The Object of Hatred

The object of hate knows it is being hated.

By "object" I don't mean "purpose" because that wouldn't make sense. The object of hate is that which is being hated. For example, if I hated you, then you would be the object of my hatred. The person being hated knows he is being hated, regardless of what the hater says.

The Roman Catholics

Let's take as an example the Roman Catholic inquisition that occurred so very long ago. Why would the Catholics so cruelly torture people? They, of course, claimed they were doing it in love. You see, the Catholics acknowledge no authority higher than themselves on earth. The Church is God's representative. What you do to the church, you do to God. Any offense against God is an offense against the church. The Roman Catholics do not even acknowledge the Bible, God's Word, as an authority above themselves. Thus, only the Roman Catholics, the author and creator of the Bible, have the right to interpret the Bible. "The Bible means what we say it means."

To oppose God means punishment in hell. Therefore, to oppose the Church means punishment in hell. If the Church orders that the Bible may not be translated into English and you translate the Bible into English, then you're going to be punished in hell. Wycliffe was burned at the stake by the Roman Catholic Church because he translated the Bible into English.

Now comes the really neat part. God doesn't want anybody to go to hell; therefore the Church doesn't want anybody to go to hell. But if you oppose the church, you must suffer punishment for your heresy. In order to keep you from suffering the awful punishment of hell, the church in its wisdom and love decided to punish you in the here and now, with the expectation that would replace punishment in hell. Therefore, the Roman Catholic Church devised all sorts of wonderful ways to extract the most exquisite pain, such as slow roasting over an open fire. Or they may wonder what your intestines looked like and opened you up to take a peek. They would even let you see it, too. All this was done to save your soul from hell, to lead you to repentance and to purge your sins. They did it because they loved you, to save you from hell.

When There Is No Difference between Love and Hate

But I say that if a person cannot tell the difference between love and hate, then it is hate. The object of hate knows it is being hated - regardless of what the perpetrator says. If you pick somebody who hates you beyond imagination and wants you to suffer the most cruel and violent pain, and that person would be glad to do to you exactly what the Roman Catholics were willing to do to you in love, then there is no difference. It is hate, regardless of who does it to you or of what the Roman Catholics say.

Jerry Falwell

Do I point out the Roman Catholics only? No, no, no. Let's take someone from another persuasion. Do you know a guy by the name of Pastor Jerry Falwell in Lynchburg, Virginia? Those of us who are on the biting end of his rhetoric know who Jerry Falwell is.

Does Falwell hate gays? No, of course not. That is why he tells gay people they cannot please God if they are gay. That is why he says gay people cannot "inherit the kingdom of God." No, instead of telling gay people that God loves them just as they are, that Christ died for them just as they are, he tells them that they must become what they are not in order to please God. He does not tell heterosexuals they must stop being heterosexual in order to be saved. He does not tell black people they must stop being black in order to please God. But for some reason known to himself, Jerry Falwell brings the love of God to gays by demanding they become what are not before they can receive God's love, mercy and forgiveness.

Because of this impossible demand, gays turn from God. Falwell won't let them come to God; therefore they turn away. Because Falwell claims to proclaim God's word and gay people (for some reason) are deluded into believing it, the gays have no alternative but to leave the church. Sadly, because parents of gay children also believe Falwell, they also are complicit in expelling their own children from their home... all because God loves them and they are showing God's love.

Let me ask a question, if your direst enemy decided to do the greatest damage to you imaginable, could he do more than to drive an everlasting wedge between you and God, between you and other Christians, between you and your parents or children? Could your enemy do worse than to make you an outcast from all that is your life and your love?

Well, if you cannot tell the difference between what Jerry Falwell does to gays in love and what the greatest homophobe does to gays in hatred, then how can there be a difference?

The people who are being hated know they are being hated, regardless of the confusing words of love their enemies throw at them.

Take A Lesson

Are you the person who has rejected a gay family member? You're not fooling God nor are you kidding the object of your hatred. The only person you are fooling is yourself when you hate somebody and call it love.

Are you the child of a gay person? Did you break faith with your father because he is gay? And do you call that breaking faith "love"? Did you take away your children so they could not associate with their grandfather because you don't want to expose them to "that kind of life"?

If you did, then don't tell your father you love him. Breaking faith with your father and depriving him of his grandchildren is horribly cruel to both grandfather and grandchild, and there's no love in it nor is there obedience to God in it. What worse thing could you do to your father if you hated him with your whole heart and soul and mind?

To add to this heinous crime, you do it in the name of God. How strange it is that God could love a gay father but the father's own daughter cannot - and she withholds her love in the name of God. That is true perversion. How strange it is that God can accept gays just as they are, but somehow you don't.

God forgive you.