LET OUR EXTREME BE TO LOVE

This Heart Does Not Hate

Yesterday, in Pakistan 132 school children and 9 staff members were slaughtered by Taliban gunman.  The crime is so heinous that Taliban militants in Afghanistan have decried the murders as un-Islamic. The problem is that these same militants who harbor similar hatreds, who believe that such animosity is a provision of their Islamic faith, have the blood of the innocents on their hands.  It makes little difference that most Islamic extremists would refrain from killing children-- when vitriol is a part or proof of religious orthodoxy or dedication, there will always be the danger of these kinds of unconscionable acts.  The truth is that these same militants would never make such a claim that murder was "un-Islamic" if the innocents were adults.  Age would somehow turn victims into culprits deserving of slaughter.  There is simply no way in which hatred may be contained even if the boundaries are doctrinal  Hatred by nature recognizes no limits. 

This is exactly what is wrong with some of the evangelical and fundamentalist Christians in the United States.  While they are not angry enough to begin the slaughter of individuals whom they have indelibly linked with behavior they call sin, the fervency of condemnation is the flint that ignites the same kind of violence.  I remember growing up in a church that reminded me to love the sinner but to hate the sin, that in so doing I was modeling my actions on Christ's.  I have since found this to be an impossible task-- when one hates, there are no limits.  Yes, Jesus could do it, but we cannot.  Our hatred of the sin will never allow us not to hate the sinner.  So when left with a choice of either hating or loving, there need be no dilemma-- just love.  

What happens when you don't choose "love"? You find ridiculous and repulsive arguments such as the latest in which certain evangelicals are making the claim that sometimes torture is necessary.  I must have missed that portion of the Gospels in which Christ commanded his disciples, "Love your enemies, unless you must torture them."  

The fact is that the seeds of hatred-provoked violence may often be found in a perfectly understandable anger.  For example, in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, many Americans were angry.  Who would blame us?  Innocents were slaughtered.  But that justifiable anger soon became rationalized, legitimized, and justified violence in the form of torture.  

From a moral standpoint, it is rare that the means have no impact on the ends.  It is the safer moral code to worry about the means all along the way so that in the end we might be found as noble as humanly possible. Remember, too, that there was a time when some good Christian Americans believed that helping a freed slave was an unrighteous act.  

Even if God has appeared to you and told you, for example, that homosexuality is immoral, let him worry about the judging part.  It could very well be that it was not actually God who spoke to you.  Then you find yourself later having to apologize (or justify) having erroneously perpetrated hatred and violence against a group of people.  So you florists and bakers who are refusing to sell your products for use in same sex weddings-- how is your refusal furthering the kingdom of God?  If one has to demonstrate one's faith in overt acts of hatred, then one should seriously reassess the profitability of that creed.  I have a hunch that when the baker is standing before the Lord on judgment day, he is not going to get the GO DIRECTLY TO HELL card for doing business with same sex couples; in fact, his refusal to serve them may actually qualify as a goatish act as defined by Christ himself at Matthew 25:31-46.  

So how about we start during this season to do something different.  Even if we cannot bring ourselves to love each other, how about taking St. Paul's advice at Philippians 4:8

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, 

whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, 

whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, 

whatsoever things are of good report; 

if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, 

think on these things.

Maybe we can fill up so much on the good thoughts, that we won't have room for anything else. 

In the meantime, we need to pray to God on behalf of the families of these dear children killed in Pakistan.  Pray for healing, pray for peace-- on our knees, in our hearts, in the way we treat each other.