Hatred Forms Impermanent Bonds

(Pillow with face)

Many people bond around shared hatred. This is our American way of tribalizing. Persons A and B hate person C. They form community around this. A bond of animosity.

A hatred bond is a weak, impermanent unity. The day is coming when person A and person B will hate each other. How narrow, how shallow, how low, how short, is the hatred of the antichrist.

Atheist philosopher John Gray, in his brilliant The Silence of Animals, writes: "The collective solidarity of Nazi Germany was sustained by the incessant creation of internal enemies." (Gray, The Silence of Animals: On Progress and Other Modern Myths, p. 56)

In a church, or family, or marriage, or ethnic group, where shared hatred is the bond, the devil rules in the absence of God. The apostle Paul counters this with these words:

I pray that you, 
being rooted and established in love, 
may have power, 
together with all the Lord’s holy people, 
to grasp how wide 
and long 
and high 
and deep 
is the love of Christ, 
and to know this love 
that surpasses knowledge...

Ephesians 3:17-19

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My two books are:

Praying: Reflections on 40 Years of Solitary Conversations with God

Leading the Presence-Driven Church

I am writing... (because I believe God has called me to write)...

Encounters with the Holy Spirit (Co-edited with Janice Trigg - June 2019 - I submitted the manuscript this week.)

Transformation: How God Changes the Human Heart

Technology and Spiritual Formation

Linda and I will then co-write our book on Relationships.