In a recent set of controversial posts over at my friend Steve’s blog (see Ashamed of Christians, FGO: I am NOT a Bible Hater, Definition of Hate for FGO, Thanks, Brad!) he condemned hate in Christians. He noted that Christ preached love, not hate and that if you claim to be a Christian and yet hate someone, you are not actually following Christian principles. I agree.

Nevertheless, I wanted to ponder Otter’s thoughts aloud, because I think there’s some very relevant and interesting conversation going on at his blog.

In “Ashamed of Christians” he wrote, “There is no justification for hate of ANY kind. Any scripture you use to justify hate toward another person is taken completely out of context and you know that. You just use those verses to make yourself feel better and I am not fooled.”

And in “Definition of Hate for FGO” specifically, he said, “Let me make my point clear one more time. To say that you are a Christian or to say that you follow the teachings of Jesus and feel hate toward anyone is contradictory and quite simply makes you a hypocrite.”

I have no real context to understand these posts and there’s a lot that could be meant by them. It sounds almost like (shudder) some liberal Christianity which erroneously preaches a “love” that is not love at all, but which merely accepts all beliefs and does not truly love by preaching a transforming Gospel that changes sinful hearts.

At the same time, I generally appreciate Steve’s emphasis on love, and I think Jesus would be proud. He is technically accurate that hate and Christianity are impossible to reconcile. He and I would both be accurate in saying this.

Or would we?

Both Jesus (the founder of Christianity) and the Bible do teach about hate, and it’s not always in a negative sense. There are a few verses, only a few, out of hundreds, that seem to actually urge a kind of hate if you want to be among Jesus’ followers. One example is in Luke 14:26, when Jesus says, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” Another example is when Jesus says in Matthew 10:34, “I came not to bring peace but a sword.”

 Even after that, in Romans 12:9, the apostle Paul exhorts Christians to “abhor what is evil and cling to what is good.” Wow. Abhor is an even stronger word than hate. Paul is no lightweight either. He’s definitely not Jesus, but he wrote most of the New Testament and his teaching is upheld as Scripture by Peter in 2 Peter 3:14-16. Paul also talks about hating the things he does, in Romans 7:15.

Finally, Jesus encourages a church in their hate in Revelation 2:6, where he says, “Yet this you have: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.”

So…what the hey is going on here? Maybe you’re like me and this doesn’t really make sense. In other places, I would say MOST other places,Jesus preaches against hate. Wasn’t it Jesus who turned the Jewish world upside down by proclaiming that rather than hating their enemies the Jews should love them? (Matthew 5:43-44). When he said this he was preaching something incredibly radical for the time, place, and people around him. It still is!

Is there a contradiction here? Are there some things Christians should hate and others they shouldn’t?

Maybe this is more easily resolved if we think about it in practice. There is an example I can think of that is an example of something I would hate. Say there’s a known serial killer at your house with your family all day while you were at work. How does that make you feel? I mean you love the serial killer right, so you want them to be happy right? When the prison gave you the chance to volunteer to have him over to live at your house since the prison was too full you jumped at the idea right?

Or do you hate that idea? Wouldn’t it technically be prejudiced to say that a serial killer couldn’t come over to your house and play with your kids and hang out with your wife? You’re basically excluding someone from gatherings at your house just because they have a preference for murder. I don’t see what the big deal is.

OK, actually I do. That’s a really big deal. Do I hate the serial killer? If I’m honest, I can’t tell you exactly how I feel. It’s not what I would call hate, but it’s not a positive feeling though. Am I prejudiced against them? What I mean is do I treat them different just because they are a serial killer? I have to admit I am prejudiced if that is what is meant by it, but I also haven’t met anyone yet who isn’t. We should all be prejudiced against serial killers. Do I hate the idea of murder? You bet I do! I have no qualms with saying I hate that idea. Do I treat a murderer different? We all do. Do we support the revocation of certain rights they would otherwise have, like the right to vote? Yeah, we put that into law. Anyone who committed a felony loses their right to vote. Do we support treating them different in terms of separating them from society into a prison. Yeah we do actually. We hate what serial killers do and we support any measure to protect us from them.

Yikes I said “us” and “them” it really sounds like I’m a bigot.Yet…most of us would agree that this is not bigotry or prejudice.

But is all of this okay for Christians? Even though it sounds a lot like bigotry, prejudice, and hate?

I think it’s okay. I would question any religion that doesn’t have this kind of “hate.” I’m glad that Jesus and the disciples urge a hatred of evil and sin.

Does this address the kind of bigotry or hatred that Steve was condemning? I’m not sure. I’m guessing it probably doesn’t, on the surface. But then again, it probably does, because it brings up the kind of questions we should be asking.  Were the people he was writing against concerned with evil and sin? Or did they just hate people who were different than them or who they perceived as their enemies? Were they condemning people or condemning evil and sin? Are we sure? Were they preaching a transforming gospel that would change the hearts of those they saw as different?

Good questions…I think the key is that Steve said “hate towards anyone.” (”To say that you are a Christian or to say that you follow the teachings of Jesus and feel hate toward anyone is contradictory.”) That kind of hate is not Christ-like. Hate towards sin and evil, though, that’s another story, and I’m glad that it is part of Christianity.