False Charges That Make No Sense

Hate Speech Charges Are Nonsensical


There are plenty of folk, it seems, who think that the following indicative sentence is hate speech: "if anyone is a homosexual (or supports, encourages, promotes, or defends) homosexuality and refuses to repent of his sin and turn to the Lord Jesus Christ, seeking His forgiveness, that person will fall under God's eternal judgement."

The Bible is God's eternal and inerrant revelation to mankind.  At least Christians believe so.  Its testimony and indictment of homosexuality is clear and plain, along with every transgression of the Ten Commandments.  It is also clear that if any man, woman, or child repent (or turn away) from sin and seek God's forgiveness and mercy as offered to them by the Christ, the Saviour of the world, their sins will be forgiven and they will inherit eternal life.

To express such things, we are now told, is hate speech.  This is a strange allegation indeed.
  In the first place those who judge it to be hate speech need to be challenged.  What on earth do they mean?  These folk clearly do not believe in God's existence, nor in Christ as their Saviour, nor in the existence of Heaven or Hell.  To them, God's eternal judgement is a myth.  Hell is a false construct.  None of these things exist.  They make no more sense than an assertion that the moon is made of green cheese.

If we were to say, "Anyone who fails to repent of denying that the moon is made of green cheese will be condemned to live there for eternity", who would charge us with hate speech?  Silliness, maybe.  Ignorance, maybe.  But "hate speech"?  Nah.  Then, why, we ask, are those who think that the Bible is no more true than the belief that the moon is made of green cheese taking offence?  Why do they accuse us of  "hate speech" when Christians say that homosexuality is a mortal sin and Hell awaits any who do not repent of it?

If Christian doctrine and belief  are not true, surely we Christians are of all men most to be pitied.  This is precisely what Paul the Apostle acknowledges: "and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.  Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied".  [I Corinthians 15: 17-19.  Emphasis, ours.]  Ironically, the more people get steamed up and accuse Christians of "hate speech" for saying that unrepentant folk will be condemned to Hell, the more they inadvertently testify that they believe what we are saying must be true.  And then they are caught out, for how in any imaginable sense could warning another of grave danger be construed to be hate speech?

Finally, there appears to be an unspoken, suppressed belief operating in the minds of those who think that warning another person of the dangers of the coming Judgement constitutes hate speech.  Such folk, we suspect, also assume that Christians take gleeful pleasure in the thought that unrepentant homosexuals will be condemned to Hell.  If that were true, then it may evidence hate towards homosexuals practitioners and advocates.

But God Himself has no such sentiment.  Thus, He commanded His prophet Ezekiel:

Say to them, As I live, declares the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel? [Ezekiel 33:11]

And did not our Lord Himself weep over Jerusalem as He considered its coming apocalypse?

And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade round you and surround you and hem you in on every side  and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.”  [Luke 19: 41-44]

The allegation, then, that Christians are guilty of "hate speech" when they warn of the Judgement to come is nonsense.  It only makes sense if the opponents themselves are guilty of hate speech, imputing ugly and evil motives to those who weep over them, saying, “Would that you, even you, had known the things that make for peace!"