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February 28, 2008

What's Not To Love?

Heresy, for one thing, and ideas with bad consequences, according to this posting at Kairos Journal. And it's not just something not to love, but this article calls for hate, in the sense of Revelation 2:6.

Christians are taught to love, but there are also things they must hate. This biblical hatred is not petty dislike or a retaliatory impulse; it is passionate antipathy toward an idea and its outworking. It means enmity with the prevailing heresies and degeneracies which plague particular cultures.

Yes, positively, we're called to think on whatsoever things are "lovely, pure" and so on.  Unfortunately, whether we like it or not, there are some things that are just, well, loathsome. Or can't I say that in the Golden Age of Tolerance?

Posted by James M. Kushiner at 04:48 PM | Permalink

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Kairos is an extremely interesting journal. What's not to love? Thanks for the link!

Posted by: Bill R | Feb 28, 2008 5:21:03 PM

Problem is when you screw up in deciding what is hate-worthy.

Then you just end up looking silly. Angry and silly.

Posted by: Seth R. | Feb 28, 2008 6:33:24 PM

I might add, we are called to hate false teaching inside the church, even first before we hate the falsehood outside.

I've seldom hated anything so much as being swindled into doing ungodly things by my own teachers in church, the people I'm supposed to be able to trust.

Posted by: Clifford Simon | Feb 28, 2008 7:01:37 PM

We are to love what God loves, and hate what God hates. How many churches could a pastor get away with saying that?

Posted by: labrialumn | Feb 28, 2008 11:06:18 PM

Seth, there is a good rule for deciding what to hate: it's what the church has always hated. Pay careful and respectful attention to the history of the Church from the beginning and the boundaries of the faith will become clear. Hate what has been condemned outside those boundaries.

That list would include heresies like Mormonism as well as the Arianism, Adoptionism and Ebionitism that prevails in liberal "Christianity".

Posted by: Christopher Hathaway | Feb 29, 2008 10:03:22 AM

If you love Who you love, you will hate what hates Him. I don't think it is necessary or profitable to set out on missions of hate separate from that; or to set up concepts as hate-worthy to prevent our considering other people, anymore than we set up concepts as love-worthy to prevent our considering God.

Peace,
PGE

Posted by: pgepps | Feb 29, 2008 10:25:22 AM

Hatred by consensus Christopher?

Hope you'll forgive me for noting, that doesn't sound madly inspiring.

Posted by: Seth R. | Feb 29, 2008 5:54:38 PM

Its not consensus...which is kind of the point. Now I do remember Mr. Altena claiming anger was never allowed and with it hate. Hopefully when he comes back he'll comment here.

Posted by: Nick | Mar 1, 2008 5:06:31 PM

we are definitely lacking in hatred for sin.
our hatred of sin falls short of God's hatred just like our Love usually does

Posted by: brian | Mar 10, 2008 3:39:03 PM

Nick wrote:

"Now I do remember Mr. Altena claiming anger was never allowed and with it hate. Hopefully when he comes back he'll comment here."

This refers back to a discussion on the final third of the MC thread "Christophobia" from 09/24/07 (beginning with my typo-riddled entry dated 09/28/07 3:22:41 pm), but -- as can be seen from re-reading those comments, by which I stand -- it seriously misrepresents my position. I never said that "anger was never allowed and with it hate." What I said was that human anger and hatred, that proceeds from the passions, from our fallen human nature, is not the same as godly wrath, and that human anger and hatred of this sort is always sinful, because it is an idolatrous assertion of selfish desires rather than a selfless seeking for the will of God. That is not to say that it is impossible for us to exercise a truly godly wrath; but it is very rare, because it requires a degree and cultivation of detachment from the world and self that few Christians anymore even recognize to be necessary. We are thus far more likely to deceive ourselves and indulge this sin under a cloak of self-justifying righteousness. The things that make us angry are seldom the ones that truly excite the righteous wrath of God.

Thus, one must recognize that the "hatred" discussed here is -- or ought to be, properly speaking -- a dispassionate hatred. The quoted passage is a bit unfortunate and potentially misleading in saying "passionate antipathy" rather than e.g. "utter antipathy." It uses "passionate" as an intensifier meaning "extremely strong"; whereas in classical Christian ascetical theology the "passions" (Greek "epithumia") refer to the disordered desires of fallen human nature. "Epi-" is a prefix meaning literally "upon" or "over" in the sense of superimposition. "Thumia" comes from "thumos", meaning rage or irascibility. It is generally translated as "wrath" in the KJV, wherein a distinction is consistently made between the righteous "thumos" of God and the unrighteous "thumos" of man (see., e.g., Rom. 2:5-8 and Col. 3:6-8). St. Paul specifically condemns and rejects human "thumos" in Rom. 2:8, Gal. 5:20, Eph. 2:3, 4:26, 4:31, 6:4, and I Tim. 2:8. Also see James 1:19-20, my initial point of reference: "Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath: For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God." Church fathers such as Evagrius Ponticus hold "thumos" to be the dominant element in the nature of demons. Similarly, the Greek word translated "anger" in the NT (seldom used -- but see St. Paul's condemnations of it in Eph. 4:31 and Col. 3:8) is "orge", the word for the frenzy of the Maenads who tore Orpheus limb from limb in the Dionysian (Bacchic) orgies.

Posted by: James A. Altena | Mar 24, 2008 5:07:19 AM

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