Hate. It’s a pretty strong word. Webster’s Dictionary defines it as “intense hostility and aversion usually deriving from fear, anger, or sense of injury” and “extreme dislike or disgust.” In today’s politically-correct society, the word “hate” is generally unacceptable, and is used by political Leftists as a weapon to demonize their political opponents. It’s generally understood, in politically-correct terms, that nobody is allowed to hate. The emotion of hate is off limits to everyone, and if one hates, then he is a hater and unworthy of public discourse. Those who are accused of “hate” are despised, rejected, cast away from society and made a national pariah. In a word, they are “hated.” For you see, hatred is never tolerated in the Left’s politically-correct world, unless it is hatred of those accused of “hate,” regardless if such accusations are true or not.
Christians are regularly accused of “hate,” mainly by the political Left. Christians are accused of hating homosexuals, and women who have abortions. Some Leftists even go so far as accusing Christians of hating women in general, as well as people of non-European ethnicities. For example: European (White) Christians are often accused of hating ethnic minorities (Blacks, Latinos, Asians, etc.), as we saw in the case of the Covington Controversy, even when such accusations turn out to be factually untrue. (Perhaps the Left needs to be reminded that many Blacks, Latinos and Asians are Christians too?) In truth, political Leftists are really just hacks. They’re wannabe Marxists who are often too afraid to admit what they really desire. The so-called “hate card” which they constantly play is just a tool. It’s a means to an end. It’s a way of silencing their political opposition so they don’t have to make the effort to defend their often indefensible political positions. I mean, why bother trying to explain why Marxism has never worked in the past but you want to try it again, when you can just demonize anyone who dares to oppose you and avoid explaining it altogether? That’s what the political Left does — all the time.
So Christians are constantly accused of hate, especially practicing Christians, and by that I mean primarily orthodox Catholics and conservative Evangelicals, not excluding the few traditional, mainline Protestants left who actually believe and practice what their religion has historically taught. The accusation of “hate” is the currency of the Political Left, it allows them to silence political opposition, destroy their political opponents, and falsely set themselves up as “morally superior” for the purpose of rallying their troops. It’s a very effective tool. As far as the Left is concerned, the truth can be damned, because if the accusation of “hate” works, by all means they will use it. This is why the political Left can no longer be reasoned with. This is why dialogue with them has become impossible. As we learned by the Covington Controversy, it is they who hate, and by “they” I mean the political Left in government, education and the mainstream media, for they are all one in the same. We should stop making the mistake of thinking that the Democrats and network news are separate entities. They are not. They are one in the same. Long ago (back in the 1990s) it was shown that over 80% of network news employees vote Democratic. I’m sure that percentage is only higher now. When you watch mainstream network news, you’re getting the talking points of the Democratic Party, reformulated in a news format to appear objective. Let’s not kid ourselves anymore. The Democratic Party practically runs mainstream network news in the United States, and it’s been that way for a very, very, very long time.
I bring this up because we have to understand how the word “hate” is used in modern American conversation. People actually fear being accused of hate, because if the accusation sticks, it could result in the worst form of social ostracism imaginable. People have lost their jobs over this accusation; their careers have been destroyed, and their public reputations annihilated. They have become persona non grata in every way imaginable. Their families are shattered. They’re personal safety is compromised. Threats of violence and death become commonplace. This is what happens when the Leftist/Democratic/Media machine works on character assassination. May God pity the poor soul this happens to, for nobody else will. Typically, the Leftist/Democratic/Media machine centers it’s hate campaigns around racism, misogyny and homophobia. The primary target of the accusation is European (White), Christian men. Though European, Christian women can be targets too.
So terrifying is the accusation of “hate” that people will say or do anything to deflect it off themselves. For fear of being called “homophobic,” straight men will hug and kiss other men. (Yes, I’ve seen it.) For fear of being called misogynist, men will do nothing but praise women endlessly, even to the point of saying that a woman is altogether “better than a man.” (Yes, I’ve seen that too.) For fear of being called racist, people will not only deny the charge in a panic, but throw anyone else under the bus whom they think the charge might stick to. (I think we’ve all seen that!) Socially speaking, we have reached the point of mass hysteria. We’ve come to the point wherein people will sell out their family, friends and neighbors to avoid the charge of “hate” sticking to themselves. They’ll do strange and bizarre things, and act in irrational ways. They’ll even betray their own sexuality and gender, just to “prove” that they don’t “hate.”
Perhaps the most insidious tactic of the Democratic/Media Left is the claim that Christians are not allowed to even experience the emotion of hate, and if they do, they’re not really Christians at all. To back their point, they’ll extract just one passage of Scripture…
If any one says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.
1 John 4:20
It sounds convincing, doesn’t it? Sadly, all too many Christians have bought into this Leftist deception. What the Left does is take the skin of the truth, and stuffs it with a great big fat lie. While it is true that Christians are not allowed to hate other Christians (brothers) and by extension of that, all people in general, nowhere does the passage actually say that Christians cannot ever experience the feeling of “hate.” Nor does it say that Christians are not allowed to hate. It just says that Christians can’t hate other Christians, and by extension, people in general.
Hate, in and of itself, is not a sin. God himself hates, and if God hates, then hate (in and of itself) cannot be a sin. God revealed this to us in Scripture…
You shall not do so to the Lord your God; for every abominable thing which the Lord hates they have done for their gods; for they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods. — Deuteronomy 12:31
And you shall not set up a pillar, which the Lord your God hates. — Deuteronomy 16:22
The Lord tests the righteous and the wicked, and his soul hates him that loves violence. — Psalm 11:5
There are six things which the Lord hates, seven which are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and a man who sows discord among brothers.– Proverbs 6:16-19
For I the Lord love justice, I hate robbery and wrong… — Isaiah 61:8
Thou hast loved righteousness and hated lawlessness… — Hebrews 1:9
Yet this you have, you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. — Revelation 2:6
Are you starting to see a pattern here? The definition of sin is that which opposes God or God’s plan. If God hates, then hate cannot be a sin. God hates. Yet the Scriptures also tell us that “God is love” (1 John 4:8). How can He who is love also hate? Yet the Scriptures tell us that is exactly what he does. The question begs to be asked, exactly who or what does God hate? If you look at the above passages, you’ll start to see a pattern. God hates all that is opposed to him or his plan — namely sin. His “hatred” toward individuals only extends insofar as they have embraced sin and refused to repent. This is not to say that God hates the souls of sinners. On the contrary, he loves them. Rather, he hates what sin does to them. Sin distorts them, perverts them, and makes them into what he never intended them to be. In a very real sense, it is his love for the souls of men that causes him to hate what sin makes those souls become.
So, by extension, what does that mean for those who love God, namely Christians? Can they hate? Should they hate? The answer to both is “yes.” In hating, we Christians must imitate God, but we must also limit our hate to what is within our human authority. God hates sin, and he hates what sin does to people, even to the point of hating what they become, meaning (in a sense) hating them. This is only because of what sin has done to the souls he loves. God is God, and he made humanity, therefore he has authority over humanity. He can love or “hate” whomever he wants. In imitating God, we Christians can and should hate, but we are limited by our own humanity. We cannot hate other human beings. We don’t have the authority to. We can and should, however, hate sin, and we can hate what sin does to people. In fact, it’s healthy to nurture a strong hatred of sin, but in doing so, that should never extend to the souls who commit sin. We don’t have the authority to hate people. We didn’t create humanity, so we can’t hate humanity, nor can we hate individual humans. We can and we should, however, hate sin.
The Lord loves those who hate evil… — Psalm 97:10
I will not set before my eyes anything that is base. I hate the work of those who fall away; it shall not cleave to me. — Psalm 101:3
Through thy precepts I get understanding; therefore I hate every false way. — Psalm 119:104
I hate and abhor falsehood, but I love thy law. — Psalm 119:163
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
Hate evil, and love good, and establish justice in the gate; it may be that the Lord, the God of hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph. — Amos 5:15
I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. — Romans 7:15
Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good — Romans 12:9
God allows us to hate. In fact, he expects it of us, provided of course we hate the right things. It is forbidden for us to hate people, but we are commanded to hate those things that God hates — namely sin. This of course requires us to judge, and as I wrote in a previous essay, God expects us to judge as well. We have to judge between good and evil actions, good and evil ideas, good and evil intentions. God expects us to judge evil and to hate evil. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise!
The political Left, both in politics and the media, who are really just cultural Marxists, have worked very hard to emasculate Christianity — figuratively castrate it — by convincing Christians that they have to be docile little lemmings, who never judge and hate nothing. They measure Christians by their “nice.” How nice are they? Do they never judge? Do they never hate? They’ve convinced too many Christians that to judge and hate is to cease to be Christian, and by convincing us of this, they were able to return Western Civilization to a state of secular and neo-pagan hedonism within the span of just two generations! They emasculated the Church by denying us our God-given right (indeed our Divine mandate) to judge and hate. It’s time for Christians to reclaim that Divine mandate, and get back into the business of judging and hating — not people — but those things opposed to God. In other words: “hate sin, but not sinners.
Shane Schaetzel is an author of Catholic books and an Evangelical convert to the Catholic Church through Anglicanism. His articles have been featured on LifeSiteNews, The Remnant Newspaper, Forward in Christ, and Catholic Online. You can read Shane’s books at ShaneSchaetzel.Com
Real Clear Catholic 
Thanks for a great post Shane.
I set out below an extract from an article I came across on WordPress which I think is directly related to this “mass hysteria” you speak of:
“It seems the collective consciousness that pervades public discourse can only conceive of “sin” in broad social categories, where individual agency is secondary to all else. This perspective reduces man to his material condition—whether it be his economic circumstances, skin color, or sex. Of course the role of culture in the formation of human personality cannot be completely ignored—all that man is, his ability to reason and make moral decisions, is largely founded in his cultural inheritance. However, talking about culture as its own autonomous order solely determined by nature and materialism is not enough to account for the complexity of human agency. Culture is first formed by man’s religious experience, rooted in the fact that he possesses an immaterial soul. To neglect this dimension is to confuse the very nature of man and how he relates to culture.
This tendency to wrap individuality up in an autonomous social order is nothing new. Romano Guardini, an influential Catholic intellectual and priest of the early twentieth century, predicted many of these developments in his book, The End of the Modern World. In it, he notes how the time of “modern man” is coming to an end and a new man is emerging. He calls this man “Mass Man.” He calls him this because the Mass Man is formed by the “masses”—whether it be the “masses” of human culture or the “mass” amount of technology and industrialization that isolates him from the world. Guardini describes Mass Man as the “Man Without Personality” because the “regimented instincts” of this man “forbid him to appear distinctive, compel him to appear anonymous. Mass Man acts almost as if he felt that to be one’s self was both the source of all injustice and even a sign of peril.” Individual personality and agency are destroyed for Mass Man. Man as an individual is left to be subsumed in the masses which arbitrate the new standards of morality, which today are consent-based sexual ethics, limitless human rights created ex nihilo, and in our case, the social sin of “toxic masculinity.”
The Most Reverend Fulton J. Sheen observes this tendency on a more pastoral note in his forward to St. Maximlian Kolbe’s Will to Love. He sees how “for many decades past [in Catholicism], emphasis was put on individual sanctification but with little stress on social justice.” However, now there is a “reaction to the other extreme, when if one carries the banner for racial justice or marches in a protest parade against the building of an atomic reactor, he will find so-called theologians who will deny any guilt to fornicators and those who violate the natural laws of God.” The paradigm shifted from seeing sin primarily as a personal harm against God or neighbor, to sin being primarily a corporate reality where lack of concern for global issues is the primary cause for contrition. Clearly tropes like “toxic masculinity” fall into the latter category as a very broad, corporate sin which is contingent upon your material/social conditions, e.g., being a man.
What is needed now is a return to acknowledging personal, private sins. Pride, lust, and anger are not symptoms of excessive masculinity; rather, they are vices. And what causes these vices is something the latest PC-bandwagon will not address: sin, such as divorce (which leads to fatherless homes), contraception, pornography, and consumerism. These things will always be ignored because they do not mitigate personal responsibility, unlike the broad social categories the media and political elite love to divide us into. It is far too easy to look at the world and demarcate everyone into a group based on ideological persuasion. It is much harder to go and make a good confession for your own sins. It is even harder to do penance in reparation for the sins of others. But both these things are the only solution to a hurting world that has lost its way. So although it is fashionable to talk about the social ails of “toxic masculinity,” it is best we stick to our common Christian parlance, and call sin what it truly is.”
In summary, this author says this about the shift we have witnessed in the culture: from personal sin to “regimented instincts” where “Individual personality and agency are destroyed” and the “individual is left to be subsumed in the masses which arbitrate the new standards”, which pope John Paul II called “the culture of death” some decades ago.
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