I believe my title question is legitimate in the current climate politically, societally, and socially.   I would imagine that it will get the attention of some and infuriate others.   It is a declaration of what I see as a prevalent problem in 2024-25 in America and much of the world. 

I remember something a teenage girl in a church I pastored years ago said.   She had grown tired of the pressure to be a perfect physical specimen and coined a phrase, “Thin ain’t in, fats where it’s at.”   In today’s world, many seem to be adopting the view that “Love ain’t in, and hate is where it’s at.” 

It has become more fashionable to hate than to love.  It has become more acceptable to be vitriolic than compassionate.  Both sides of virtually every issue seem to have adopted the attitude that if someone disagrees with their ideological position, it is justifiable and desirable to express hatred for that person.   People seem to be reaching the place where they “Love to Hate and Hate to Love.”   In today’s world, most hate anyone outside their ideological sect.

The Bible spoke of the time, which seems to describe our day.  I have told congregants in churches that there would come a time when the Body of Christ had to become willing to die for their faith.  I have warned that a time was coming when hate would be so prevalent that it would be dangerous to be identified as a Christian.  I believe we see evidence that my predictions and the biblical warnings are accurate.

For decades, the debate about God in government has raged, and sadly, too many followers of Jesus sat in silence.  The result was God, the Bible, and anything Christian was evicted from the public square in America.   As a result, many of our inalienable rights were usurped.    After all, if God and the Bible are anathema to American politics and government, then why would those adherents recognize God-given inalienable rights? 

I am not Catholic, but a statement by a Catholic archbishop is germane.  Francis George, in 2010, said, “I expect to die in my bed, my successor will die in prison, and his successor will die a martyr in the public square.”  He was addressing his view of the growing hate for Christians and Christianity.  There is no doubt that the disdain and hatred for Christianity and the Bible have grown exponentially in America in many sectors. 

The attacks against those of faith have increased, and so has the tolerance and tacit endorsement for those attacks increased.  In a Wall Street Journal poll, the importance of traditional values in America has plunged to the cellar.  That poll indicated that a meager 39% of Americans now say that religious faith is important to them.  In 1998, that number was 62%.  That is disturbing and incredibly revealing of what and why we are in the state we are in today. 

I detest murder!  I detest the insanity and evil that produces mass shootings and often involves children, the most vulnerable and innocent of our world.   I believe in the Second Amendment and defend our rights to keep and bear arms.   But in this blog post, I desire to address the insanity and hate that it is producing numerous diabolical tragedies.

The shooting some time ago in Nashville is a prime example of the danger of hate! The rampage and carnage of using a truck in New Orleans is as well. In Nashville, the transgender individual, apparently with premeditation, targeted a Christian school with a biblical curriculum and represented Christian values.   

That seems to be precisely what this shooter wanted to destroy.  I suppose this person hated Christianity and the Bible because of the traditional and biblical position of two genders (male and female) and that God does not make mistakes placing a person of one gender in the body of another.  The flames of that hatred have been fanned extensively, and the fruit is beginning to be evident.  It is not a good fruit!

The leftist politicians, activists, journalists (sic), columnists, and entertainers all took to the microphones, social media sites, and printed pages to defend the shooter and decry Christianity as the cause of the tragedy.  That is beyond ridiculous and reveals the deep-seated hatred for Christianity and the Bible.  There was no sympathy or empathy for the victims, but they sought to make the perpetrator of the diabolical evil the victim. 

Our founding fathers warned us of the dangers of pushing God and the Bible out of the public arena, but we did not listen.  Instead of heeding the warnings of many of the founders, the Bible, and moral sanity, we allowed the haters to become more and more successful in eliminating everything of God and the Bible from the public square, insisting that “Separation of Church and State” warranted that action.  If you remove moral restraint, you invite evil of diabolical proportions. 

When world leaders can view fire bombings of Christian centers as understandable and condonable, it signals our condition.  When politicians can claim that the domestic terrorism of lawless groups is justifiable anger, we are in deep trouble.   Are we going back to the days when the Romans and others used Christians as fodder for lions and their deaths as objects of entertainment for the non-Christian public? 

America has attempted to tolerate the haters, appease the terrorists, and legislate the desired behavior and failed miserably.  America’s moral standing is rapidly dwindling into abysmal nothingness.  We have metamorphosed from being the greatest nation in the world to an immoral morass of corruption and hatred.  We have failed our children, ranging from those in the womb to those who are pressed into society brainwashed about God, the Bible, our founding, and absolute truth.

We live in a time when speaking for family values, traditional values, the Bible, and Christianity is deemed a hate crime.  To want to take care of America before we try to take care of the rest of the world is viewed as an abrogation of our global responsibility and rooted in selfishness or white supremacy, regardless of the speaker’s ethnicity.  We have divided this nation to a greater extent than the issue of slavery in the 1860s.

America’s two chief pillars were the Bible and the Constitution.  We have abandoned or allowed the abandonment of both in today’s America.  That does not bode well for the present or posterity.  The Bible is no longer an anchor in this nation.  Many today view it as a book of myths and fables, outdated, and even misogynistic, bigoted, and narrow-minded.  The followers of God in Christianity who do not ascribe to those views are deemed unworthy of existence, and whatever harm comes to them is justifiable. 

I realize that some reading what I am writing ascribe to the modern view of justifiable hate for Christians and the Bible.  I offer this thought and hope it will resonate with some.  If there is no God, no absolute truth, and we are to base all our decisions on what we deem good for us as individuals, we have effectively contributed to the current calamity.   We have decayed to a place where no behaviors are too wretched, and no evil is deemed so abhorrent that it must be condemned.   Calling evil good and good evil is a clear sign of depravity so extensive it guarantees unavoidable destruction and chaos.

Neither the Bible nor the American Constitution are outdated.   Both are viable guides for our lives and our human government endeavors.  We seem to have replaced order and morality with extreme disorder and selfishness.  When ‘number one’ becomes more important than ‘anyone,’ we will become laws unto ourselves, and nothing will be off the table.  If this mindset continues, hate will prevail, and Love will be relegated to the shadows.  God help us!  

America, we cannot fix this with politics or legislation.   It is a heart, moral, and mind issue that can only be repaired by God and a return to moral sanity.  As a Christian, I call for all who believe in God and prayer to become fervent in their cries to our Creator.  We are destroying ourselves with Hate when Love would heal our wounds.

God bless you, and God bless America!