Let’s Talk About Hate

The one thing we’re afraid to admit is the one thing we all have in common

Several months ago I was confronted by a sobering realization.

I have an overwhelming capacity for hatred.

Embracing this truth has been one of the most vulnerable and terrifying things I’ve had to do. It has demanded nothing less than humility. It has required nothing more than honesty.

It’s easy to identify and condemn hate out there because it’s always been out there. There will always be hateful people hating people.

But if you and I are truly honest, we’re far more familiar with this emotion than any of us are willing to admit. And it’s not just because we’ve been on the receiving end of another person’s racism or bigotry or phobia.

We know what hate feels like because we’ve been guilty of harboring it ourselves.

Last year, I was a Pastor in the urban core of a Midwestern city. I was one of two leaders entrusted with a diverse group of people from all walks and beliefs.

Our community was less than a year old but it had already grown over 300 strong. People felt genuine love and acceptance within the walls of our church. Homeless and housed, rich and poor, Black, White, Latino, and Asian. Young and old, those with power and those without, Gay and Straight. My colleague and I were entrusted to facilitate an environment of greater empathy, love, and action for the people in this neighborhood. And we could not contain the growth that was taking place — both in the lives of the people within our church and the community at large.

I was fired a few months later.

Being fired is not particularly unusual. Many in the workforce will undergo a job loss this way.

The context however, was what made this job loss particularly painful and a seedbed for deep and personal resentment.

First, there was a troubling lack of transparency around my transition.

What happened behind closed doors was not what was communicated to the staff or the church at large — in fact, it was unequivocally denied.

Second, I experienced gas-lighting for the first time.

Gas-lighting — in it’s simplest form — is manipulation. It occurs when someone attempts to seed one of their ideas into your mind while pretending it’s actually yours. In this particular instance, I was told twice by my supervisor in two different meetings that “I no longer wanted to be a pastor” — something which couldn’t have been further from the truth. Few things instill a sense of powerlessness more than someone else forcing not just their will, but their thoughts upon you.

Third, my wife was eight and a half months pregnant at the time.

When I lost my job, my wife and I lost our community. In an attempt to fortify the narrative around my transition, the Executive Pastor banned us from the church and hounded me for weeks via phone calls and emails in an attempt to keep us from communicating with any of our friends or former parishioners. As traumatic — and honestly, bizarre— as this was, the real stress surfaced elsewhere.

With less than a month before our son entered the world, we lost our health insurance and were denied medicaid.

Hatred often begins as a matter of self preservation.

When trauma occurs at the hands of another person, our animal instinct kicks in and we vow to protect ourselves from any future pain.

When I was pushed out of the job I loved and the community I led 6 weeks before my son was born, I determined I would never again allow someone else to make me feel weak, vulnerable, or powerless. Consequently, in the months following my transition, I became consumed with a deep hatred toward the senior leaders of this church purely as a means of self preservation.

I was under the illusion hate could shield me from future pain.

What began as self preservation morphed into character assassination.

When that animal instinct kicks in, we repaint the traumatic events in stark shades of black and white. We step into the role as the “Good Guys” with the offenders as the “Bad Guys.” There is no room for grey or nuance in this new narrative. We position ourselves unquestionably in the right and they in the wrong — regardless if this is reflective of the whole story.

In the midst of my transition, I never advised anyone to leave the church. In fact, I encouraged people to continue to attend if they felt compelled. However, in private conversations with family and close friends, I undercut the character of the senior leaders at every opportunity.

I began to assume their motives.

I refused to consider other factors — financial or otherwise — that may have influenced their decision to release me.

I put my supervisors in a box and reinterpreted every experience I’d had with them in light of this new data. Meetings, lunches, trips, random comments via text or email over the past 12 months all took on a new and sinister hue in light of their recent actions.

They were always manipulative.

They were always heartless.

They were always selfish, I concluded.

Once character assassination was achieved, the offender became an other.

After I constructed a new narrative regarding my supervisors, I took the final step and concluded that the senior leaders of this church had always been un-empathetic, unloving, disconnected, and undeserving of my forgiveness and understanding. They were something other than human.

After all, I reasoned, what decent human being would gaslight an employee weeks before his wife gave birth?

Now this is where hate really locks in.

It’s impossible to hate someone we understand. Our empathy wont allow it. So, we must dehumanize our offender. We must turn them into something other than human. We must make them as monstrous and evil as possible.

Hate is only possible when a person is defined as an other.

No one starts at hate.

Some of us start at indifference or apathy. Others, a traumatic experience. Some are just looking for a way to protect themselves from future pain.

Regardless of where we start however, each of us has arrived at a moment in our lives where we’ve uttered those three words — either verbally or in the deep recesses of our soul.

I hate you.

In recent months, there’s been an overwhelming amount of sincere people around the world taking a stand — in one medium or another — eager to prove they’re not hateful.

While solidarity in moments like these can be powerful, sincerity alone will not save us and denying our capacity for hatred will not heal us.

I would like to submit that the movement towards justice and reconciliation must begin with a step inward.

We can’t root out the cancer until we’re humble enough to admit we have it in the first place.

It would seem that embracing the truth about ourselves— however painful or difficult to face— is the first step towards a life of greater empathy and understanding for others, including those who’ve wronged us. Extending grace and mercy to another is only possible when we recognize our own desperate need for both the former and the latter.

It is Truth, not sincerity, which sets us free.

Epilogue

Months had passed since I transitioned from the church.

The last interaction I’d had with the Executive Pastor had proven hostile and had led me to consult a lawyer friend in DC. He advised against legal action and so I attempted to move on, determined to focus my energy on providing for my family and being a new Father.

One cold winter morning, my brother and I decided to get coffee at our favorite shop. When we pulled into the parking lot, I noticed a few cars that looked familiar, one being the exact make and model the Executive Pastor drove.

My heart stuttered as soon as we walked down the 3 steps and through the back alley into the shop. The entire pastoral staff was sitting at a table next to the register.

“Isaac,” I whispered to my brother “my old boss is here.”

Isaac, well aware of what had transpired between the church and I, responded about as I’d expected.

“What?! F*ck those guys, man!”

We walked to the counter, avoiding eye contact with the group no more than 15 feet away. I ordered my coffee and slowly moved over to the bar, waiting for my drink.

My mind was racing. My old supervisor had no concept of the pain his actions had caused.

The church had split and parishioners felt betrayed. The good work we’d started in the neighborhood had been senselessly deconstructed.

Unable to afford the COBRA costs to maintain our health insurance, my wife attempted a natural birth but then had to undergo an emergency C-section. As a result, we were navigating $30,000 of medical bills without the protection of insurance.

The full weight of months of resentment and hate now coursed through me in those few moments as I waited for my coffee. And then, as if my feet had a will of their own, I started walking over to the table.

Hugs all around.

All the pastors on their feet, lots of talking, lots of questions.

“How’s your wife, man?” “How’s your baby boy?” “What are you up to these days?”

It all happened too quickly. Suddenly I was sharing my life again, suddenly the pain dissipating as if carried away on some invisible tide.

What was happening? I thought.

As the conversation subsided, one of the pastors asked if he could pray for me. He was an ex-sniper who had done a few tours overseas and I felt compelled to say yes. He came to the end of his prayer and the guys murmured “amen’s.”

I wasn’t finished though. The hatred I’d held onto not completely released. I grabbed his shoulder and started to pray.

I blessed the team, I blessed the church, I blessed my old supervisor and the senior leaders.

It felt awkward and forced as we stood and prayed in the middle of the coffee shop but I pressed through.

When I opened my eyes I knew it was done.

The hate that had consumed me for months had fallen off my shoulders.

I was — in possibly the surest sense of the word — free.