thing that it is demands far more, and some of it is hard work. Ethics is one of those things. We need to think more, and we need to think harder about this kind of stuff.
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The Lord tests the righteous,Taylor then quotes John McKenzie and concludes that hatred of the sinner, not merely the sin, may be appropriate. I do not disagree with that conclusion, but I do think it raises important questions:
but his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence.
How do we decide who is worthy of this hatred?
If you read this stuff closely there words are much more intense than merely "sinner" - words like "wicked" and "evil," even "violence" keep creeping in there. If we examine the condemnations of Christ Himself, His hatred seemed reserved for "special" sinners - it was not broadcast to all of us, and after all, we are all sinners.
If we believe our own theology, "sinner" is a state, not an action. Again, if we hate the sinner, we would have to hate everybody, so it is more than just hating the sinner, some judgement must be involved as to who is worthy of this hate.
"Violence" is definitely something we do, not something we think or an attitude we have. While as sinners, we all have evil and wicked hearts, hearts Christ could clearly see, yet Christ did not hate us all, then hatred must be reserved for those that somehow manifested that evil and wickedness in extraordinary ways.
I am forced to conclude that while we are indeed called to hate some, we do so on the basis of behavior, not belief or attitude, or state. So what behaviors fall into this "hateable" category? Well, unwarranted violence, meaning excluding the violence of self-defense or just war, seems pretty clearly indicated. Fair enough, now we are justified in hating Hitler, Stalin, and the like and its not so hard to pull the death penalty switch anymore. But then I think most conservative Christians had no problem with that before.
Where did Christ aim His hatred? At the money changers. At those perverted the Law for personal gain. Whoa - now it gets tricky because of course that is pretty much a definition of sin. But there is a key difference - this perversion of the Law was presented with a false representation of God's authority, and as such carried with it an inherent threat of violence, particularly when "the church" had the civil authority it did at the time.
Dangerous ground this - where's the line? Oh sure putting Benny Hinn or Joel Osteen on the "hated" list seems an obvious notion - their profiteering is too obvious. But what about the Pope? Some popes have been pretty awful fellows, but then again, some haven't.
Which brings up another pretty interesting point about all this - hatred is an individualistic thing, not class-based. We can hate a pope based on what he does with the office, but I don't think we can hate the office just because it has had some bad actors in it.
I have rambled on about this primarily to make a point - ETHICS MATTER. It seems like we have worked so hard to reduce Christianity to a few platitudes, a nice worship service, now fill the plate. But the truly transformational thing that it is demands far more, and some of it is hard work. Ethics is one of those things. We need to think more, and we need to think harder about this kind of stuff.
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