The God Who Hates

On May 19, the famously polarizing British-Canadian author and radio and television host Michael Coren appeared on the TVO current affairs program The Agenda with Steve Paikin. Coren was being interviewed about his new book Epiphany: A Christian's Change of Heart & Mind Over Same-Sex Marriage. It was disappointing to watch. Coren was once one of the most articulate social conservatives in Canada and to listen to him capitulate, complete with his maudlin apologies, to the liberal crowd was bewildering and embarrassing. Somewhere along the line, he got tired of fighting the good fight and decided that befriending the 'spirit of the age' was the right and more personally satisfying thing to do.

In order to justify this seismic shift in his thinking, he has had to re-cast what Christianity is (in his mind) and it is obvious that he now views the faith as one of all-inclusive peace and love. Well, the man who once embraced the truth has now abandoned it and settled for its counterfeit. This is easy enough to prove. To begin with, he knows enough about the faith to know that it's about the truth who is a Person, namely Jesus Christ, the truth incarnate, first and foremost. Coren should know better than to be hung up on peace and love as an end in itself as if to just 'live and let live' is the chief end of life. This isn't how Jesus was (and isn't today) and because He was God's perfect reflection on Earth, Himself God, then God the Father isn't either.

Paikin did a good job of challenging Coren with what Jesus said about marriage and where Coren himself now stands. He quoted Matthew 19:4-5, where Jesus said God "made them male and female, and said, 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.'" Coren batted away any reference to the unique opposite-sex complementarity of marriage and said Christ was talking about the institution itself.

I believe the Church of Jesus Christ needs to wake up and realize something. We don't like the word 'hate' but we need to embrace the fact that the true God in Heaven hates some things. He does not hate people, but He hates many of the things people do and this is clearly verified in the life of Jesus. Some examples: Regarding peace and love, Christ said this, "Do not think that I came to bring peace to the Earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword...and a man's enemies will be the members of his household" because of Him (Matt. 10:34, 36). This adversity comes with befriending Jesus. He also said this, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself (meaning any selfish desires) and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it" (Matt. 16:24-25). Then there are the seven letters to the churches in Asia Minor in the book of Revelation, especially the words Jesus has for the church in Laodicea, "I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were either cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth" (Rev. 3:15-16).

Regardless of what you may think of these words of Jesus, we can all agree that they aren't the words of some dreamy-eyed middle eastern mystic who preached moral equivalency. No, in Jesus beats the heart of a God who longs to live with His people and despises anything that would bring them harm, isolation and spiritual death. What kind of parents would let their children do anything they want because they 'love' them? No parents who do that truly love their children. All people are created equal, yes, but not all behavior and lifestyles are morally equal.

Michael Coren has suddenly run down the rabbit hole of appeasement and I pray that he will retreat. He has surrendered to the religion of a god created in the world's image, a cheap counterfeit to the real one - an idol. The spirit of the age is the god of "peace, love and tolerance", as a world without the real God defines them, and is no god at all. Jesus calls this god "the father of lies" because all he can do is deceive and imitate.

We should never underestimate the capacity of the human heart to self-deceive. Here is an excerpt from his book, "I believe that the welcoming of gay people, who have suffered at Christian hands for so long, is at the epicenter of the modern Christian challenge and that by washing away the stains of prejudice and discrimination, we can spark a new awakening." I have two responses to that. First, many gay people have already been welcomed into the Christian Church but like all other penitents, they have confessed their sin and have taken on a new life in Christ. Jesus said, "I do not condemn you, either. Go and from now on sin no more" (John 8:11). Coren is simply trying to accommodate sin. Second, issues like "same-sex marriage" and transgenderism and all the rest of it are the results of the humanistic religion of idolatry (idol worship) that rises from our brokenness as fallen people. 

Michael Coren needs to understand something. Any awakening in the Church of Christ will come from God Himself in the power of the Holy Spirit and not from any pet subject of a people-pleasing author who has clearly lost his way. And any true awakening will not go well for "same-sex marriage" proponents for the simple reason that regarding this, God said no.

Of Wolves and Sheep

It has been just over 48 hours since Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's public image took a major downturn. To recap, on the evening of a parliamentary vote, a skirmish broke out in which the PM left his seat, waded into a crowd of MPs in the House of Commons, took the Conservative party whip by the arm and escorted him to his seat. On the way, he accidentally bumped into an NDP MP and in his frustration told her to "get the f*** out of the way". She (the member) was visibly upset and had to leave the chamber.

Reaction was swift. NDP leader Tom Mulcair began yelling at Trudeau during the brief melee. The next day, Opposition leader Rona Ambrose rose in the House and calmly, cleanly and surgically skewered the PM for his actions. Social media posts about the incident haven't slowed down any. Supporters of the Conservatives in the last federal election are exacting revenge on their Liberal detractors during that campaign who pilloried then-PM Stephen Harper in post after post. Those same Liberal (and liberal) detractors are silent now on social media because they see the incivility of their leader (and perhaps their own) who vowed to bring civility back into government. It is now obvious that Trudeau's talk about change was just that, talk. His actions on the floor of the House two nights ago and his government's repeated attempts to silence the Opposition far exceed anything the Harper Conservatives did.

While all people are capable and guilty of hypocrisy, hypocrisy from those on the political and social left is particularly galling. Historically, they have often been the self-appointed champions of human rights but a quick look at Canadian history tells a different story. Eugenics is a word that is derived from the Greek word that means "well born". It first came into use in the late 1800s by a British aristocrat named Sir Francis Galton. It caught on in Canada, in Alberta, in the 1920s under the government of the United Farmers of Alberta, a party that drew much of its support from organized labour. The UFA ran the province from 1921-1935 and in 1928, it enacted the Alberta Sexual Sterilization Act that authorized the sterilization of persons of lower intelligence. Under the name "eugenics", this was a social experiment that sought to eliminate people with intellectual disabilities from the province's gene pool. They sought to sterilize people of low intelligence to keep them from having children who are the same.

What is also disturbing about this is who the proponents of eugenics were. They include J.S. Woodsworth, a founder of the CCF party, the forerunner of today's NDP; Tommy Douglas, a Baptist minister who became the CCF premier of Saskatchewan and later leader of the federal NDP (to be fair, Douglas later changed his mind on eugenics) and Nellie McClung, one of the "Famous Five" who launched the "Persons Case" in 1927 to get women to be "qualified persons" so they could vote. I find it incredible that these folks who are lionized in Canadian history held beliefs that amount to ethnic cleansing which had its most extreme form in Nazism. 

It's also funny how the language of today is similar to the language back then. The UFA also used the word "progressive" to describe its social policies. I wonder if they would accept institutionalized things like abortion, physician-assisted suicide, transgenderism and same-sex marriage. One can only speculate. The fact remains, however, that liberal socialist movements in Canada have, with some notable exceptions, stood for policies that are essentially harmful to human beings, all under the guise of human rights and the common good.

A side of Justin Trudeau's nature was revealed on Wednesday night in Ottawa, a side he led us to believe was not there. Also revealed was the nature of his government which, naturally, possesses the characteristics of the leader. They all now have an image problem that won't soon be solved. Sooner or later hidden things come out and with the perversions that are being institutionalized in today's society, I believe there is much more to come.