That we humans have the desire to be included and accepted is very obvious. Folks go along to get along. Folks will grumble about their dissatisfaction, but not to take action to resolve the problem, and thereby be excluded from the group. So it takes strong conviction and courage to oppose the flow. The political correctness being increasingly infused into our thinking for over 30 years has even spawned legislative action – hate crimes.
First degree murder involves hate (malice), e.g., although he didn’t kill Jacob, Esau hated him and plotted to murder him (Genesis 27:41). The apostle John wrote, “Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him” (1 John 3:15). In God’s sight, hate is as bad as the act of murder. This is in contrast to accidental death (we call manslaughter) which is void of hate (Deuteronomy 19:4-6).
Comes now the notion of hate crimes, better called “thought” crimes. This implies a judge can read a person’s mind, that is to know the motive of what someone thinks and in-turn has written or spoken. This is nigh on to making the judge a god – divinity – able to determine a person’s motive without any proof. In a court of law, that implies one person could make that determination.
Yet in the context of a person deceiving himself and others (Jeremiah 17:9) , the prophet Jeremiah wrote God’s thought, “I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind” (v10). Upon completion of temple and dedicating it to the worship of God, King Solomon prayed, “whatever prayer, whatever supplication is made by anyone, or by all Your people Israel, when each one knows the plague of his own heart, and spreads out his hands toward this temple: then hear in heaven Your dwelling place, and forgive, and act, and give to everyone according to all his ways, whose heart You know (for You alone know the hearts of all the sons of men)” (1 Kings 8:38-39; 2 Chronicles 6:30).
Indeed, we are informed early in Genesis of God’s thorough knowledge of each of us as to how He determined it was time to destroy the world via the flood – “Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Gen 6:5). God alone knows a person’s heart.
But for a judge to determine a person’s intent is to look into the depths of a person’s spirit. Only God can do that. As Moses stated regarding determining whether a man’s death was caused by manslaughter or murder,” depended whether the killer “had not hated the victim in time past” (Deut 19:6). Unless there is an admission of guilt or irrefutable evidence, no judge, nor anyone else, can know whether the crime was motivated by hate.
The current movement of hate crimes, is often termed hate speech. What a person says can then be a crime – in other words speech determines intent and implies someone can look into another’s spirit! How does this fit in with being loving God with all one’s heart – faithful to Jesus? Part 2 (Taking a stand for Jesus) next!