Do You Feel Lucky?

(and feel free to comment! My older posts are certainly no less relevant to the burning concerns of the day.)

Sunday, April 14, 2013

I believe in the Separation of Church and Hate.

And no, I didn't come up with that myself. But yeah, it's pretty catchy! And I believe in it. Sure.

But let's define terms, please. By "hate," I only mean the choice to have utter contempt for the ultimate worth of a living human being. I call that hate. Sure. To make the claim for Christ, "even Jesus would throw this person away." What contempt for human worth! What contempt for Christ's call. What contempt for Christ himself, who we are called to love and serve in the person of even the worst of our enemies, in the person of even the least of our fellows. Is there a worse hate than to look at a living human who you have no call to judge, and condemn that human being as worthless, as something to be utterly, permanently thrown away? Well, sure, arguably - doing that to a human being you haven't even met is worse. But either way is bad.

Yet I have Good News! For believer and nonbeliever alike!

If a Christian storms the high seat of Christ's judgment, and presumes to sit in it, to sit in judgment: to reject the possibility of Christ's mercy, and pronounce to damn a human being - any human being! No matter what they done! - good news! They do it wrongly. They pronounce judgment wrongly. A Christian has no call to do that. Doing that, they reject Christ's judgment to substitute their own. They reject the judgment of Christ.

"Reject Christ's judgment"? So are they damned? Are they therefore damned?

Well, pay attention, dipstick. I don't answer that. You don't answer that. It's Christ's call. Am I fully God and fully human as well? Christ alone is competent to answer the question of whether a person is saved or damned. Christ alone makes that call. And I tell you what: even though to reject God's judgment and prefer your own is the original sin, and still one of the worst - I won't hate that person who does. I won't have utter contempt for their ultimate worth. I won't presume to judge them damned.

Instead, I will trust in the mercy and justice of Christ's judgment, as I am called to do. Every time, in every case. Even my own.

No comments: