HATE, HATE CRIMES, AND THE DUPLICITY OF DESIGNATING EVIL.

By now, you've heard the news. A gunman killed five people and injured at least 25 others at an LGBTQ nightclub late Saturday in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

​Yesterday, authorities identified Anderson Lee Aldrich, 22, as the sole suspect whom they took into custody shortly after arriving on site at Club Q. Police are still investigating the gunman's motive and whether the attack constitutes a hate crime.

Today, I want to take a moment to look at this story and unpack concepts like murder, hate, sin, and hate crime, from a Christian point-of-view.

IS HATE A CRIME?
Putting aside the reality that we'd be hard-pressed to actually come to a consensus on a definition of what hate actually means, we must press in for some semblance of clarity on the word. Especially since concepts like hate crimes and hateful rhetoric take center stage in unfortunate circumstances like what occurred at Club Q.

So, the immediate question that needs to be asked and answered is this: is hate a crime? To say it a bit differently, since this is a blog post on a Christian Worldview platform, is hate wrong? 

Much to the shock and surprise of nominal Christians, the bible actually never condemns hate. At least not outright. In fact, biblically speaking, there are both positive and negative aspects to hatred.

For example, a Christian should hate those things that God hates; indeed, this is very much a proof of a right standing with God. “Let those who love the Lord hate evil” (Psalm 97:10a).

The closer our walk with the Lord and the more we fellowship with Him, the more aware and awake we will be of sin; first our own and then the sin of the culture. The more we understand God’s holiness and the more we love his character, the deeper our desire will be to be like Him. This means that we will not only hate the things that are contrary to His Word and nature, but we will also be bold in speaking out for these things; as God makes his appeal to the world through us.

So, hate in and of itself is not anti-Christian. Though the world certainly defines this word in different terms, Christians must understand clearly that there are things in scripture God explicitly tells us he hates and tells us why he hates them.
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The God who loves all that is good and pure and holy must hate all that is evil and defiled and perverse...[In Scripture] we arrive at a list of more than 40 things that God expressly hates. They range from abhorrent sexual practices to pagan forms of worship to acts of grave injustice. 

Of course we must also understand that there are sinful ways to push against evil. There are many spiritually treasonous acts which have happened—throughout history in the name of God—which are themselves hateful, sinful, and evil. Evil is never overcome with evil, but rather with good (Rom. 12:21). 

IS CALLING SINNERS TO REPENTENCE A HATE CRIME?
But here's the catch. Our culture has not only embraced certain forms of evil, but has also labeled certain forms of godliness as evil. Case in point: when the news broke of the violence and murders at Club Q in Colorado Springs, with it came the denunciations from the culture of those who have taken a biblical stance and condemned sexual immorality; including the practice and celebration of homosexuality.

Here are a few examples:
"Places that are supposed to be safe spaces of acceptance and celebration should never be turned into places of terror and violence. Yet it happens far too often. We must drive out the inequities that contribute to violence against LGBTQI+ people. We cannot and must not tolerate hate."
| President Joe Biden

"We can not, will not, allow hate to win. We must end this in our time. No rest until all of us, including all of us in the LGBTQ+ community, can be, and feel, safe."
| Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg

"You can draw a straight line from the false and vile rhetoric about LGBTQ people spread by extremists and amplified across social media, to the nearly 300 anti-LGBTQ bills introduced this year, to the dozens of attacks on our community like this one."
| Sarah Kate Ellis, President and CEO of GLAAD

So, it would seem, that culture's issue isn't simply one man's evil decision to murder people at Club Q—for reasons still unknown at this point—but also, and maybe even more pointedly, the inequalities, condemnation, and legislation which seems to be coming from those who refuse to affirm and celebrate the evil practice of sexual immorality. 

In essence, calling sinners to repentance is considered false and vile rhetoric. And at least according to some proponents of sexual immorality, should not only be considered extremism but should also carry direct responsibility for what happened at Club Q on Saturday night. 

THE CONFUSION WITH SIN & HATE
Which brings me to my final point. What we've discovered in all of this mess is just how messy the rules of engagement can be, for Christians who are trying to stand with one foot firmly planted on side of cultural-acceptance and one teeny little pinky toe lightly touching the side of Biblical truth.

On one hand, it is absolutely right for Christians to lament the sinful, hateful, dreadful, evil murders which took place at Club Q. Murder is evil. Murder is wrong. Murder is sin. Christians should be the loudest voices crying out over all forms of the devaluation, destruction, and dissipation of the value of human life.  

The lives that were taken, at Club Q, were connected to people who bore the image of God; regardless how they chose to represent him or reject him. There is no room, within Christendom, for any followers of Christ to do anything other than mourn with those who mourn and weep with those who weep; because of the (5) souls who were murdered. This is our biblical command and responsibility as followers of Christ.

Yet, murder isn't the only sin in play here, is it? So, why is it that many professing Christians will openly and publicly wail at the loss of life in a gay bar, but refuse to openly and publicly mourn the very existence of the gay bar? 

A public display of godlessness should never be viewed, by Christians, as spiritually or culturally neutral. What other decadent establishments would Christians so lackadaisically embrace? The existence of a "gay bar" should be something that makes Christians weep. That brings them to the same kind of mourning and lamentation as the murders of those people who were killed in that very establishment.

Murder is sin and so is homosexuality. Unrepentant murder leads to spiritual death and so does unrepentant homosexuality, sodomy, fornication, and sexual immorality. The only biblical distinction made between murder and sexual immorality is that Paul considers the later to be more egregious, because it is man's choice to sin against his own body.
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Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.

1 Corinthians 6:18

So, while the nation mourns, rightly, about the (5) murders which occurred at ClubQ in Colorado Springs, Christians should also spend some time reflecting; asking ourselves whether we are more prone to grieve the loss of life because of one man's senseless acts of violence or the spiritual callousness of an entire culture because many men and women have embraced sexual immorality so much—that we literally establish public venues where this form of sin can be celebrated, elevated, and normalized.