An Open Letter to Canada re Hate Laws
To my fellow citizens and my municipally, provincially and federally elected officials,
In recent days, there has been a growing groundswell from our leaders indicating that they want serious penalties for what they consider to be “hate crime”. Our Prime Minister and his ministers have been tweeting about it a lot lately. Recently, Bill C-63 was tabled in parliament. This Bill defines hate crime loosely as “a discriminatory practice to communicate or cause to be communicated hate speech … in a context in which the hate speech is likely to foment detestation or vilification of an individual or group of individuals on the basis of a prohibited ground of discrimination (Part 3-24).” For example, anyone who commits an alleged “hate crime” that is said to be “motivated by hatred based on race, national or ethnic origin, language, colour, religion, sex, age, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation, or gender identity or expression, is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for life (Part 2-15).”
First, we agree that the distribution and use of online pornography should be punished by Law. No one’s body should be put online for sale. But if you look at the above statements, that is not the point of the Bill.
As a Christian man and a pastor I have a duty to teach privately and publicly about what the Holy Bible says with regards to hate, sin and reconciliation to God and man.
Hatred has been the motivation for many crimes throughout history. For example, the first murder in history was when Cain began to hate Abel in his heart and that led to murder (Genesis 4). But while the State must punish the crime of murder, it is impossible for the State to know the heart, which God alone can know.
God has commanded “you shall not murder” (Exodus 20:13). In so doing, God also commanded men to repent of the root of murder, that is hatred.
Nevertheless, there are many things that God has called us to hate. To love truly means that a Christian must hate what is evil: “Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good.” (Rom. 12:9) The Psalmist writes in Psalm 97:10: “O you who love the LORD, hate evil!”
It is because of our love for the souls of men and our longing to see men and women restored and reconciled to God that we teach on what is evil and what is good. It is because of our love for the sinner that we must teach clearly on the judgments of a God who truly desires that all men repent (II Peter 3:9). It is because of our love for the sinner that we warn men of the dangers of Hell (Matt. 10:28).
As pastors it is our duty to teach what God has taught us in the Holy Scriptures. And on the last day we will be answerable to Christ and not the civil magistrate for what we have taught (I Cor. 4:1-7).
God made man male and female, in His image He created them (Gen. 1:27). God created from one man, all the nations (or ethnicities) of the earth (Acts 17:26). God made marriage to be between one man and one woman (Gen. 2:24) to the exclusion of all others. God designed sexual relations to be within the covenant bond of marriage (I Cor. 7:9). Sin has wrecked all this goodness and the aim is to bring sinners to Christ.
There is no reason for the Christian to be “islamophobic” or “transphobic” because “God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.” (II Tim. 1:7)
Nevertheless, because all men are made in the image of God, we desire that men reflect what God intended them to be. And that is made possible through the death and resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ into the heavens. There He reigns as King of kings and Lord of lords. And so we extend the call of the gospel to repentance and faith in Christ to the hardened muslim, and to the man who has had surgery to make him into a woman.
What we have seen in recent years is an all out assault on the created order and God’s intended design for human community and identity and sexual relations. This is because men hate God. Not many love this nation enough to point that out. Rather than leaving men to their folly, it is the duty and joy of pastors to stand in the breaches and call men back into covenant with their Creator, even though they have destroyed that image by their own sin almost beyond recognition.
Paul once said in Titus 3:3-5: “For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us…” If you want a way out of the mess of hatred in our nation, then it will mean a mass turning of the hearts of men and women towards the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior.
To our leaders. You might decide arbitrarily one day that our words are motivated by hatred for men. But our battle is not with flesh and blood. It is with the principalities and powers in the heavenly places (Eph. 6:12). It is with the demons of hatred that want our babies ripped apart in the womb and then our children mutilated. We want to teach our children to love their bodies, not to hate their own bodies. The weapons of our warfare are not of flesh and blood, but have divine power to tear down strongholds of unbelief (II Cor. 10:4). We hate sin, because God has called it sin, because a pure and holy and just and righteous God cannot but hate sin. It is our duty to reconcile the sinner to God. We do so by pointing men and women to the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross. He washes and cleans and restores sinners.
So no, Mr Prime Minister, we will not be divided and scattered as you pit man against man and ethnicity against ethnicity. Our Lord Jesus Christ makes true unity possible. Many of us have or do worship the Lord Jesus Christ alongside Christians from Africa or Asia or South America (or other places). We have had enough of those former days hating and being hated by one another. God saved us to something new.
As pastors and leaders of the church we will minister the Word and sacrament in service to our Lord Jesus Christ. We will tell the truth in love and love by telling the truth and warn men of the judgments of God on sin and lay out the true path of reconciliation to God and man.
And when the end of time comes there will be a great army of saved sinners from every tribe and nation and language and tongue, giving praise to the Lamb who was slain for the sins of the world.
In Christ,
Pastor Nathan Zekveld