But the encounter reminded me of a conversation we had a few weeks ago in Queer Church’s Affirming Bible Study*. Our study was on the topic “Things the Bible Doesn’t Say,” and while discussing the phrase “love the sinner, hate the sin,” the question arose, does God hate, and does God call us to hate?
There are many churches that would immediately answer both of those questions with a resounding “yes!” If you asked them to elaborate on who God hates, their answer would be a list of all the people they hate. It’s always amazing to me to see how quick we are to assume that God hates all the same people we do.
But I don’t think the answer is that simple. The Bible does talk about God and hate. The Psalms often describe God’s hate for evil and evildoers. For example, Psalm 5:5 states: “The boastful shall not stand before your eyes; you hate all evildoers.” Proverbs goes into more details about what God hates:
There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that hurry to run to evil, a lying witness who testifies falsely, and one who sows discord in a family. Proverbs 6:16-19 (NRSV) |
I don’t believe that God hates people. God created us in Their image, and therefore loves us unconditionally. I do believe that God hates it when we mistreat each other and creation. Racism, homophobia, sexism, xenophobia, ableism, all of the way that our hatred for each other manifests, these are things that God hates. But God’s love for us remains unconditional. God can hate the evil acts we commit and it won’t decrease Their love for us in even the tiniest amount. This means God will never give up on us and continues to call us to repent of the many ways that we harm each other so that we can find reconciliation with God and the rest of the world.
But we are not God. It is not so easy for us to love each other unconditionally as God does. We may have good intentions, we may claim we truly “love the sinner, but hate the sin”, but when we introduce hate into the conversation, it is too easy for us to slip from hating the sin, to hating the person committing the sin. This is all too evident in how LGBTQ people are treated in churches that condemn homosexuality. No matter how much conservative churches might claim to love LGBTQ people, their actions towards them demonstrate only hate.
But this applies to the progressive perspective as well. For example, I believe God wants us to stand up against racism and call people who are complicit in systemic racism to repent. But we must be careful about introducing hate into the conversation. I can hate the institution of racism and the harm that it causes, but when I start applying that to individuals, for instance if I tell someone that I love them but I hate their sin of racism, then I start down a slippery slope. Human nature being what it is, it is simply too difficult for to separate the actions from the person, and our hate towards their actions quickly turns into hate for the person themselves. If we are to love our neighbors (and enemies) as God commands us to, we have to stay away from hate. That doesn’t mean we allow evils such as racism to go unchallenged. Calling people to repent and do better, showing them a better way, is a way of loving people. But anything that gets in the way of loving our neighbors as ourselves must be rejected.
We must recognize that we are limited in ways God is not. Our capacity to love is not as great as God’s, and we should therefore prioritize love and set hate aside. Love people, call them to repent of the harm they cause, but don’t let yourself be pulled down by hate.
So to circle back to our original questions:
Who does God hate? No one.
Does God call us to hate? Absolutely not!
*Affirming Bible Study is for LGBTQ people and allies seeking a radically affirming space to study scripture. We meet over Zoom on Tuesdays at 8pm eastern, 5pm pacific. If you are interested in joining us, go to the Queer Church page and send us a private message asking for the Zoom link.