Grace. (It really is amazing.)

GRACE greɪs noun. God’s generous, forgiving, kind, favorable attitude towards his people.

2. A prayer of thanksgiving.

[Gracious 'greɪ.ʃəs adjective.]

Years ago I was sitting in on a kids’ Sunday school class when the head pastor visited, and encouraged the kids to ask him anything.

Bad idea. We spent way too much time discussing the existence of space aliens. The pastor’s view: They’re not real, and all UFO sightings are likely evil spirits messing with people. (He was one of those dark Christians who suspect devils are just everywhere.)

Dark Christianity is likely why this pastor whiffed this question: One of the kids asked what grace is.

Someone had previously told her we Christians are saved by grace. Ep 2.8 So she understandably wanted to know what this “grace” stuff was. She wanted to get it and be saved. Her assumption—same as that of way too many Christians—is it’s some sort of heavenly pixie dust. Pastor’s response: “We can’t define grace. It’s a mystery. It just is.”

I know; you’re probably screaming at your phone right now, “It’s God’s unmerited favor, you numbskull,” which isn’t very kind of you; bad Christian. But yeah, shouldn’t a pastor of all people know what grace is? Shouldn’t any Christian in church leadership? Heck, shouldn’t every Christian?

Problem is, many Christians don’t know. Largely because our fellow Christians suck at teaching on it, and more importantly and problematically, living it. There are a lot of ingrates in Christendom… because there are a lot of ingrates in humanity, and they didn’t give up this behavior once they became Christian. Instead they excused their ungracious behavior by describing and justifying it with a lot of Christianese words. You know, hypocrisy.

And too many churches don’t teach on grace enough. Or at all. We’re saved by God’s grace, but when you listen to those churches, you get the idea we’re saved by other things. Like having all the right beliefs. Like being a good person. Like saying the sinner’s prayer, getting baptized, regularly doing certain sacraments, being a regular at church, knowing another saint who can “get us in,” or just believing really hard you are—and never permitting yourself to question it.

If you think you’re saved by any of these other things, and not grace, stands to reason you don’t understand grace. And won’t care that you don’t. Won’t practice it much either.

Since Pastor didn’t know what grace was, and I did, I explained it once he left the room. (I figured since he wasn’t clear on the concept, he wouldn’t appreciate me correcting him.) And no, I didn’t go with the usual cliché of “God’s unmerited favor”—though it’s that too. But more accurately it’s God’s attitude. One he wants us to share.

God is love, and loves us. Despite our bad behavior, rebelliousness, apathy, and sometimes outright hostility towards him, grace is how God thinks of us. His attitude overwhelms and overcomes everything we totally deserve. Any of us would give up on humanity entirely, and sweep us away with floods or raging fires, or burn us down like a mean kid takes a magnifying lens to an anthill. But God forgives all, loves us regardless, and even adopts us as his kids and gives us his kingdom.

That’s why we call it amazing.

When sucky Christians share Jesus.

Christians are fond of saying the reason people won’t believe in Jesus is because of fleshly, irreligious Christians. Because we’re so awful, they stay away.

It’s rubbish, and I’ve written at length why that’s so. Talk with any pagan and you’ll quickly discover most of ’em do believe in Jesus… but they don’t believe in “organized religion” (by which they mean Christianity or church) and they much prefer their own eclectic ideas about who Jesus is, to anything Christians teach. Talk with any nontheist and you’ll find they don’t believe in Jesus because they don’t believe in miracles (i.e. his resurrection, his rapture, his second coming) and hate the idea that a God who has infinite power to stop anything they consider evil, doesn’t.

Sucky Christians aren’t why people don’t believe in Jesus.

Sucky Christians are no help, either. If I’m trying to share Jesus with someone, it’s so easy for that person to point to ill-behaved Christians and say, “They don’t help prove your point.” Absolutely right. They don’t. But the reason these folks don’t believe is they don’t wanna believe. Because I believe in Jesus despite ill-behaved Christians. Most of us do!

But those who claim sucky Christians are why people don’t believe in Jesus, really just have an ax to grind against misbehaving Christians.

And yeah, I admit I have an ax to grind against ’em too. Because I used to be one of those misbehaving Christians. I grind an ax against my former self all the time. I tell on all the sins he committed, and use him for illustrations of what not to do. Many Christians do likewise with their former selves. See, we can do it with impunity, and because we’re not picking on someone else, it’s not cruel. It’d look totally cruel if we used one of our kids, fr’instance—“Man, my kid is such a sinner. You should hear what he did last week.” It’d be gossipy if we did this with anyone else. With ourselves, no problem.

I was a rotten kid in my youth. And yeah, I still shared Jesus with people—and I actually got a few of ’em to come to church with me. Despite me. ’Cause that’s how the Holy Spirit works: He takes seriously messed-up humans, and does something good through us. He can, and does, use fleshly Christians to spread his gospel. I know from personal experience as one of those fleshly Christians.

That said, is it ideal when fleshly Christians share the gospel? Of course not. Got way easier to share the gospel when I started to act like Jesus. People don’t mind hearing the good news from good people. But when you’re kind of a dick, the good news doesn’t tend to come across as all that good. Too much hellfire, not enough grace. Too much hate; no love. Too likely to become dark Christianity, dark evangelism, and proselytism. Too likely to reproduce all our worst traits, like Jesus complained about Pharisees doing to their converts. Mt 23.15

No; ideally we want fruitful Christians to exhibit all the same winsome traits as our Master: Love, kindness, patience, forgiveness, grace, compassion, peace, and joy. Because we’re trying to duplicate that in new believers; not the same phony fruit we find among Christianists—the folks who nowadays make “sons of hell” instead of Pharisees.

Don’t misunderstand me. Irreligious Christians need to repent. But can they share Jesus, his gospel, and his kingdom? Of course they can. God’s used talking asses before, Nu 22.26-30 and apparently he still does.

Dark Christianity.

Here’s a good passage to remember:

1 John 1.5-10 NLT

5 This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. 6 If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. 8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

People don’t bother to read this passage in context, and presume light and darkness have to do with truth versus lies, or revelation versus mystery. Nope; it has to do with obedience versus sin. Christians shouldn’t sin. When we live in light, we oughta stay away from sin.

But it’s more than that: We shouldn’t fixate on sin either.

We shouldn’t obsess about what sinners are up to. We shouldn’t analyze the devil’s works in order to understand it better, Rv 2.24 since knowledge is power. Our ability to fight the devil and resist temptation isn’t from our studies of devilish strategies anyway: We’re to defeat sin and temptation through God’s power. Ep 6.10 Trust God, resist evil, and lead others to the light.

Yet there are loads of Christians who firmly believe a significant part of our duties—if not our only duty—is to study sin, fight it, and condemn it.

In preparation these folks spend an awful lot of time on the dark side of Christianity. They wanna instruct the church in Defence Against the Dark Arts classes, and be ever vigilant to battle He Who Shall Not Be Named. (Forgive all the Harry Potter references, but there are an awful lot of parallels. It’s almost like J.K. Rowling grew up Christian or something.) Namely these areas:

• The fall of the angels, the fall of humanity, original sin, total depravity.
• Sin, mortal sin, unforgiveable sin, spiritual death, spiritual suicide, apostasy, heresy, works of the flesh, temptation.
• Satan and its fellow tempters: Unclean spirits, devils, demons, idols, antichrists.
• Spiritual warfare, exorcisms, intercessory prayer, hedges, umbrellas of protection.
• The End Times: Signs of the times, fulfillment of end-times prophecy, rapture readiness, tribulation, the Beast.
• Theodicy, judgments, punishments, double predestination, hades, purgatory, hell, second death.

True, all Christian theologians deal with this stuff, ’cause they’re part of Christianity. but they’re the stuff Jesus defeated and frees us from. We’re not to worry about this; we’re to focus on loving our neighbors, and having an abundant life in God’s kingdom.

But dark Christians we’re not free of these things. Not at all. ’Cause there’s still evil in the world, isn’t there? We still have the gates of hell to knock down. Jesus’s mission may have been to destroy the devil’s works, 1Jn 3.8 but they don’t believe he’s yet accomplished it. They believe it’s now our mission. They don’t consider the fact our own depravity constantly gets in the way of accurately identifying evil, or regularly corrupts us into using devilish tactics to fight it—that Jesus really does want us to have nothing to do with evil.

To dark Christians, our primary duty isn’t to proclaim the good news of God’s kingdom, but fight evil. So it’s all they do.

Hence people don’t see them as bringers of light, peace, hope, love, and good news. Just darkness. Dark Christians make pagans flinch and fellow Christians facepalm. Our job of proclaiming good news becomes substantially harder, because now we gotta make up for the fleshly behavior and jerkish actions of these nimrods: Pagans assume we’re all like that, or suspect any loving actions on our part have, at the back of them, hatred, fear, horror, and judgment.

Bummed your candidate lost?

Yesterday was Election Day in the United States, and since elections take time to tabulate (and people whose candidate lost will sometimes refuse to accept the tabulations, and demand they run ’em again, and even then insist something went wrong in the counting process, and sue, and bear false witness against the tabulators for years afterward), the results are still up in the air. It agitates the impatient. But eventually we’ll know who won… and one side or the other is gonna mope about it.

And, same as in every election, the losing side is gonna put on a brave face, say the usual platitudes—“God’s will be done,” and “God is in control,” and “God works out everything for our good,” et cetera, ad nauseam. God’s on the throne, even though their candidate won’t be. They’re very bummed, and sometimes there’s even weeping and gnashing of teeth and rage.

But they put their trust in Jesus. So they say… now. They weren’t before. This “God’s in charge” stuff is what people say after they’ve been putting their trust in an idol, and God just smashed that idol. As he does.

But not all of ’em will accept the idea God’s in charge. A number of them are plotting violence, and justify it by claiming God’s will has been frustrated. What comes next? God’s wrath… which looks suspiciously like their wrath.

I heard quite a lot of rightists talk about wrath during the Barack Obama years. Yeah, it’s projection; they’re angry, and covet power, and dream of sweet vengeance. Broken idol or not, they’re still idolaters—coveting and worshiping power.

Some of us are just that dense. I sure was.

Politics, Christians, and our democracy.

POLITICS 'pɑl.ə.tɪks plural noun. Activities associated with gaining or holding power; frequently seen as divisive and devious.

2. Activites associated with governing a country, land, or organization; or dealing with relations between one such organization and another.

3. Beliefs and principles regarding the gaining or holding of power.

4. The academic study of government and the state.

[Politic 'pɑl.ə.tɪk adjective or verb, political pə'lɪd.ə.kəl adjective, politician pɑl.ə'tɪ.ʃən noun, politico pə'lɪd.ɪ.koʊ noun.]

God’s kingdom is entirely about surrendering our power, authority, will, even our identity, to God.

We kinda have to do this. Humans, y’see, are selfish to our core. Everything we do, even everything good we do, has a self-centered ulterior motive. Makes us feel good about ourselves. Makes us feel self-justified. Yeah, some good deeds might feel self-sacrificial and miserable, but somewhere in our psyche is some “greater principle” which feels really good to make great sacrifices for. We’re just that carnal. It’s why God needs to save us, ’cause we’ll never be good enough to save ourselves. And why the Holy Spirit needs to give our consciences a total overhaul.

In contrast politics is about wielding power. And for politically-minded folks, it’s also about gaining more. Sometimes for noble reasons; mainly to help others. More often, for not-so-noble reasons: To keep it out of the hands of other people, lest they do something we dislike with it. Not that we’re necessarily doing anything with it, including anything good. Note the United States Congress: Too often it’s all about doing nothing—’cause many a politician figures nothing is better than anything.

So yeah, there are antithetical ideas at play whenever we talk about God’s kingdom and politics. One’s about surrender, because we humans can’t be trusted with power. The other’s not; it’s about gaining or taking or stealing power, because we imagine we’re the right-minded exceptions who can be trusted with power. Others can’t. The opposition party surely can’t.

How do Christians juggle these ideas? Same way we’ve always justified our possession of power. Same as we’ve always justified not surrendering all our power to God. In brief: “I’m gonna do good things with it! The power’s not gonna corrupt me. My heart is pure.”

In other words, we lie to ourselves. And our fellow Christians. And God.

Vote! But bear in mind what your vote really does.

God’s kingdom is not a democracy.

True, whenever we talk about repentance, turning to Jesus, voluntarily following him, and our free will, it sounds like our choices have a lot to do with Jesus’s reign as king. And they do… for now. Because for now, Jesus lets humanity choose sides.

Once he returns, it’s to take possession of a world he’s already conquered, and finally run it properly. At that time people will no longer have the final say about our rulers; Jesus will. And we definitely no longer get to choose the man in charge: Every knee’s gonna bow to Jesus. Pp 2.10-11

If that sounds disturbing or terrifying to you, it’s probably because you don’t know Jesus. Don’t worry; he’s awesome. He’s gracious even to the people who want nothing to do with him. We his followers don’t represent him adequately, if at all; we suck. His partisan followers, of every political party round the world, are typically the very worst of us.

Every election year, these partisans try to get out the vote. Everybody tells us to vote. Even churches who absolutely won’t endorse candidates (and rightly so; that pulpit is to promote God’s kingdom, not earthly ones) will still endorse the act of voting: “Christians need to get to the polls and vote our values.” We’re encouraged to vote for all the candidates which “stand with God.” We’re told our votes make a difference; that when we Christians vote, we’ve contributed towards making our country more Christian.

But once again: God’s kingdom is not a democracy. And God doesn’t endorse any other ruler but Jesus.

Christians will point to the bible and claim God did so endorse human rulers, like Abraham, Moses, the judges, certain kings, and certain head priests. But we fail to recognize God’s leadership structure is entirely different from our democracies. Whenever God appointed or backed a ruler, it was with the understanding God’s the real ruler, and this human on the throne was his employee. (All things considered, pretty messed-up employees too.) Whereas in democracies, our rulers work for us. They’re to do as we want.

This belief our democratically elected leaders will work for God, is pure campaign rhetoric. They will not. Even the most earnest of ’em will at best work for what they think God wants… which conveniently seems to be exactly what the party wants, which means they’ve been projecting an awful lot of their politics upon God. So whenever we get a politician who claims to be on God’s side, we’ve either got someone who doesn’t actually know God, or is a giant hypocrite. The non-hypocrites in politics will recognize this from the very start, and inform us voters “I work for you.” (Now, whether that “you” is the voters or the lobbies, is another thing.)

Unfortunately many Christians have totally fallen for the hypocrites. Remember when Jesus talked about fakes fooling people?

Matthew 24.24-25 KJV

24 For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect. 25 See, I have told you beforehand.

I used to think, “How are they ever gonna fool us Christians?” But Christianist politicians fool us every election year. Fooled me for a lot of years.

So am I telling you not to vote? No; do vote. It’s your civic duty to vote for leaders of good character. People who, because of their character—and certainly not their stated policies, which they can always change their minds about, and often will when they’re bad policies—will do the most good. As Christians who are called to love our neighbors, we likewise must vote in the national interest; don’t just vote for your own interests, as far too many always do. Much of the reason for our messed-up culture is because it’s based on selfishness instead of selflessness, and our votes reflect this all too well.

And don’t delude yourself into thinking your vote, your candidate, our leadership, and our government, is our salvation. We have one savior, and it’s Jesus. Put your hope in him, not whichever yutz the electorate picks this time around. If your particular yutz loses the race, stop acting like the world’s gonna end! It was always gonna end. But Jesus makes all things new.

Meaningless things.

Ecclesiastes 9.11.

“Time and chance” is how the King James Version renders עֵ֥ת וָפֶ֖גַע/et va-fegá, “a moment and an accident.” I tend to interpret it as dumb luck, ’cause that’s the concept the author of Ecclesiastes is going with. Dumb luck exists, and it’s why the best and brightest aren’t guaranteed success.

Ecclesiastes 9.11 NKJV

I returned and saw under the sun that—

The race is not to the swift,

Nor the battle to the strong,

Nor bread to the wise,

Nor riches to men of understanding,

Nor favor to men of skill;

But time and chance happen to them all.

Yeah, our culture teaches otherwise. And no I’m not talking about our wider secular culture; I’m talking about popular Christian culture. Loads of Christians insist nothing happens outside God’s intricate plan for the cosmos. He’s got everything mapped out, everything under his thumb; even evil and chaos and destruction and sin are part of the arrangement. Dumb luck can’t exist in the realm of our sovereign God. There’s no such thing as luck. Everything’s determined, and everything happens for a reason.

They absolutely hate when I point ’em to Ecclesiastes. ’Cause it’s part of our Holy Spirit-inspired bible… yet its author relentlessly insists plenty of things happen for no reason. At all. It’s the entire premise of his book.

Ecclesiastes 1.1-3 NKJV

1 The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.

2 “Vanity of vanities,” says the Preacher;

“Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.”

3 What profit has a man from all his labor

In which he toils under the sun?

I’ve actually had people try to explain Ecclesiastes away, as if the book’s “pessimism” no longer applies or matters in the Christian era. The author’s a descendant of David who called himself קֹהֶ֣לֶת/Qohelét, “preacher.” Most folks assume it’s Solomon. And, Christians will tell me, Qohelét wrote it when he was depressed. Because he lacked revelation of God’s grand will of purpose, he didn’t know God has a plan for everything. So he wrote it out of his utter faithlessness. It’s in our bible as a warning to people who likewise lack faith. You know, like Job’s friends. Don’t be like those guys.

That’s just how dead set certain Christians are in demanding their worldview: Let’s overturn entire books of the bible by claiming they’re ironic.

But the reason the Spirit inspired this book, and the reason we kept it in the bible, is ’cause Qohelét’s right. He makes it clear God isn’t behind every fumble, every failure, every accident, every coincidence. God’s behind a whole lot of things!—but certainly not all. Some things aren’t him. Evil isn’t him, and claiming God causes evil to happen is pure slander. Common slander, but still.

To Qohelét, some things are just הֲבֵ֤ל הֲבָלִים֙/havél havalím, “vapor of vapors,” which the KJV calls “vanity of vanities.” It’s a Hebrew idiom meaning “the most evanescent of vapors.” You know how, on a cold day, you can see your breath, but it quickly disappears? This disappears even more quickly. It immediately disappears. It’s the breath of that breath: Here one instant, gone the next. Can’t hold it, can’t catch it, can’t chase it. It’s empty, unimportant, meaningless. “Vanity,” the KJV puts it—it’s less than meaningless, ’cause time spent on it is time utterly wasted.

Does anything happen for a reason? According to Qohelét, anything God does happens for a reason. But everything else? The vapor of vapors.

Election: God did choose you, y’know.

ELECT ə'lɛkt verb. Choose for a purpose or position, like a political contest or a job.

2. noun. A person (or people) chosen by God for a purpose or position. [Often “the elect.”]

[Elector ə'lɛk.tər noun, election ə'lɛk.ʃən noun.]

I grew up with a Christian mom, a Christian upbringing, and lots of relationships with people who happened to be Christian. Whole lot of opportunities to have God-experiences.

It’s kinda like I was set up. As if stuff was deliberately stuck in my path to influence me to become Christian.

Obviously other Christians haven’t grown up the same way. Things were a lot less Christian, a lot more pagan—or they grew up in another religion altogether. But at one point in their lives they were obviously nudged in Christ Jesus’s direction. Maybe they had a rough patch and Christians showed up to redirect ’em to Jesus. Maybe a miracle happened and they realized, not just that God’s real and here, but that Jesus defines him best. In some cases Jesus even personally showed up and told them to follow him. He does that.

The fact is, God wants to save everybody. Jesus died to make it possible, and everybody’s been given the invitation to come to Jesus, become adopted by God, and enter his kingdom. Everybody. Without exception. He’s not turning anyone away. (Unless they clearly don’t want him—as proven by their defiant, godless behavior. But that’s another discussion.)

But. Even though God’s invitation is for anyone and everyone, there are lots of individuals whom he makes a particular effort to save. Like me, ’cause he clearly set me up to become Christian. Like most people who grow up in a Christian family, or in a predominantly Christian country or community.

Like you, more than likely: When you look back on your life, chances are you can think of many situations where God got your attention, moved you into place, and came after you. Some of them were subtle, and some of them were outrageously obvious. Hey, whatever got you into his kingdom! But God definitely, specifically, wanted you.

Christians call this idea of God choosing us election.

Jesus’s top command: Love God.

Deuteronomy 6.4-5.

The reason people say the LORD has 613 commands in the bible, is ’cause Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon counted them. Just went through the bible, plucked out all the commands God gave to Moses (and a few he gave to Adam, Noah, Abraham, and Israel), combined all the repeated ones, came up with 613, and compiled them in his Sefer Hamitzvot/“Book of Good Deeds.”

If you haven’t heard of Rabbi Moshe, he’s a big deal in rabbinic Judaism. Jews often refer to him by Rambam (or “the Rambam,” in case you confuse him with another Rambam—it’s an acronym, RMBM, with vowels thrown in so you can pronounce it). Western philosophy courses tend to call him by the Latin version of his name, Moses Maimonides. He lived in Spain in 1135-1204.

Rabbi Moshe also listed the commands in order of importance. To his mind, the most important was the first of the 10 commandments, and while Christians think it’s “Thou shalt have no other gods before me,” Ex 20.3 Jews figure it’s actually this one:

Exodus 20.2 NKJV

“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.”

No really; it’s a command. It identifies which God we’re to follow. There are plenty of other beings which identify themselves, or which others identify for us, as God. Plenty of pagans will talk about how “the universe” is pointing them a certain direction, or wants ’em to do something. But for us monotheists, the universe isn’t God; it’s one of God’s creations. For us Christians, God is the being Jesus identified as his Father—and when this being first identified himself, it was as YHWH/“the LORD,” Ex 3.14-15 the name he permanently chose for himself. He’s the God who rescued the Hebrews from Egypt. That God is our God.

Identifying which God is our God, is actually vitally important. It’s why theology books tend to begin by nailing down which God we follow: The Father of Jesus and the God of Israel. (There’s usually a bit in there about whether God exists and how we know this… which is entirely unnecessary when you’ve met him. But a bothersome number of theologians aren’t sure they have… which is a whole other discussion.)

Okay, so that’s Rabbi Moshe’s number one command. It’s a good one. But now let’s ask God himself—or more specifically God incarnate, our Lord, Christ Jesus.

Mark 12.28-31 NKJV

28 Then one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, perceiving that He had answered them well, asked Him, “Which is the first commandment of all?”

29 Jesus answered him, “The first of all the commandments is: ‘Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one. 30 And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ Dt 6.4-5 This is the first commandment. 31 And the second, like it, is this: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ Lv 19.18 There is no other commandment greater than these.”

Jesus identifies the most important command as what Jews call the שֵׁמַע/šemá or Shema, the “declaration” of faith. They repeat this verse to publicly declare the LORD is their God.

Deuteronomy 6.4-5 NKJV

4 “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one! 5 You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.”

The first part of this passage actually does the same thing as Rabbi Moshe’s number one verse: It identifies which God we follow, and that’d be the LORD. And the LORD is our one and only lord. We’re monotheists; we don’t follow multiple gods. (And Jesus isn’t another god; he’s the same God.)

More than that, we’re commanded to love the LORD. Moses said it’s with all our heart, soul, and might; Jesus expanded “strength” into “mind” and “strength,” lest people think strength was only a mental or physical exercise. It’s both. In case anyone was looking for a loophole, as people so often do, Jesus plugged it.

Christians who want us to be angry at sin.

“Doesn’t this make you angry? Well it should! It’s sinful, and it’s an abomination, an outrage, to God. It should be an abomination, an outrage, to you too. Don’t just tolerate it. Get angry!”

Betcha you’ve heard this statement, or something like it, before. Hopefully not from your pastor, from the pulpit, as part of the official messages and teachings of your church. God forbid. But I know churches where it doesn’t just slip into the messages; it’s the message. They feel it’s every Christian’s duty to hate sin. It needs to offend you so much, you’ll stay away from it. If you don’t do this, falling into sin is inevitable; if you won’t do this, it’s like you’re inviting sin into your life, and they want nothing to do with you.

It’s a pervasive teaching in some denominations. They think it’s how we achieve holiness, which they’ve confounded with goodness. To their minds if we’re gonna be holy, we gotta love what’s good—and hate what’s evil. Isn’t that how it’s done?

It might not be how your denomination thinks; your bishops, pastors, and presbyters may know better. But I guarantee you there are always gonna be some people who were exposed to one of those sin-hating churches, who consider it a mandatory Christian discipline… and who are regularly outraged it’s not taught as one in your church! (It’s one of many things they’re angry about, y’notice.) Lots of ’em will take it upon themselves to make sure it gets taught. They’ll promote it in the small group meetings, the Sunday school classes, the bible studies, the prayer groups, or simply the conversations individual Christians will have with one another.

These’d be the folks who preach, “Love the sinner, hate the sin,” and spend 99 percent of their efforts hating the sin. They insist Christians have to hate the sin; hate it with the very same white-hot intensity God hates it. Shun it. Ban it. Vote for politicians who will outlaw it. Kick anyone who does it, out of our churches till they repent. It’s how we stay pure—pure as that white-hot hatred we’re supposed to have.

Um… what’s with all this hatred? Aren’t enmity and anger works of the flesh? Even if we should avoid sinning whenever we can, isn’t this emphasis on hating sin gonna drive us to unintentionally hate sinners, and drive them away from Jesus?

I’ve brought this fact up quite a few times to Christians who claim we gotta be angry at sin. Their usual responses are to

• accuse me of compromise, or of secretly committing such sins myself: “Are you saying we should tolerate sin? You realize God’s gonna judge all the nations which tolerate sin.”
• be okay with hating sinners: “Those people hate God, as you can tell by their bad fruit. They’re destined for hell. Why waste time and effort on people who hate God?”
• claim it’s actually easy to do both: “People can both hate sin and love sinners. I can absolutely hate when my kid lies to me, but still totally love my kid.” (Sure; I get that. But now try again with someone whom you don’t unconditionally love. Say, a coworker who constantly lies to you. Or a politician from the opposition party.)

In general, the thinking is we Christians have to be angry at sin… because if sin enrages us, if we absolutely hate it, we won’t commit it. It’ll repel us, and we won’t sin.

It’s a useful trick to help us resist temptation. Does it work? Not at all. Didn’t for Paul of Tarsus.

Romans 7.15 NRSVue

I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.

Paul sinned, same as every human. And Paul knew better than to sin, and didn’t wanna sin… but he did. He blamed his body, his “flesh,” for having sin embedded in it, and doing what he didn’t want.

Romans 7.22-23 NRSVue

22 For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, 23 but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched person that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?

Well, Jesus. Ro 7.25 But rather than trust Christ Jesus, a whole lot of Christians have adopted the “useful trick” of trying to get us to be angry at sin. Since it’s already quite easy to get people angry, may as well put that anger to good use, yeah? Get ’em angry at evil.