In these days, when men are making a cure-all of love and demand total love of all things, the words of Scripture are a refreshing and healthy antidote. Jesus Christ, in speaking to the church of Ephesus, commended them because they hated what He hated: “But this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitanes, which I also hate” (Rev. 2:6). There are many such declarations in Scripture: all assume the necessity for hating as a part of the privilege of love. If we love that which is good, we will hate that which is evil. If we love and honor the joys and sanctity of marriage and family life, we will hate everything that works to destroy it. If we love our Christian faith and heritage, we will hate the anti-Christian forces that wage war against us. And if we love our country, we will hate those who subvert it, wage war against it, or seek to destroy it.
Love and hate are different sides of the same coin. Those who claim to be above hate are also beyond love. They do not feel strongly enough about anything to love it and hate its opposite. Such people are emotionally and intellectually sterile.
The love-mongers, who preach endlessly about loving everything and “love” as a way of salvation, are really not talking about love. They are asking for the toleration of evil. Anyone who asks us to love unrepentant criminals, subversives, hoodlums, rioters, and ungodly and anti-Christian persons is asking us to tolerate these people and to allow them to have their way. They are asking us to tolerate evil, to give it freedom to destroy us, and to destroy our Christian law and order. Anyone who asks us to tolerate evil is actually asking us to love evil and to hate good, but they are not honest enough to say so. For example, one writer who recently wrote a book pleading for love and toleration for homosexuals, child molesters, and every other kind of pervert, spoke of the Bible and Christianity with savage hatred, and said, of Christian morality, “To be chaste is no longer praiseworthy; rather, it is something unnatural, and therefore almost intolerable.”
Such people pretend to be against hate, but they are simply preaching the love of evil, and the hatred of all that which is holy and good. Their purpose is to convert you from the love of God to the love of evil.
- R. J. Rushdoony
Rev. R.J. Rushdoony (1916–2001), was a leading theologian, church/state expert, and author of numerous works on the application of Biblical law to society. He started the Chalcedon Foundation in 1965. His Institutes of Biblical Law (1973) began the contemporary theonomy movement which posits the validity of Biblical law as God’s standard of obedience for all. He therefore saw God’s law as the basis of the modern Christian response to the cultural decline, one he attributed to the church’s false view of God’s law being opposed to His grace. This broad Christian response he described as “Christian Reconstruction.” He is credited with igniting the modern Christian school and homeschooling movements in the mid to late 20th century. He also traveled extensively lecturing and serving as an expert witness in numerous court cases regarding religious liberty. Many ministry and educational efforts that continue today, took their philosophical and Biblical roots from his lectures and books.