In the climactic chapter of the science fiction novel Perelandra, C. S. Lewis’ hero Elwin Ransom squares off against Satan incarnate and experiences, not horror, but joy.
The joy came from finding at last what hatred was made for. As a boy with an axe rejoices on finding a tree, or a boy with a box of coloured chalks rejoices on finding a pile of perfectly white paper, so he rejoiced in the perfect congruity between his emotion and its object.
Paul seems to express the same thought in Romans 12.9. In calling for love without masks, the apostle insists that the two emotions of abhorrence and affection find their proper objects. Love does not smile at evil; hypocrisy does. Love liberates by confrontation where hypocrisy tolerates by dissimulation.
Nor does Paul blunt the scalpel-sharp surfaces of his language: Abhor appears only here in the New Testament and describes a desire for utter and absolute separation from the object. Cling literally refers to glue. The Christian faith faces its followers with the non-negotiable either/or that defines true sincerity.
Perhaps the most interesting thing is that the passage assumes a clear line between the two alternatives. In a day when the only absolute is that there are no absolutes, when multiculturalism has mashed morality into an indistinct mush, the rugged outlines of revealed truth insist on an unreconstructed “Thou shalt not.”
It is one thing to realize that I may not be righteous. It is quite another to deny that righteousness exists. “What we suffer from today,” complains G. K. Chesterton, “is humility in the wrong place. Modesty has moved from the organ of ambition. Modesty has settled upon the organ of conviction; where it was never meant to be. A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been exactly reversed.” Doubt about truth mixed with certainty about self leads to hypocritical love that refuses to speak the hard, healing words of righteousness.
We should note, however, that while Paul does not tell us not to hate, he does tell us what to hate. We hate evil, but not evil-doers. We fight wicked actions with love’s counter-punch, landing blows that break no bones, but instead hammer at hardened hearts. Love’s flame kindles a fire of shame that eventually melts its way through the thickest of skulls. Unhypocritical love confronts wrong with a single face, takes the one-two punch of wickedness, and continues to insist through bloodied teeth that God has a better way.
Perhaps the best commentary on this passage comes from its practical application by Martin Luther King, Jr., in his Christmas Eve sermon on Peace from 1967:
I've seen too much hate to want to hate, myself, and I've seen hate on the faces of too many sheriffs, too many white citizens' councilors, and too many Klansmen of the South to want to hate, myself; and every time I see it, I say to myself, hate is too great a burden to bear. Somehow we must be able to stand up before our most bitter opponents and say: “We shall match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering. We will meet your physical force with soul force. Do to us what you will and we will still love you. We cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws and abide by the unjust system, because non-cooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good, and so throw us in jail and we will still love you. Bomb our homes and threaten our children, and, as difficult as it is, we will still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our communities at the midnight hour and drag us out on some wayside road and leave us half-dead as you beat us, and we will still love you. Send your propaganda agents around the country, and make it appear that we are not fit, culturally and otherwise, for integration, and we'll still love you. But be assured that we'll wear you down by our capacity to suffer, and one day we will win our freedom. We will not only win freedom for ourselves; we will so appeal to your heart and conscience that we will win you in the process, and our victory will be a double victory.”
Peace Out,
Doug
Collect
Heavenly Father, Your Son’s cross shows us at once Your hatred of evil, and Your love for us who commit it. Grant us grace to remove the mask of accommodation in order to speak right to the face of wrong, that the living love of our crucified Lord may overcome evil with good. This we ask of You, Father, in the name of Your Son Jesus Christ who reigns together with you in the Holy Spirit, One God now and forever, Amen.
Benediction
May you flee so far and fast from everything that’s evil
That you fly into the arms of everything that’s good.
May you sink so long and low in doing what is good
That you lift others higher in everything that’s good.
May you stand so straight and strong in the face of evil deeds
That blessing outlasts cursing and overcomes with good.
In the Name of the perfect love
Of Father, Son, and Spirit,
Amen.
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