Hate

Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I’ve tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice. (Robert Frost, “Fire and Ice”)

Frost’s experience is that of humankind, for all people have come into contact with hate. One dictionary defines hate as “to have strong dislike or ill will for; loathe; despise.” This same attitude was well known in Scripture, mostly in a negative sense and closely related to anger. We will examine these powerful personal dispositions.

The Bible and Emotions

In the Bible neither hate nor anger is an emotion. We use the term anger to describe what we feel when someone injures us. Given a threat or injury (emotional or physical), our body pours adrenaline into the bloodstream, and we get ready to fight or flee. We also have some automatic angry thoughts, which flash into our minds in a fraction of a second. The Bible does not condemn this automatic response, for it is given by God to protect us. But as soon as the automatic response flashes by, we have a choice, even if we at first are not aware of it. We can choose to act out our inner feelings of anger (often a once-and-done action); we can choose to let our anger settle into a disposition of hatred toward the other person or object (which is acted out later as vengeance); or we can choose to resolve our anger (and its resulting hatred) in another way.

What One Should Hate

The Bible does not have much good to say about human anger (2 Cor. 12:20; Galatians 5:20; Ephes. 4:31; Col. 3:8; 1 Tim. 2:8; James 1:19-20), for it is too uncontrollable and does not produce God’s type of righteousness. But there are some things that godly people should hate (that is, loathe or despise). These include bribes (Exodus 18:21; Proverbs 15:27), evildoers (Psalm 5:5; Psalm 26:5; Psalm 45:7; Psalm 119:113), idolaters (Psalm 31:6), evil ways (Psalm 97:10; Psalm 101:3; Amos 5:15; Romans 12:9; Rev. 2:6), falsehood (Psalm 119:163; Proverbs 13:5), proud, arrogant or perverted speech (Proverbs 8:13), bloodshed and violence (Ezekiel 35:6; Malachi 2:16) and divorce (Malachi 2:16). When it comes to the evildoers, it is especially important to note that hatred is not anger but a disposition that finds what they do distasteful and thus does not in any way admire them.

What God tells us to hate is in tension with our culture, which parades such things before our eyes in movies, television and print, often trying to get us to admire what God says to despise. More difficult for us are the sayings of Jesus that call us to hate our parents (Luke 14:26) or lives (John 12:25). In these cases hate is used in contrast with our love of Christ. That is, when parents (to whom in an ancient culture one was to show lifelong respect and obedience) or even the drive to preserve our own lives gets in the way of loyalty to Christ, we should firmly reject them, even with a shudder at what destruction such temptation could do to us. Thus Scripture teaches there is “a time to hate” (Eccles. 3:8).

Psychology also teaches us that there is a time to hate. If one does not hate (in the sense of dislike and reject) evil, then that person is some form of a sociopath. Such people, because they do not experience evil as distasteful, may not only tolerate others’ doing it but may also enjoy being spectators of evil (such as people who have observes a rape or murder without intervening in any way) or even perpetrators. One of the difficult problems in victim-offender reconciliation is getting the offender to experience what he or she did as evil.

While many of the behaviors God tells us to hate are objectionable to society and the lack of sensitivity to them is defined as a personality disorder, the Scripture argues that society as a whole has become desensitized to evil. Desensitization implies that acts of violence and other forms of evil that today are considered bad by society may in time come to be viewed as normal. While this is obvious in the human tolerance of rebellion against God, texts such as Genesis 4:23-24; Genesis 6:5-6, 11; and Romans 1:18-32 show that the same process of desensitization takes place in the areas of violence, sexuality and the like. Unfortunately, Christians have tended to reflect societal values more than Scripture’s, as one sees in the extreme case of the sociopathic society of the Third Reich, in which most evangelical Christians did nothing to protest against the evil creeping into German society.

What One Should Not Hate

The Scripture also clearly says there are some things we should not hate. The chief of these is God (Exodus 20:5), followed by our brother or sister (or member of our faith community; Leviticus 19:17; 1 John 3:15; 1 John 4:20). Here we notice the difference between hate and anger, for we may be disappointed, frustrated and angry when God does not do what we expect, but we should not let this settle into a disposition of loathing or rejection. Job, for example, expresses his hurt and anger to God but refuses to turn away from him. Finally, we should not hate discipline (Psalm 50:17; Proverbs 12:1; Amos 5:10). While we do not want to hear rebuke, Scripture tells us to embrace it, for it is good for us. The list of what not to hate is short, for Scripture usually talks about its opposite—love. Thus love of God and fellow community members (and even enemies) is emphasized throughout Scripture.

Psychology likewise teaches us that nursed anger or hatred is unhealthy, even if through denial we push it so deep within that we are not aware of it ourselves. On the one hand, the hatred often crops up in dysfunctional ways in other relationships (for example, hatred of a parent may be quite destructive in one’s own marriage). On the other hand, psychosomatic medicine links hatred of people to all sorts of diseases: ulcers, heart problems, cancer and arthritis, to name only a few. Ignoring what the Bible says about hatred can be literally self-destructive.

Dealing with Hate and Anger

If individuals find themselves hating things we should love or not hating what we should hate, Scripture calls for repentance. However, the temptation is to fall into anger (a sharp and hard attack) rather than hatred (a despising or loathing), even toward those things we are taught to hate, and then hate our brother or sister, whom we should not hate. Rather than rationalizing this sin (“It is really righteous indignation” or “They are not part of my church or denomination”), Scripture suggests a solution. Even if the person is truly an enemy, we should love him or her, which does not mean having a positive emotional response but doing concrete deeds of kindness (Luke 6:22, 27). This love does not include accepting the evil of the enemy, for while we are told to love the enemy, we are never told to love his or her evil. In fact, part of this love is forgiveness (for example, Matthew 6:12, 14-15; Matthew 18:21-22, 35), which means a recognition that evil has been done to us, followed by a choice to release the “debt” and suffer the evil rather than to seek vengeance or repayment. By doing this, we are able to recognize, rather than deny or rationalize, anger and also deal with it so it does not “give the devil a foothold” (Ephes. 4:26-27).

» See also: Conflict Resolution

» See also: Emotions

» See also: Love

References and Resources

D. Augsburger, Caring Enough to Confront (Glendale, Calif.: Regal Books, 1981); R. Frost, D. Jones and D. Bradley, Robert Frost, a Tribute to the Source (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1979); B. Ghezzi and M. Kinzer, Emotions as Resources (Ann Arbor, Mich.: Servant, 1983).

—Peter Davids