Let me make a simple statement that I genuinely believe to be true: I do not hate anyone.

I sincerely hope that is true; I pray it is true. I could be wrong, for God knows the depths of my heart. And in that regard, He certainly knows I do not want to hate anyone.

Sure, there are people I would prefer to not associate with if I could avoid them, but I don’t hate them. I just may not like the way they operate. I’m sure the same is true for you. And while there are people who may hate me because of decisions I have been forced to make, that’s on them, not me.

The point to all that is this: Christians challenge themselves to love and not hate, to live in the spirit and rise above the lowest of human impulses and emotions. I believe to promote responses that support hatred under the guise of religion is a reflection of religion gone wrong.
And when a religion goes wrong, disturbed individuals who want easy answers and a way to act on those disturbances will naturally gravitate toward that religion.

Now, hearing this, you might shrug your shoulders and say, “Well, Bob, that’s their problem. It doesn’t affect me as a Christian.” And that may be partially true —until someone walks into a nightclub and opens fire, killing 49 innocent people. Then, we are forced to deal with their evil, eliminate it, and do so at their level.

So, let me also say that this fight — our fight — is not against Muslims (it is against radicalized extremists, the part of Islam that has gone wrong), or homosexuals (Sunday morning’s killings were in a gay club), or gun ownership. Our fight is against hatred. Hatred for hatred’s sake, for no reason other than to facilitate evil.

I will not use the perpetrator’s name here. He deserves no more attention than he has already received. And hatred, for the sake of facilitating evil, has one name. We Christians oppose that name with the name of Jesus, the Christ.

The shooter in the worst act of terrorism on American soil since September 11, 2001, declared his allegiance to ISIS before firing hundreds of rounds into the crowd. Hours later, ISIS claimed responsibility in a statement released over an encrypted phone app used by the group. Interestingly, the perpetrator had never stepped foot in an Islamic country. Such is evil’s far-reaching power.

The shooter’s father said of his now-deceased son, “I did not know and did not understand that he has anger in his heart.” Yes, that is where hatred resides — in the heart, and no one is safe from such hatred. Homosexuals today, some other group tomorrow. Soon, it may be you.
I see our job as two-fold. First, we must meet ISIS where ISIS is, neutralizing them at their root and on their level. I pray and support my friends in the military who take on this difficult task.

Second, we must be careful not to let hatred seep into our hearts. And that may be an even more difficult task.

Christians must remain grounded in love, or risk becoming like the enemy. For the enemy is hatred itself – the anti-love, the anti-God.