We live in a very emotionally driven society, pop-culture prides itself on diversity and tolerance; two of the commandments of the politically correct movement.
We thus turn to the issue of love and hate. In combining what is really pseudo-diversity and pseudo-tolerance, our pop-culture has concocted a definition of love as; doing and allowing anyone to do anything, anywhere, anytime, with anyone and as much as they want. Before moving on we offer a qualification; technically pop-culture states that people can do anything they want as long as they are not hurting anyone else. The fatal flaw in this concept is that building such concepts upon a foundation of relative morals means that we must not hurt others yet, according to our own-personal-subjective-relative definition of hurt.
Hate has been made to be defined in a hand in hand manner with the definition of love. Therefore, hate means rejecting pop-culture’s definition of love. Hate means thinking that some behaviors are unacceptable (yes, even in your basement under a blanket with the lights out). We referred to pseudo-tolerance because if hate means being intolerant of some behaviors then pop-culture itself is not being tolerant of the intolerant and therefore is not at all tolerant.
This pseudo-tolerance means that Christians are a favorite target since they speak out on issues of morality. Thus, Christians are hateful, intolerant, un-diverse and politically incorrect. Christians violate every one of pop-culture’s commandments.
But what is true love? Love is not just an emotion, love is a commitment. When we marry and promise to love one another till death do us part we are not promising to always feel goose bumpy, sugar coated, adrenaline spiked feelings. What then is it that we are promising? Love means acceptance but also the encouragement to change for the better. Love means setting free but also setting boundaries. Love means freedom of expression but also correction.
Many people have heard the saying; absolute power corrupts absolutely. A person with absolute power has the freedom to do as they wish. Therefore, absolute freedom corrupts absolutely. It is only within boundaries that we are truly free. This is because these boundaries, in the case of moral absolutes set by God, provide a safe haven in which to enjoy our freedom in safety. We do not just tell our children to go outside and go as far away as they want all alone and then do whatever they want. Instead, we set boundaries; don’t go further than…be back by…careful about crossing the street, etc.
The issue of defining hate is thus not based on daring to tell someone that they are doing something wrong but it is having enmity or malicious feelings or actions against someone for no good reason.
Skeptics will read the Bible and attempt to understand it according to pop-culture’s definition of love and hate. Thus, they ask; how could a God of love do…? Any kind of disapproval or correction is seen as hateful (with the exception of pop-culture’s own disapproval and attempts to correct Christians).