Last week The Post and Courier printed a list of hate groups in South Carolina, as determined by the Southern Poverty Law Center, defining a hate group as “those who have beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people typically for their immutable characteristics.” Yet everyone who has ever lived throughout all of history has been born into sin and has been born a sinner. We cannot change that immutable characteristic about ourselves. So if churches seek to bring change into people’s lives, we’ll be considered a hate group. What brings change into people’s lives? The Gospel. The day is coming–or perhaps is already here–when those who speak the Gospel will be labeled as those who hate.
How do we live as a church in such a culture? How should we respond to it? Deuteronomy 18 has some answers for us: Our job is not to hate or retreat. We are to be in the world, shining like stars with the light of Christ, living as children of the light. Listen to the whole sermon.
