How can a book of love become a book of hate?

 

How did the Bible, a book of love get turned into an excuse for hatred?

How did the book of Leviticus, a book of joy about how God wishes to to heal our grief and bring reconciliation between each other and between people and God become an excuse for hating LGBTQ+ people?

Petty people have reinterpreted the Bible in a petty way. A book of love, of joy and of peace is changed as a result into a book of pettiness. Angry people have reinterpreted the Bible in an angry way. A book of love, of joy and of peace is changed as a result into a book of anger.

If God hates the same people that we hate it is a sign that we have made God in our own image.

Political compass

Bear with me for a paragraph or two.

The idea that the far right and far left are political opposites is flawed. If you take what is left and right on economic grounds, and then take a second scale on social policies where social freedom for all is libertarian and where there have to be rules which have to be obeyed is authoritarian.  This is the scale I will be looking at in this blog post.

At this point I have to decade that my own political views are libertarian left. Although I am trying to be neutral in this blog my views are bound to colour this.

Biblical politics

It has been said that you should never mix religion and politics, but if you refuse to mix them you would have to reject large parts of the Bible, it is a very political book, but also a bad fit to the political compass — some would map as left, right, authoritarian or libertarian. Most people can find something to fit their own political bias.

The book of Judges keeps repeating “everybody did what is right in his own eyes as if it is a bad thing, but then when the people asked the prophet Samuel to give then a king, like the nearby countries had, God tells the people how this will affect their freedom. Both authoritarian and libertarian politics as we see them can be attacked if we are selective of our texts.

Similarly, if we go back to the Exodus, are we talking about freedom from oppression (libertarian) to the giving of rules to be obeyed (authoritarian)?

If we look at the crucifixion of Jesus, do we look at it as being about atonement alone, the theological arguments between different atonement theories keep it in that area, but the Day of  Atonement is in the autumn, the crucifixion happened at around Passover, in the spring. It is clear that the cross is about atonement, but Passover is about freedom. Conservative-evangelicals where is your theology of freedom for all people, even those not from your country?

There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
Galatians 3:28 NIV

I could expand that list, I don’t see it as exclusive. There is neither neuro-diverse nor neurotypical, neither white nor BAME/POC, nor is there straight and LBGTQ+, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

When male oppresses female, white oppresses BAME/POC and straight oppresses LGBTQ+, and the rest,  there is a problem, God is a God of love. God does not oppress people or approve of their oppression even when it is done in God’s name.

If God hates the same people that we hate it is a sign that we have made God in our own image.