There are few sins more satisfying than hating hateful people.
The racists on my social media feeds who send ugly images make me mad, a good response, but hatred is close to righteous anger. Hatred can make aging fingers less stiff as the glow of self-righteousness allows me to achieve high school typing class speed as I craft a cutting response.
The battle against evil is not bad, but the hatred is.
We do not get to hate Hillary or the Donald . . . or even the terrorists if we are Christians. What is the difference between a witty retort against people doing bad things, like the ones Jesus used, and hate speech?
The answer is in my heart. I have deleted or apologized for some things I have written, not because they were “bad” in themselves, but because my heart was bad. The truth was being spoken, but not in love. This is annoying, because it means I cannot judge “haters” easily: are they hateful or just wrong?
When someone posts a nasty meme claiming (falsely) that the President is a Muslim, then refuting the lie is important. There is no reason to be nice to a lie. Harder though to know if the person spreading the lie knows it is a lie.
He might think he is saving the Republic from a hidden “radical jihadist.” He may believe his lie is the truth and be acting out of love of country. This is a noble motive and for all I know he loves the President. I bet not, but who am I to judge without more evidence?
So I must battle the lie and give the person the benefit of the doubt. Of course, sometimes (as when I am sent pictures of open ovens by people) it is rational to assume I have met a hater.
Nothing wrong with calling them out, but even then I must not hate. Hatred is never right. Just watching these letters come on my screen makes me wretch.
Am I just “virtue signalling?”
Perhaps. Almost certainly.
No motives are ever unmixed, but our goal must be love. If we don’t talk about our goals and hold each other to a standard, then how can we go forward?
I don’t write this because I am free from hate, the place of a saint, but because hate (the superior intellectual kind!) is a temptation.
We all get sick of what seems like weak responses to great evil. Murderous thugs kill cops and somebody like I am says: “Thoughts and Prayers. Don’t hate.” We want to hate and damn to hell the killers. And then we recall the Lord Jesus said our hate makes us killers in our hearts.
But if hate worked, if hatred would bring back the dead, if venom would bring justice, if it were even effective as warfare, then maybe . . . maybe. But it cannot bring back the dead, it is unjust, and it is the pathway of losers.
Haters have big short advantages, but they lose in the end. Why? Because hate breeds hate. People can tell and the short term (and very satisfying) movie-style push back fails.
We end up in quagmires of hate. It is true in global politics and it is true in personal relationships.
I am no pacifist. Pacifism is Utopian and also fails. We must do the hard work of justice and that may include using force to stop evil but we must never do it out of hate.
We can be angry, but without sin.
Jesus said:
Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;
That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.
For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?
And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so?
Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.
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