This weekend we were astonished to see a video of two police officers who were shot while sitting in their squad car. An unknown assailant approached the car and opened fire, hitting one officer in the jaw and the other in the head. The images were disturbing to say the least. Adding to the shock were some of the videos of the responses of those who observed the events. One man in particular laughed in delight at the shooting. In a profanity laced recording, he expressed his wish for the officers to die. According to the press, some protesters gathered at the hospital in an attempt to block access to emergency medical care for the officers. According to some reports, the officers’ families witnessed protesters chanting death wishes for the officers. While I do believe in human depravity—it is one of the concepts from the Bible few people really argue against—this episode of depravity is surreal.
When we see hate, it is easy to describe it as such, but what is hate, exactly? To understand hate it is helpful to examine love. A definition of love I frequently use is drawn from a great medieval theologian. He argued love is seeking the highest and best good for an individual coupled with the desire to live in unity with that person. If he was right, then hate must be the desire to see harm done to an individual (or to cause harm to another person directly) coupled with a desire to ostracize that person. If you look at our news through that lens, we are seeing people full of hate who act out of their hate.
It is astonishing to observe the level of hatred seen in the shooting of the police officers and the subsequent videos. This kind of hate is abnormal. To have this kind of hate, persons have to have had the love and compassion extinguished from their souls. This kind of hate takes training and practice.
What would it take to eliminate this kind of hate from our society? Sociologists teach us a concept called 6 degrees of separation. The concept is that any two people are only separated by 6 or fewer acquaintance links. The 6 degrees of separation concept indicates that you are a very powerful person. You are deeply connected to the society around you. What you do matters. If you refuse to give in to hatred, others will have to react to your action because of the power of interconnected relationships. Resistance to hatred is powerful enough to change our society.
I want you to think of a person who you dislike immensely—or even hate. Think of why you hate him or her. Did they harm you? Did they harm someone you care about? Why do you hold on to this feeling against them? Is that doing you good? Is holding on to your dislike or hatred making the world—or your world—a better place? Could you consider letting it go? Hate is a terrible thing to hold on to. It makes your life worse. It makes our society worse. It makes the world worse. If you want to see hatred come to an end in our society, see that it comes to an end in your heart. Hate no one. Ever.
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