From The Archives

Source: FF

Doing a little more research for the book and stumbled across this...

The Upside Of Hate

What do you hate?

As a Christian I find this question instructive. Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting you run around and start hating things cuz' ole Jake said it was okay. But we all hate something, maybe more than one something.

And sometimes that's a good thing.

I think hate tells us where we stand...

Psalm 45:7You love righteousness and hate wickedness; therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions by anointing you with the oil of joy.

Note that loving righteousness is only half the deal here. Hating the wickedness completes the circle.

I think maybe, just maybe Christians have become a little too namby-pamby. The goal these days seems to me to be as inoffensive as possible, and of course, nice.

Oh! how I loathe that word. Nice, it just oozes off the tongue like a dollop of shortening. Isn't he nice, wasn't that a nice sermon, she's just soooo nice.

I came to accept Jesus in the back of a restaurant at two o'clock in the morning after an all day shift. I almost punched the guy who witnessed to me in the face. I wasn't very nice.

I've always struggled with traditional churches. Don't get me wrong, I think church is important, I also think you'll have a hell of a time convincing me that the watered down Sunday snooze fest is what God had in mind when he coined the term.

Romans 12:9 [ Love ] Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.

Niceness is the Christian PC.

Allow me too elucidate.

I'm sure we've all seen the picture of Christ toting the lamb around over his shoulders, yes? Okay, do you know what that symbolizes?

Most don't. The symbology of that famous picture is how Christ deals with those who've come to accept him and then strayed. When a shephard has a sheep that keeps wandering away he breaks it's legs and carries it over his shoulders until the legs heal. During that time the lamb bonds with the shephard and usually never runs away again. He breaks it's legs, kind of tough that, not terribly PC.

Something I've noticed in the bible is that church is almost invariably in someone's home. I think there's a reason for that. By meeting in people's homes we symbolically invade their lives and ideally grow closer facilitating positive fellowship, just like we would with friends.

Does your church feel like a home? Not one of the many we've attended in our many travels has to me. That's not to knock them, it's just the truth. God's house is all too often a sterile and empty place.

You caught the joke right? If God's home is in our heart why in His name would we require some sort of expensive edifice in which to worship him.

We don't and never did. And after building our towers of Babel we began to accrete a sort of Christian etiquette, Christian ejaculates, Christian appearances.

I hate that, always have and probably always will. Because so long as we pretend that being a Christian is some manner of acting, the clothes you wear, how you swear or the music you listen to, we ain't getting it.

Jesus came to save every-damn-body not just mild mannered, no swearing, talk in a hushed voice folk. He even came to save the folks who don't look or act* like Christians.

He even came to save me.

* When I say act I mean in the wordly sense of not appearing like a good little christian (whatever that may be)