Are We To Hate? A Bible Study on Hatred

On May 26, 2012, Lady Gaga twittered, "There is nothing Holy about Hatred."

Except God did hate. Jesus even hated. So either Lady Gaga is right and the Bible is wrong. Or maybe Lady Gaga is not a good source to get one's worldview from.

So what should we hate? Because if we are honest with ourselves, everyone hates things. Even those who claim they don't hate anything, hate. Those who want peace and love hate war. Those who preach tolerance hate intolerance.

And what should we be hated for? Because let's face it, people are going to hate us. We just need to make sure that we are hated for all the right reasons.

Unfortunately, Christians often hate the wrong things and/or go about being against them in the wrong way. This discredits the message of Jesus and the work of the kingdom. But God's kingdom can and will overcome. The key is that we work toward being the people God wants us to be and continually strive to reflect his glory here on earth as it is in heaven.

Each one of us will make mistakes. That's what grace is for. We are all hypocrites in some way. If that wasn't true, the cross would not be needed.  There is no reason for any of us to think we are better than anyone else because we are all fallen sinners. Living in the realization that we are all faulty and failed individuals, God will still receive glory when we are repentant sinners striving to bring about His will.

At other times we see people who unleash venom attacking one person after another. Whoever that venom is directed toward, harboring and releasing that hatred is not good for them or the people around them. Whether you agree with Lady Gaga or the Bible, it doesn't fit in either worldview as holy.

This post is written to distinguish that sort of rabid, venomous hatred from the hatred expressed by God that should also be expressed by His people.

When we feel that we have been wronged, we will find hatred creeping up. This is not the hatred we should nurture and foster. At times like those, we will find ourselves at a crossroads where we can choose whether to follow God, including his difficult teaching to love our enemies, and live in his grace toward others, even those we disagree with, or whether we will cling to our culture of divisiveness and lash back with personal attacks on the person who we feel has wronged us.

We each have many choices to make as we continue the process of being transformed from our fallen self into the person God has destined us to be. God has so much in store for each of us. The question is whether we will surrender ourselves to His will and pursue His kingdom, or whether we will pursue our own will and our own kingdom no matter how noble our personal will appears to be.

There is a hatred that is never holy. But then there is righteous hate. Let us strive to hate the things God hates and live the lives that God has planned for us to bring Him glory. Despite what Lady Gaga states, that is a hatred that is holy.

Bible Verses Expressing God's Hatred

For I hate divorce,” says the Lord, the God of Israel, “and him who covers his garment with wrong,” says the Lord of hosts. “So take heed to your spirit, that you do not deal treacherously.” Malachi 2:16 (NAS)

I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the peace offerings of your fattened animals, I will not look upon them.
Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen.
But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
Amos 5:21-24 (ESV)

You shall not plant any tree as an Asherah beside the altar of the Lord your God that you shall make. And you shall not set up a pillar, which the Lord your God hates.
Deut 16:21-22 (ESV)

These are the things that you shall do: Speak the truth to one another; render in your gates judgments that are true and make for peace; do not devise evil in your hearts against one another, and love no false oath, for all these things I hate, declares the Lord.”
Zech 8:16-17 (ESV)

Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: You have seen all the disaster that I brought upon Jerusalem and upon all the cities of Judah. Behold, this day they are a desolation, and no one dwells in them, because of the evil that they committed, provoking me to anger, in that they went to make offerings and serve other gods that they knew not, neither they, nor you, nor your fathers. Yet I persistently sent to you all my servants the prophets, saying, ‘Oh, do not do this abomination that I hate!’
Jer 44:2-4 (ESV)

He [Jesus] looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart. Mark 3:5 (ESV).

Be Hated For Doing Good

Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.
(1 Peter 2:11-12)

For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.
(1 Peter 2:15-16)

For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God's will, than for doing evil. For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit,
(1 Peter 3:17-18)

The World Will Hate Christians

Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you.
(1 John 3:13 ESV)

If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.
John 15:18-19 (ESV)

We Should Join In God's Hatred

The fear of the LORD is hatred of evil. Pride and arrogance and the way of evil and perverted speech I hate.
(Proverbs 8:13)

"I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the peace offerings of your fattened animals, I will not look upon them. Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
(Amos 5:21-24)

Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world--the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life--is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.
(1 John 2:15-17)

We Might Have Been Born This Way But...

A thought-provoking article on Lady Gaga was published at Sojourners blog: The Gospel According to Lady Gaga.

The end point is good but the illustration to get there is rocky. I think he is just trying to justify being a Lady Gaga fan.

This is what I think. I think every Christ-following church should start talking to their youth groups, saying unambiguously: We want you to be a wall of protection for kids like Jamey. Seek out and protect--emotionally and socially--every weird, weak, nerdy, lonely, queer kid at your school. We don't care if they are a goth, or a druggy, or a queer. Doesn't matter. Protect these kids. Churches should train their youth groups to be angels of protection, teaching them to find these kids and say, "Hey, I love you. Jesus loves you. So no one's going to bully you. Not on my watch. Come sit with me at lunch." That's what I think. I think every Christ-following church should start Guardian Angel programs like this, teaching their kids to stick up for kids like Jamey. Not with violence. But with welcome and solidarity. Because it's hard to bully a group. So let's welcome these kids into a halo of protection and friendship.

I couldn't agree more.

But I'm confused. In one paragraph, Richard writes that Gaga's group is so supportive. A few paragraphs before that, he states that one of the people who found comfort in Gaga's support network killed himself. Not a good example of the support network I want to encourage.

As a commenter after the post expressed, Gaga actually encourages remaining a monster rather than being redeemed and transformed. It's the "this is who I am and don't need to change" mentality. Or one could say they were born this way. We might like the beat and the feel of the music, but the message is not one that lifts people up and brings about freedom in Jesus. It gives an endorsement to remain in a state of sin.

To use the story that Richard uses, the support network of Gaga did not give enough support to Jamey. Do I wish the church would have been there to support him? Of course I do. And I bet it was. But many people don't want support or acceptance, they want approval and an endorsement of who they think they are rather than encouragement to become who God destined them to be. We were all born with a sinful nature, but we are each destined for something greater. 

Is Lady Gaga Right?

Lady Gaga has another runaway hit with her song “Born This Way.” The song was the fastest song to reach a million sales on iTunes, and the album had the best opening week of album sales since 2005 with 1,108,000 copies sold in a week.

In the pre-chorus, Lady Gaga sings, “I’m beautiful in my way. ‘Cause God makes no mistakes. I’m on the right track, baby. I was born this way.”

Is that true? Is the way we are born the way we should live? Are we completely beautiful from birth without any mistakes in who we are?

For Catholics, this is an easy one. The concept of original sin would state that we are born in a sinful state, that is a state of marred beauty. In it, we are born flawed into a sinful world.

From our church’s perspective, Lady Gaga is still not expressing good logic. Although we believe children are conceived without sin, babies are immediately brought into a fallen world that tarnishes them. We are born children of God, but we have become children of this world. Again, we are people of marred beauty.

In the end, the result is the same. Flaws, whether we are born with them or not, need to be conquered. If I had a tendency like Jeffrey Dahmer’s and desired to eat people, that would not make eating people the right thing to do despite being true to my fallen self. That might be an extreme case, but the logic of indulging the tendencies we have will lead us to extreme distortions of what humanity should be. Just because we have had an inherent tendency since birth does not make following through with that impulse a right course of action.

I am not joining in on the original sin debate here. It’s periphery to this discussion because both sides agree on the practical implications with this issue. The one side believes we are born in sin; the other believes that we are not held accountable for our sin until we reach a certain age. In both views, there is sin present in life from birth. Sin that mars us from being the perfected image of God.

God has a plan for us, but we all have tendencies, desires, and actions in our lives that are distorted from what we should be, from that ideal plan. However, we are called to join in with Jesus on the restorative process he is doing in us and through us.  The idea that we are perfect the way we are will allow us to indulge in sins that come naturally to our sinful state.

The concept that God does not make mistakes should not empower us to indulge in all of our natural impulses. We are called to join in with Jesus, through the work, guidance, and strength of the Holy Spirit, in perfecting ourselves and the world around us. The very concept of transforming ourselves and the world into the image of God means that it is currently tarnished. To live by the principle that an impulse should be gratified just because it is an instinct will lead us to living a life outside of the fulfilling life God has planned for us.

In the end, this is why we need Jesus. His death on the cross brings forgiveness to our sins. His life that he lived shows us that there is an ideal we need to strive for. His resurrection brings victory. To say that we are fine the way we are is to reject Jesus’ sacrifice and plan for our lives. May we learn to live humbly, to recognize the sin in our lives, and strive, through Jesus, to be who God destined for us to be.