Hatred is an Appropriate Christian Response

9 Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good--Romans 12:9

God is love.  Yes.
Christianity preaches love.  Yes.
Christianity is all about love.  Yes.
Christianity gets rid of hate.  No.

Folks who say this do not understand Christianity.  Neither do they understand love.   Hatred is an absolute part of Christianity, and it is vitally necessary in living an active, public, Christian life.

The recent events in Charlottesville, Virginia bring this to light.  There were several hundred neo-Nazi, white supremacists marching.  They had come from all over the country.  Residents from Charlottesville didn't want them there.  They didn't desire their town to be making headlines, but social media gives us a platform to organize and bring together people from all over--a platform which was non-existent only a couple of decades ago.  So, in the big picture of things several hundred white supremacists in a nation of over 300 million is a minuscule, minuscule percentage of the population.

Yet, what they stand for...

Is deserving of hate.

Yes, a Christian is to hate what these people stand for.  A Christian is to hate their ideology.  A Christian is to burn with hatred toward it--because a Christian is full of love.

That might sound like an oxymoron.  But it isn't.

If you have genuine love...
If you have been claimed by the good news of Jesus Christ...
If you no longer live for yourself but live your life for God...

You love what God loves.
You hate what God hates.

Yes.  God hates.  If you don't believe it, you need to read and re-read your Bible and stop having your own presuppositions regarding God.  You need to allow God to reveal Himself to you and stop making God into your own image.  If you allow God's revelation of Himself to the world to stand, you will see that God unequivocally hates, abhors, is horrified by our failure to live in a right relationship with Him and with one another.  In short, God hates sin.  Absolutely hates it.  His wrath burns hot against it.

--For I the Lord love justice,  I hate robbery and wrongdoing.  (Isaiah 61:8)

--Yet I persistently sent to you all my servants the prophets, saying, ‘I beg you not to do this abominable thing that I hate!’  (Jeremiah 44:4)

--I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. (Amos 5:21)

--...do not devise evil in your hearts against one another, and love no false oath; for all these are things that I hate, says the Lord.  (Zechariah 8:17)

--For I hate divorce, says the Lord, the God of Israel, and covering one’s garment with violence, says the Lord of hosts. So take heed to yourselves and do not be faithless. (Malachi 2:16)

--For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of those who by their wickedness suppress the truth. (Romans 1:18)

--Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes on those who are disobedient. (Ephesians 5:6)

And it must.  It must.  If God does not become outraged at murder, what kind of God is that?  If God does not erupt at injustice, what kind of God is that?  If God smells roses when people are allowed to die of famine, what kind of God is that?  An uncaring God.  An unloving God.  And God is not unloving.  God's great love leads God to hate.

But God does not hate individuals.  God does not hate people.  He has great love for them.  He wants them all to turn to Him.  He will give them every opportunity to come to Him; to renounce sin, the devil, and all his empty promises.  It breaks God's heart each and every time a man or woman made in God's image walks away from Him.  But God loves them enough to let them go.  And He also hates it.  He wants to see no one walk that dark path.

And neither do we.
We love what God loves.
We hate what God hates.

We love those who are created in the image of God.  We desire them to come to God.  Even those neo-Nazi/white supremacists.  Yes.  Even them.  We want those neo-Nazi/white supremacists to come to God for the sake of their repentance, forgiveness, and new life in the Gospel.

But we hate what they stand for.  We hate their ideology.  We hate their sin.  For the idea of racial superiority is not supported by the Gospel.  The idea of racial intolerance is not supported by the Gospel.  The idea of domination by one particular group over another is not supported by the Gospel.  God has made it clear in Jesus that there is neither Jew nor Greek (no ethnicity); there is neither slave nor free (no social status); no male or female (no gender) for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.  All have been clothed with Christ.  Such distinctions have disappeared for those called and claimed in the Gospel.  (Galatians 3)  We cling to this because it is good.

And we hate anything that is contrary to this.

Because in order for Christians to love what is from God, we must also hate what is not.