My resolution for the new year to become a better hater. But I suppose this requires at least some explanation before itemizing the ways I propose for improving on our hatreds.
“The fear of the Lord is to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate” (Prov. 8:13).
The fear of the Lord is to hate what is evil. We should be able to immediately see that there is no virtue or vice to be found in a transitive verb. By themselves as verbs, love is not good and hatred is not bad. Everything rides on the direct object. If you love your mom, that is great, but if you love child porn — same verb and everything — you are being wicked. In order to honor God, the right verb has to be lined up with the right direct object. Genuine love lines up with certain things, and so does true-hearted hate.
In the passage quoted, the direct object for hate must be evil, pride, arrogance, an evil way, and perverted speech. If you look around at the landscape that lies before us in this freshly minted 2014, there are many objects that rightly qualify as direct objects of our hatred — if we are to be disciples of Jesus in 2014. We live in what military men call a target-rich environment.
So here is how I propose growing in our ability to hate properly. These are the areas I think we should all focus on.
1. Learn to love properly. We should want to give ourselves to the love of God and the love of our neighbor. We should want to rejoice in the Lord, in the public worship of God, in the ordinances He has given to us, and in hunger for His Word. We should be eager for evangelism and mercy work. We must love our husbands, wives, children and grandchildren. The more we are given over to these things, the more difficult it will be for the bad guys to level the charge that our hatreds are somehow “phobias,” or some other sign of a broken mind. We don’t hate because we love hating. We hate because we love what we are defending.
2. Learn to hate hypocrisy. When we hate the sins of others more than we hate sin in ourselves, we are a couple of miles down that deadly road already. When we judge others by their actions and words, and judge ourselves by our motives, we are already in the grip of this evil thing. When we judge others by a different standard than the one we desire to have applied to ourselves, we are living in high disregard of the Lord’s teaching. Judgment begins with the household of God, and this is why there will never be a restoration of the republic without a reformation in the church.
3. Learn to hate jargon, buzzwords, cant, and Kant. Words detached from the objects they are supposed to represent — which is what happens with a denial of the correspondence view of truth — is the first step in getting our duties with regard to true hatred completely muddled. So learn to love objective truth, and hate all subjectivism. Learn to mean what you say, and say what you mean. Target every form of verbal pretension and postmodern word games. What is needed here is precision. So put a scope on your rifle. Sight it in. Go out for target practice in an abandoned garden patch. Get a bead on the pumpkins of postmodernism. Use hollow points. The results will be gratifying.
4. Learn to hate every form of egalitarianism, feminism, metrosexuality and associated swisheries, pomosexuality, and androgyny. In the image of God He created them, male and female (Gen. 1:27). And every true Christian has since that time said, vive la différence. On a practical level, the single biggest theological issue of our generation is what God allows as a turn on, how we get to the point of orgasm, and whether or not that experience is a gift that must function under authority. You cannot be wrong on this without being wrong everywhere else.
5. Learn to hate every attempt to turn the Scriptures against itself. No verse trumps any other verse. No word from God is at war with any other word from God. The very first thing that “red letter Christians” do in their insistence to go “by the words of Jesus only” is reject the words of Jesus about the rest of Scripture. All you need to grow in this hatred rightly is a special edition of the Bible, which you can get at any Christian bookstore, with the words of the Holy Spirit in black. Tota et sola Scriptura. All of Scripture and only Scripture — that is the ultimate and infallible rule of faith and practice. Those who seek to divvy up the Word are hostile to the Word, and so we must return that hostility with warmth.
6. Learn to hate every form of coercion that is not mandated by the Almighty God Himself. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. Love liberty, and love it in every lawful form. Hate every suggestion that would — apart from an explicit requirement from the Creator — bind, restrict, limit, constrain, constrict, curb, inhibit, stifle, bridle, disallow, immure, compel, or deprive the lawful liberty of another. This is not done for the sake of an abstract idol called “individualism.” It is nothing more complicated than love of neighbor. In this, our statist and despotic age, it is not possible to love your neighbor without also hating five-year plans and new deals, wrapped in golden chains. And hatred of coercion also includes every form of unjust warfare — hatred of ungodly compulsion is not limited in any way to domestic politics.
7. Learn to hate the suggestion, made by some ostensibly on our side, that we “take no prisoners.” The strategy outlined by the Lord Jesus, and which is obligatory for us as Christians, is that we disciple the nations, baptizing them and teaching them obedience. This means that we first find them undiscipled, unbaptized, and disobedient. The whole point is to persuade them, not to nuke them. As we undertake the endeavor of hating well, in our midst we will soon enough discover more than a few who do not know what spirit they are of (Luke 9:55).
The Lord Jesus famously admonished the church at Ephesus, telling them they had fallen from their first love. We must never let that happen to us. But we too often forget that when He came to praise them in what they had retained, He commended them for their hatred. “But this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate” (Rev. 2:6).
So the new year is now before us. We must learn to become better haters in it. It is long past time for new year’s resolutions to contain hatred for something other than calories.
Geeze, Doug. It’s actually hard to find a black letter only bible anymore.
Great post. Matthew N. Petersen is going to need smelling salts after this one.
I wonder what happens when the accusers can’t use their traditional false guilt to manipulate Christians anymore? What happens when Christians know their Scripture better than their accusers? The guilt wagon is falling behind. In the meantime, let’s be sure we are highly accountable and not found to be actually guilty (in the ways that Scripture defines sin).
Anno Domini in gloria, 2014!
Thank you. Very helpful.
Learn to hate cant and Kant….that’s cute! Since the time of Kant our world of facts has been divorced from the world of meaning.
It just occured to me how ironic Immanuel Kant’s name is.
Somebody ought to write a song or poem called Immanuel Can.
I’d selfishly like to get you locked up in some ivory tower where you’d spin this kind of stuff full time. But if I may ask on point 5 — Since Jesus IS the Word, could we better say that we must not reject what He says about the rest of Scripture, because, in fact, those too ARE indeed HIS words? Yes, Moses spake as moved by the Spirit, but was it not Jesus’ words that the Spirit always moves and delivers? Therefore “the Words of Jesus in red” is at best a mistake — His words being in red… Read more »
Wonderful, Jigawatt!
Pastor Wilson, this is the best post of the year. Thanks for posting it right away!
Kant was a heavy thinker because he wasn’t allowed to DO anything.
a good admonition for Facebook users
Loved the CCR reference. I wonder who’ll stop the rain?
Sorry – “reign”.
Pfft, iniquiphobe.
Another way: Biblical Satire. See
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0-EgjUhRqA
(Lutherans satire pagans who claim the “Jesus myth” was stolen from pagan myths.)
Katecho,
You beat me to it. I had a mental picture of someone on their back doing the fish with steam coming out of both ears.
Nah, I’m not upset by this post. I’m just curious whether the hatred of coercion extends to rhetorical coercion, and to coercing the government to accept your side, even after your side has failed by every conceivable measure. Does it include the coercion inherent in lies about whether the Government is coming to take our guns away, the coercion inherent in poisoning the well against your opponents because “they” are “liberal”, and the coercion inherent in throwing a tantrum in the House, and shutting down the government unless you get your way–even though you’ve lost in several elections, and in the Supreme Court?
Great work, Pastor Wilson!
As I read Matthew N. Petersen, I can’t see what he has against poisoning the well, or coercion. He seems to be very good at it. Unfortunately, he doesn’t seem to know the audience here enough to find the right well to poison. Matthew appears to want to fight partisan politics of last year. To which I say, if he likes his partisan politics, he can keep his partisan politics.
Given that the year is only one day old, it would be very difficult to be concerned about the partisan politics of this year. However, my point is to oppose partisan politics (you can see that I’ve also had some words for how liberal sources like the Huffington Post use partisan politics), be they politics of 2013, or 2014.
“the single biggest theological issue of our generation is what God allows as a turn on”
Wow. That statement of priorities has got to be one of the most pervasive and destructive theological errors in the evangelical church. It’s hard to understand how anyone could read the scriptures and conclude that that is at the top of God’s priority list for our generation.
I must have missed the HuffPo reference. I’m just going by what I see here. Matthew seems to think that partisan politics and poisoning the well is okay so long as he is the one trying to make a point. It just looks like a double-standard to me.
The point of the “red letter Christians” is not that we should only read the words in red. The point is that you should be doubly-embarrassed if you ignore the words of Christ when they’ve been highlighted in bright red for you.
I pointed to specific issues, not to generalizations of what Pr. Wilson, or conservatives always do. Pr. Wilson has been very clear that statements like “You always…” in a marriage are very damaging, as are imputations of motives “you do that because…”. Pr. Wilson has engaged in both of those here. As an example of the first: “liberals don’t care what you do, so long as it is mandatory.” As an example of the second: “They want control of the food supply, and they want it to further their statist ends.” Moreover, someone’s failure sometimes does not preclude listening to them other… Read more »
Matt, if someone doesn’t want to accomplish their policy ends through coercion, then he isn’t a liberal.
That doesn’t interact with anything I said in my previous comment, nor does it get you away from my charges.
Particularly, if “liberals want coercion” is an analytic statement, then “on this issue, Polian is a liberal” is *not* analytic, and so the ad himinem attack is completely unwarranted, and using it as a justification for not listening to his other points is not justified. (Furthermore, it isn’t an analytic statement, since there are many contested points in there. Would, for instance, you say that Bucer was for coercion when he said the magistrate should pay for healthcare?)
Michael Straight. I am genuinely curious about your statement. Could you please provide some examples where directly addressing “orgasm” and “turn on” are pervasively addressed ? I have no idea what you are talking about.
thx.
Mathew N. Peterson.
Have you ever heard the term, “taking the measure of a man?”
Timothy, I just mean that the evangelical obsession with sex is way out of proportion with how much attention it gets from Jesus, the Apostles, Moses, the prophets, or even the Christian tradition as a whole (even granting that this skewing of priorities seems to have been a struggle for the Church for much of our history).
Matthew Petersen, you’re obviously still irritated by the “coercion” argument that Doug put forth (which I think Doug is right). And you obviously don’t care for the term “liberal”. Nevertheless, if you can get beyond your dislike of these terms and address the arguments head on, I think we can have a serious debate. It sounds like you don’t have much respect for the conservatives in the GOP, and that’s fine. I’m not too thrilled with the Democrats who want to regulate everything, and who passed a monumental health care bill with no bipartisan support, yet passed the bill as a “rough… Read more »
Genghis Khan, but Immanuel Kant.
I think another important point missing here is that if you want to more faithfully “hate’ what you think is wrong, honesty demands that remember that you don’t speak for the entire Church and that you acknowledge when there are thoughtful, faithful Christians who disagree with you. Claiming to have the only “Christian” opinion on feminism or libertarian politics is an clear and obvious falsehood.
Dan, can you see that it has nothing to do with what term Pastor Wilson is using, but the way in which he uses it that is at issue? You completely miss Matthew Peterson’s point. It doesn’t matter what he calls them. The problem is that he’s created a group to blame, consistently makes “they always” types of claims about them, and makes up imagined motives for such actions that he can’t possibly know apply to the “group”, whoever this group is.
Jonathan,
Michael. Regarding : “Timothy, I just mean that the evangelical obsession with sex is way out of proportion with how much attention it gets from Jesus,” Can I assume that you admit that sex is quite the obsession with the fallen culture? Is it not also a difficult area for the new Christian who is young in the faith? Regarding Pastor Wilson’s insight on “how we get there matters” this is a profoundly scriptural theme. For example, the hatred God has in the old testament, and Jesus in the new, for people who are outwardly religious, but… Read more »
Michael,
Regarding your statement: “Claiming to have the only “Christian” opinion on feminism or libertarian politics is an clear and obvious falsehood.” . I don’t think Pastor Wilson denies that there are differing opinions. It is precisely because they exist–and are mistaken opinions–that he addresses them. Your claim of “clear and obvious falsehood” is incorrect.
Jonathan, I think it does have something to do with what term that Doug uses, based on my review of Matthew’s comments. However, I also understand the point being made regarding “always” type remarks (which I agree we should be careful of). For example, Matthew stated in one of his comments, “I pointed to specific issues, not to generalizations of what Pr. Wilson, or conservatives always do.” Did you notice the “always” reference there? Thus, Matthew is guilty of the same thing he’s accusing Pastor Wilson of. Why can’t we all toughen up a bit and not focus so much on the terms, and instead focus on the argument at hand… Read more »
Matt, I just had the cleverest idea ever. You should start your own blog and then if we wanted to read your word mileage we could head over and do so. But it’s just not gentlemanly to attach yourself as a human barnacle to the Wilsons. It’s as though you’ve made yourself at home in an open wound. Far better it would be for you to present your ideas on your own turf in a positive fashion than insisting on playing this eternal round of gutterball. It fouls the air. Eyes tear. Besides, it’s no good dragging around on the… Read more »
Dan, you misread Matthew’s comment. He’s saying, “I [did not point] to ‘generalizations of what conservatives always do.'” He’s not saying that “conservatives always do” anything. He’s saying that he is NOT accusing them of “always doing” anything at all. Instead, he’s just commenting on what Pastor Wilson is doing right now.
Timothy – in that statement from Pastor Wilson, he is list ideologies he thinks should be opposed. I might disagree with a couple of them in how he chooses to define them and how he chooses to oppose them, but I have no qualms with Pastor Wilson opposing certain ideologies. What I have an issue with is when he makes blanket statements about all the people who believe in certain ideologies, or when he attributes blanket motivations to all of them that do not at all automatically fall from their beliefs, or when he attributes such analogies to people who… Read more »
Jonathan,
I see your point, but I cannot agree with you. We have generalizations for a reason. When I generalize with ‘Skinheads are not pleasant people’ I should not be burdened with having to qualify that ala “Skinheads are not pleasant people, except for Susan and Mildred and Wilbur and …” because Susan took offense at it. The generalization sticks for perfectly valid reasons–they are a useful tool.
Michael Straight said “the single biggest theological issue of our generation is what God allows as a turn on” Wow. That statement of priorities has got to be one of the most pervasive and destructive theological errors in the evangelical church. It’s hard to understand how anyone could read the scriptures and conclude that that is at the top of God’s priority list for our generation. I believe you have misread this statement. It is not that one “read the scriptures and conclude that that is at the top of God’s priority list for our generation”, It is… Read more »
Mavis,
I love your avatar.
How’s Rose?
Timothy, your example of “skinheads are not pleasant people” is a quite useful extreme example, because I absolutely believe that it still illustrates the point. First, what do you gain at all by a blanket and unexplained statement? If the point is obvious, then your listener already knows it, and so you’re just wasting words. And if the point is not obvious, then of course your listener will benefit from an explanation. Even if your authority will convince some listeners without an explanation, I don’t think that’s a very good reason not to give one. Second, what is the good… Read more »
And your example left out the part where blanket motivations are attributed to the whole group, which is even more difficult to justify.
Arwen, I passionately disagree with your reasoning. The biggest theological issue should never, ever be based on whatever those attacking the church want to focus on. The biggest theological issue should be based on what God wants us to focus on. I think it is likely that that will have nothing whatsoever to do with the attacks of those who want to destroy the church. The Body of Christ is strengthened and grows by love and service for others and love and obedience to God, not by good counterarguments to the haters. The biggest theological issue for any generation should… Read more »
(Assuming, of course, that the attacks are coming from those who are being willfully disobedient and trying to attack/destroy the church. If the arguments are coming from within, by those who legitimately desire to follow Christ and see his Kingdom grow but who are lost in an area, then it is certainly a valid reason to focus on that issue, but the manner in which the discussion will proceed would probably look quite different.)
Jonothan
I don’t find your reasoning convincing. I find Pastor Wilson’s scriptural teaching convincing. I also prefer his direct approach to the goop that is most of Christian engagement. As Christians, we are told we are going to be hated as Christ was hated. Could you not let us enjoy it a bit?
Let’s see, Matthew in his first comment uses the phrase “your side” (twice), “your opponents”, “get your way”, and “you’ve lost” but then goes on in subsequent comments to bemoan the fact the post Pastor Wilson acknowledges that there are sides and writes of them in generalities.
Please come clean Pastor Wilson. Do you pay Matthew and his alter ego Jonathan to provide comic relief in the comments section?
Arwen, I think that (1) it’s a mistake to let the world set the agenda for the church, and (2) Mammon is a much greater threat to the Church’s faithfulness to the gospel than these issues about sexuality.