Jesus said “love your ene.ues”. But never did God say, or does the Word say “love my enemies”.Think about that for a second. At no point in the gospels, or in the Old Testament before them, does God show the tiniest sympathy, indulgence, or mercy toward idols, false gods, or demons. Nor do His servants, except in moments of weakness for which God subsequently punishes them.

Elijah doesn’t regard the cult of Baal as a sad, misguided effort by ignorant, hapless pagans to grasp the true religion. We don’t see him open “ecumenical dialogue” with Baal’s priests and believers. He never takes a statue of Baal and enshrines as a form of cultural outreach — the way Pope Francis incensed the pagan idol Pachamama at the Vatican or the way woke evangelicals kneel to anoint our present fetishes: “diversity,” “antiracism,” and “equality.”

When we see a rainbow flag draped in front of some once-Christian church, accompanied by blather like, “All Are Welcome!” we should resist the impulse to think, How sad! Those people mean well, but are simply misguided. That’s a temptation and a snare. Instead, we should feel the same fury as when we see an icon of Christ with His eyes gouged out by ISIS.

Likewise, in our political life, we shouldn’t let good manners, rank fear, or an obsolete peacetime squeamishness distort our proper response of horror at undisguised evil. When the Democrats focus their entire case for electing a vicious, blathering mediocrity on: (1) access to porn, (2) easy abortion, and (3) the castration and mutilation of children, our hearts should catch on fire. If the Left inviting the Temple of Satan to join its pro-abortion lawsuits by claiming that baby-killing is a religious ritual deserving First Amendment protection doesn’t make us angry, and they want the fetal parts for their rituals, there’s something broken inside us.

Summon Holy Contempt

When we see once-faithful Christians bootlicking Caesar, Mammon, and Sodom alike, we ought to feel contempt and aversion, just as we do when we think of Esau scarfing down his mess of pottage, or Judas counting his coins. Any pastor who pretends that “systemic racism” or “Christian Nationalism” are the genuine threats today isn’t merely a dupe and a fool. He’s a false teacher — a small-a antichrist preaching a “new gospel” authored by Satan. He is apostate. You must run from that church- or suffer the judgments Jesus spoke of in Revelation.

When we read of hospitals (some of them nominally Catholic) surgically butchering children and dosing them with hormones, and the State seizing custody from parents thanks to cowardly surrenders by sellouts like Mike Pence, we ought to experience the same smoldering rage my uncle Bob did toward the Germans on D-Day as his landing craft neared the beach.

When we read that in Canada the socialist health system pressures tens of thousands of poor, sick people to get euthanized in order to save the government money, that should enrage us on their behalf. We at least ought to care about those desperate people whose nation and families have abandoned them.

When we learn that church nonprofits have been smuggling millions of immigrants into our nation and getting rewarded for it by the federal government with money stolen from taxpayers whose permission they did not seek, we should see that this is not just treason but blasphemy — a crooked caricature of noble Christian compassion, aimed at replacing intransigent citizens with docile, dependent peasants.

We should hate evil with the same passion that pervaded all the saints, who died rather than burn incense for Caesar or step on a crucifix.

Hate the Cancer, Not the Cancer Patient

Have we got all of that clear?

And yet, none of what’s said above implies that we hate sinners. We simply hate the sin. If you don’t hate the sin, then you cannot love the sinner. The more you love a cancer patient, the more you will hate his tumors. Nobody’s more deeply opposed to abortion than women who tragically had one and now mourn their squandered children. No one’s as outraged by transgender butchery as those who once endured it. Penitent leftists often make the most powerful apostles for freedom and virtue. The author of “Amazing Grace” was a slavetrader before he got saved.

That potential for repentance, and our own keen awareness of how often we fall into sin ourselves, remind us that hatred for evil forbids hatred of people. Of course we don’t hate poor, deluded “transgender” patients or women who’ve had abortions. We don’t even hate, in the proper sense, the bloodstained profiteers who tempt them into such evils. We’re enraged that they get away with it, and outraged that the law cannot stop them. We wish for their salvation in the next life — not their continued comfort in this one. That means they must be defeated, humiliated, perhaps (God willing) prosecuted under new and juster laws. The weak must be protected, and once the wicked have ceased to be strong, they might even come to repentance in prison. But they won’t while they’re still winning, we may be sure.

There are two sides to the coin of loving sinners and hating sin. Which one do we show people at any given moment — the wrath of Elijah against the priests of Baal, or the tenderness Jesus showed to the woman caught in adultery? It’s easy (and foolish) to pretend that the first is some outdated “Old Testament” attitude which the Gospel no longer enjoins. The same God wrote both testaments, and He does not change. Setting the Son and the Father in opposition to each other was the first great Christian heresy, that of the demagogue Marcion, which has arisen again in our times to fill Christians’ heads and hearts with jangling discord.

No, the way to judge whether to thunder like Elijah or decline to condemn like Jesus is simple. Ask yourself one question: Is the person I am addressing powerful or weak compared to me? Would confronting him count as bullying, since I’m in a stronger position? Or am I standing firm against someone with power, wealth, and influence, at a risk to my own well-being? Elijah showed courage in confronting the well-connected priests of Baal and their king, just as Jesus showed in facing down the Sadducees and Pharisees, while tenderly forgiving a woman hunted by the mob.

So we never get the easy fun of picking on hapless sinners whom society despises, or the free pass of keeping safely silent in the face of organized evil. Nobody ever said this was going to be easy.  Take up your cross and follow Him.    ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

●John Zmirak is the Sr. Editor at The Stream- a conservative, Christian online magazine, and author of 14 books dealing with issues Christians face in the Church and Nation.