Will Rogers traveled throughout our great country and then said, “I never met a man I didn’t like.” I can’t honestly say that and I doubt there are many people who can. What I can say is that I never met anyone – man or woman – that I could hate. To like or not like someone is a rational decision we all make every day based on a person’s words, actions and attitude. To hate someone, on the other hand, is a very strong emotion that has nothing to do with rational thinking.
One common misconception people have is that hate is the opposite of love. Actually the opposite of love is indifference. You care about someone or you don’t. Love (deepest caring) is at one end of the spectrum and indifference (not caring at all) is at the other end and hatred is nowhere to be found on the love scale.
Another misconception is that anger and hatred are the same thing only differing in degree. Anger is our rational reaction to an action, event or injustice. It is focused and it is temporary. Hatred is an irrational reaction toward a person or group of people based on lies by someone who intends it to be a permanent condition. Once inside us hatred eats away like termites quietly eating away the inside of a wood support beam until all that is left is a hollow shell. Yes, it sometimes causes harm to those who are the object of the hatred, but it always destroys the hater mentally, spiritually and even physically.
No one is born with hatred in his or her heart. So what is the source – how does it get there? Someone respected and trusted teaches it to us, using our trust and respect to instill lies about a person or certain group of people to promote that person’s bias. A refugee from North Korea spoke about the severe starvation in that country. He said all of the hungry first graders are taught when they enter school that the reason they are so hungry is because every time their caring leader buys ship loads of rice to feed the people the United States sinks every ship before it reaches shore. Those are seeds of hatred against us that are being sown in the hearts of five and six year old children.
The sparks of racial hatred that were all around me as I grew up in the 1950’s and 1960’s were fanned into flames by the lies of cult groups that even debased the symbol of Christianity (the cross) in their expression of that hatred. My father became the object of some of those haters when as president of his local union in Evansville, Indiana; he made sure his union represented all workers, including African-Americans.
We all saw firsthand the flames of hatred as those planes flew into the twin towers and the Pentagon on September 11th, 2001. Some have asked how those terrorists could hate us so much, insinuating that we must have done something really bad to deserve that much rage against us. The fact is, those men were educated in mosques and schools run by Muslim clerics of an extreme cult in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. From the beginning of their “education” they were indoctrinated daily with the lie that Israel, the United States and anyone who supports them are part of the great Satan that threatens the very existence of Islam and the sparks of hatred within them were produced. Those sparks were fanned into flames of hatred with the lies that it was their duty to Allah to eliminate all who threaten Islam. By that time, their hatred included everyone who was not a member of their cult. Nothing we could say or do as individuals or as a nation could influence them in the least.
The antidote for hatred has always been truth. All sources of hate have one lie in common. They all say that those who are the object of the hatred are liars. That keeps the haters from getting to know those they hate and learn the truth about them. The lies of racial supremacy groups were shattered when integration and individual racial interaction made the truth clear that we all share the same needs and hopes. As Christians, we are in the best position to combat hatred with the truth of God’s word, the teachings and example of Jesus Christ throughout his life, death and resurrection, and the promptings of His “Spirit of truth” within us.