She begins her book with the Anderson family. Moving from California back to Georgia and to their seeker sensitive megachurch in “the Bible Belt,” they thought they had left behind churches in which Leftist politics were pushed. They found the hard way that was not so, particularly after James Anderson was asked to join a “racial reconciliation” study, “Be the Bridge,” in which white participants were not allowed to speak for the first six months. They stuck it out for a while, but then moved to a PCA (Presbyterian Church in America, an orthodox denomination) church, only to find Critical Race Theory pushed from that pulpit and a service turned into something akin to a “struggle session.” The Andersons found out through difficult experience that “this is a bigger problem . . . not just California craziness.” Basham tells such stories well, letting readers know that more than politics are at stake but also the spiritual health of churches and people.

For months I’ve been eager to read Megan Basham’s Shepherds for Sale – How Evangelical Leaders Traded the Truth for a Leftist Agenda. I’ve oft wished that it had been released before this summer of politics and of church conventions and assemblies. So when the local Barnes and Nobles let it slip onto their shelves before this week’s release date in what Basham has called a “small snafu,” I snapped up a copy. I’d rather call it a felix culpa!
Having become familiar with her online work, I expected a well researched, no nonsense work. Megan Basham keeps receipts and knows how to use them! And the book is indeed that, reflected by the footnotes and index taking up 72 pages.
What I did not expect is that Shepherds for Sale would be so well written. I knew Basham is an excellent communicator, but such skills do not always translate well to a book format. I expected a needed, well documented book; I did not expect one which would not only be easy to read but even hard to put down at times.
This is quite the accomplishment given the difficult and complex subject of evangelical leaders being too eager to heed and please the woke globalist culture of powerful elites, too sloppy in applying the Bible to today’s political and social issues, and too willing to take money from Leftist entities such as Soros. The predictable result is somewhat orthodox leaders and churches pushing toxic ideologies and politics.
Basham organizes the chapters of Shepherds for Sale mainly into how evangelical leaders have done so in the areas of climate change, illegal immigration, watering down and diverting what “pro-life” means, COVID propaganda and suppression, Critical Race Theory, #MeToo and #ChurchToo, and drift on LGBTQ issues. In addition, a chapter focuses on how Christianity Today and the Trinity Forum have departed from their original missions to become influencers for the Left with the help of money from the Rockefellers, E-bay founder Pierre Omidyar, the Lilly Endowment and more.
Yes, not pleasant topics to say the least. Yet Basham’s writing on these is assessable and engaging. And she makes Shepherds for Sale personal and relevant by telling real life stories, including narratives of how families have been affected by evangelical drift.
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While the temptation is to marvel at the lives of the saints listed in Hebrews, John Owen notes, “Until now he had suggested that they look to people who had professed the Christian faith in the past, but now the focus is on him who is the author and perfecter of our faith. Thus the Apostle urges them to persevere in the faith and obedience of the Gospel.” What about Christian biography? In the same way that Hebrews 11 is designed to inspire us toward godliness, directing our gaze toward the Lord Jesus Christ, Christian biography should encourage us to examine our own lives.

The blessings that come from reading Christian biography cannot be fully enumerated or overstated. There is a measure of comfort, joy, and inspiration that comes from beholding the hand of God in the lives of His flawed yet faithful servants. So inspiring are the lives of believers in history, in fact, that even the world often takes note and admires the remarkable fortitude and towering influence of Christian heroes. And while there is tremendous benefit from reading the many secular biographies available, I want to argue for the specific value and practice of Christians writing Christian biographies.
The Theological Reason
While it does not take any specific spiritual insight to retell historical events, it certainly takes a Spirit-filled person to understand and appreciate God’s providential hand throughout human history. Theologically, we understand that every Christian is indwelt by the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 6:19; Eph. 1:13–14.) and perceptive to the things of God. In fact, the Apostle Paul notes that “we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God” (1 Cor. 2:12). Further, he notes that “the natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (v. 14). Unbelievers cannot and do not accept the things of God.
We see this when we read biography and history written by secular scholars. While their research may be impeccable, their historical retelling brilliant, and their writing sublime, they lack the spiritual insight to understand the doctrinal convictions of their subjects, often treating them as anachronisms. I recently read a historian liken John Robinson, the pastor of the Pilgrims, not to a shepherd but to a cult leader. However, the biographer was doing nothing more than trying to explain to a secular audience Robinson’s understanding of pastoral ministry.
This is common in the unbelieving world. To the Spirit-less mind, Jesus was merely an altruistic Jewish rabbi, the Bible is a collection of revered writings, the Holy Spirit is a mythical force, evangelism is religious zealotism, sovereign election is loveless and strange, complementarianism is arcane, the gospel is foolishness, and so on. However, Paul is clear that believers “have the mind of Christ” (1 Cor. 2:16) and therefore understand the basic Christian truths and beliefs that are common to all saints in history.
The Practical Reason
It seems axiomatic that biographers stand a better chance of understanding their subjects if they share common experiences. Who better to understand Christians than other Christians? While the events of a person’s life are unique, there are common realities shared by all Christian believers—common experiences to every Christian like regeneration, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and the empowering by that same Spirit (Eph. 4:4–6).
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I am having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that I get asked all the time, by pastors, denominational leaders and interested observers, about ways to grow a church. I guess people assume that since I spend my days digging through religion data, that I should have been able to uncover the secret to getting people back into religion. It takes everything in my power to not say to them, “My church went from 50 people to less than 10 under my watch. If I knew anything about how to grow a church I would have done it by now.” But I know where they are coming from because many of them are in the same boat that I was in. 

How do you get rid of a pulpit? Or a communion table?
Does anyone want 30-year-old choir robes?
What do you do with the baptismal records of a church that dates back to the 1860s?
I never thought I would be asking myself these questions, but here I am, like many other pastors across the country as the number of Americans who belong to a faith community shrinks and churches that once housed vibrant congregations close.
What’s happened at my own church is especially poignant since in my day job I research trends in American religion. And when I first became a pastor, right out of college, there were ominous signs, but I did not foresee how quickly the end would come, hastened by a pandemic.
I first took the pulpit of First Baptist Church of Mount Vernon, Illinois, in the fall of 2006. The church was a part of the American Baptist denomination, a mainline tradition that welcomed women into leadership and tended to take a more moderate stance on theological and social issues. I was 24 years old, pursuing a master’s degree in political science, and I needed a job that would give me the flexibility to focus on my studies. It seemed like a good fit at the time, both theologically and logistically, although it was inconceivable to me then that I would still hold the same position into my early 40s.
I preached in a sanctuary that could easily accommodate 300 people. That first year or two, I could count about 50 people scattered around the pews. It felt sparse, but not empty — a relief, since I wasn’t the most credentialed pastor in the history of the church. As an undergraduate, I took a couple of classes that focused on theology and ministry, but that was it. I did my best to not say something heretical during my Sunday sermon. What I lacked in education and experience, I was sure I could make up with enthusiasm. There’s an apocryphal quote from John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, that I thought about often in those first couple of years: “Light yourself on fire with passion, and people will come from miles to watch you burn.”
I tried to light that match every Sunday morning. People didn’t show up.
I don’t know if the members of my congregation thought I was going to be the one who turned around the fortunes of the church, but there was lots of talk of growth in those first few hopeful years. Many faithful members had been sitting in those pews for decades. They had seen the church in its heyday, when there were so many people in Sunday School that they had to install movable dividers in the fellowship hall so they could add more classrooms in the 14,000-square-foot building.
But the church’s membership began to dwindle in the 1970s and 1980s. If you talked to five members of my church about this period of time, you would get five different reasons for the decline: An ill-advised sermon drove off a few key families. Lots of kids who grew up in the church went off to college and didn’t return to rural Illinois because of the lack of employment opportunities. Other churches in town seemed more attractive with their drums, guitars and high-energy worship. Regardless of the cause, the membership of First Baptist dipped below 100 by the late 1990s.
After a couple of years, the discussion about revitalizing the church began to grow quiet. A sense of resignation started to creep in. I came to a disheartening conclusion: I wasn’t going to be able to turn things around. I think at that point most members knew in their hearts that the end was coming for the church. We were just all afraid to speak that truth into existence. It was better to keep our heads down and focus on the next worship service and not worry about what would happen in three or five years.
The Rise of ‘The Nones’
On one of my first Sundays as pastor, the older adults had invited me to their Sunday School class. We sat around a table with Styrofoam cups of coffee and tried to find common ground across a five-decade generational divide. They were glad to have me, and I was honored that they trusted me enough to be their pastor. About a year ago, I was looking at an old church directory and realized that every person in that classroom back in 2006 had met their eternal reward over the previous 15 years, and I had presided at many of their funerals.
But as my church was dying, my academic career was starting to accelerate. I began to plunge headlong into data about American religion. I had earned a Ph.D. in political science with a dissertation that focused on religion and politics while I held the pulpit at First Baptist, and I had landed a job at a university that was within driving distance of my home base. I could be a professor during the week and pastor on the weekends.
I wrote a couple of academic articles about American religion in an effort to secure my employment in academia, but I didn’t want to produce scholarship that only a dozen or so people in my subfield would read.
So I decided to take the things I was seeing in the data and help the average person understand the changing American religious landscape. I began posting graphs on my Twitter account. Most of them got little attention until I created a simple line graph that traced American religion between 1972 and 2018.
The point was simple: The share of Americans who were nonreligious was now the same size as evangelicals. The post went viral, and the trajectory of my life changed. That graph appeared in nearly every major media outlet in the United States, and it led to me writing a book about the rise of nonreligious Americans, a book entitled “The Nones.”
What I was seeing in the data was unmistakable and mapped perfectly onto what I was seeing every Sunday — mainline Protestant Christianity was in near free fall, and the numbers of nonreligious were rising every single year. Members of the media found my career combination of pastor and social scientist fascinating.
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I haven’t always been a family devotion guy. It’s not because I didn’t want or aspire to be; I did. But we went a long time as a family before pulling the trigger and trying to integrate this practice into the regular rhythm of our family life.
We’ve been doing morning devotions together for over 15 years now – long enough that our kids expect that we will. It’s a long road, as are most things with young children I’m finding out. Though revival doesn’t break out every morning over eggs and toast, our continued hope and prayer is that times like these builds into the love and discipline our children will have in the future when it comes to God’s Word.
And through those 15 years, we’ve tried different things, failed at a bunch, and maybe learned some things about starting and continuing in this pattern. I hope some of these things will be encouraging to you to kick this off, or affirming to you if you’ve found yourself in the middle of it.
In my opinion, then, here are 6 things you must have to start a family devotion:
1. Consistency.
There’s a pattern to everything, a routine for most every part of life. And any time you disrupt that routine, even for the noblest of reasons, there is going to be backlash. So before you get started, you’ve got to commit to consistency. Decide on the time of day. And keep it at that time.
For us, it’s 6:45 am at breakfast. That still might change in the coming years, but if you don’t pick a consistent time then it’s doubly difficult to keep the practice going.
What’s more, in our experience, the days that feel like discipline to do this far outweigh the days where you feel like the kids are actually engaged and learning something. But then again, isn’t that often the case in our own lives with our own spiritual growth and development? And yet we keep going because we believe in the power of God and the power of His Word.
2. Variety.
For us, we try to change things up once a week. Monday through Thursday, we do a Bible study and prayer (probably around 15 minutes), but Friday is different.
On Friday, everyone shares one specific thing they are thankful for that week, and one prayer request.
For a while, those prayer requests were pretty predictable – that I would have a good day, that I would do well on a test, that I would be kind to friends… that kind of thing. In recent days, we’re tried to bring more variety into those prayer requests as well, asking the kids to share a prayer not for themselves but for someone else, or to share something they’re thankful for that’s not about an activity they get to do that weekend.

To be jealous for God is to be burdened when other nations praise and worship false gods. To be jealous for God is to see men exalted and to be filled with holy zeal. To be jealous for God is to want to bring in the atheist nations so that they can give God the glory due His name. Jealousy for God drives us to reach out to a lost world to bring them back to reality.

I magine Jesus for a moment: Standing. Breathing hard. Whip in hand. Tables and money turned and spilt on the floor. The temple quiet. The Pharisees seething. The heart of Christ burning with zeal for His Father’s house. Jesus begins to explain Himself: “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers” (Mark 11:17). Can you see it? Do you also hear what is on His mind? He has missions on His mind: “for all the nations.” And it is fueled by a deep jealousy.
The Jealous One
Jealousy? Yes. Jesus is showing us another example of how He is the radiance of the glory of God, the exact imprint of His nature (Heb 1:3). Jesus is displaying God’s righteous jealousy for His glory. “For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God” (Deut 4:24). He warns His people multiple times not to worship other gods, “for I the LORD your God am a jealous God” (Deut 5:9). God is the only One worthy of worship. He is the only One who truly deserves praise. God’s perfect, sinless jealousy is appropriate. He alone is worthy of glory, and He will share it with no other (Isa 42:8). Jesus knows that. Jesus feels that. Jesus is jealous for the glory of God.
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Obadiah speaks not only of judgment on Edom but also of the “day of the Lord” (Obad. 15), which will bring judgment on all nations (Obad. 16) and deliverance for God’s people (Obad. 17). At first glance, it sounds as if these will take place at the same time. However, the biblical prophets regularly collapse together God’s acts of judgment and salvation, much like one takes an extended telescope and shortens it into a compact unit. This manner of speaking is often referred to as “prophetic foreshortening” or “telescoping,” and being aware of this technique can help the reader avoid confusion.

The prophecy of Obadiah can be easily overlooked since it is the shortest book in the Old Testament and tucked away among the Minor Prophets, which is unfamiliar territory to many Bible readers. The basic facts about the book of Obadiah can be learned quickly since it takes only a minute or two to read it.
The prophet proclaims the Lord’s judgment against the nation of Edom (Obad. 1–4, 8–10), a small country but one that lived with a sense of ease and security that had developed into boastful pride (Obad. 3, 12). The reasons for such confidence were twofold: It was a mountainous country that, from a human perspective, would have been easily defensible (Obad. 3–4). Moreover, Edom (often referred to by its chief city, Teman) had a reputation for possessing great human wisdom (Obad. 8–9; see also Jer. 49:7). In other words, Edom had all the strategic advantages that allowed its inhabitants to live securely. Yet the Lord proclaims that judgment will come upon the Edomites not only for failing to assist the Judeans when the Babylonians attacked them (culminating in the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile in 587/586 BC), but even more for providing active assistance to the invaders by capturing escaping Judeans and handing them over (Obad. 11–14; Ps. 137:8–9; Ezek. 25:12; 35:5). Along with these oracles of judgment, the Lord also promises that His people will be delivered and rise again through His kingly power (Obad. 17–21).
Understanding the following three things about the book of Obadiah can help us grasp its message more fully.
1. The prophecy of Obadiah displays the outworking of the Lord’s sovereign decree to Isaac concerning his sons Jacob and Esau that “the older will serve the younger” (Gen. 25:23).
The nations of Edom and Judea were descended from Esau and Jacob (Gen. 36:1–43; 49:1–28).
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Job has just found out in repeated hammer blows of bad news that all of his wealth is gone and his family is no more. He tore his robe and shaved his head in grief. However, did he curse or blame God? He recognized that God allowed it to happen and that God is sovereign and within His rights to do this. He cried out, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return.” This is recognition that possessions are not our substance. He also recognized that all he had came from God, belonged to God, and God had the right to take it away. Job does proclaim that this trial was of God, but the passage says that it was not a sin for him to say that. God does allow suffering into the lives of His people to accomplish His purposes.

12 Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you. 13 But to the degree you are sharing the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing, so that also at the revelation of His glory you may rejoice with exultation. 14 If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. 15 Make sure that none of you suffers as a murderer, or thief, or evildoer, or a troublesome meddler; 16 but if anyone suffers as a Christian, he is not to be put to shame, but is to glorify God in this name. 17 For it is time for judgment to begin with the house of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God? 18 AND IF IT IS WITH DIFFICULTY THAT THE RIGHTEOUS IS SAVED, WHAT WILL BECOME OF THE GODLESS MAN AND THE SINNER? 19 Therefore, those also who suffer according to the will of God must entrust their souls to a faithful Creator in doing good.1 Peter 4:12-19 (LSB)
When John Piper was diagnosed with Prostate Cancer in December 2005, he preached a wonderful sermon about prayer then he wrote an open letter posted on his web site. The letter was titled Don’t Waste Your Cancer. The sermon really got hold of me about the condition of my prayer life. Then I read that letter and was ashamed at how I was handling my little bit of suffering at that time.
The letter’s message was this, when we suffer, we must not waste the gift of a spiritual growth opportunity God has given us. Yes, that is right. Suffering is a gift from God that is a fantastic Spiritual growth opportunity. I posted links to both the sermon and the letter on my old blog. I had many other bloggers link to them and they received many comments. One of them stands out.
One man got very angry. He said that Piper must have a death wish or something. He thought it was crazy for anyone to have a positive outlook when it comes to suffering. I was struck at how no matter how well he was answered by me and others about what John Piper meant by his letter, he was obstinate about his resistance to suffering. He told me that I might as well go poison myself if I thought suffering was that great of a deal. In his mind any suffering could not be of God. A loving God would never do that to His children. With that view in mind, let’s look at the next section in Job, which is Job 1:6-22.
6 Now it was the day that the sons of God came to stand before Yahweh, and Satan also came among them. Job 1:6 (LSB)
In your Bible the word translated “LORD” throughout the book of Job is “YHWH”, “the Almighty.” However, I use the LSB Bible, which translates YHWH as Yahweh. Who are the sons of God? Are these Angels? Are they men? I have heard it both ways. I believe, however, that this verse is a description of God’s people coming together to worship God. The sons of God are His children. Who are God’s children? They are those adopted into His family who have been regenerated. These are regenerated believers who have come to worship God just as we do when we worship together in church. Who was with them? Satan was there. Is Satan present in our church services when we are gathering to worship God? Sure he is. Much of his nasty work is done within professing believers isn’t it? Also, Job is probably within these “sons of God” as they worship. He could even be the priest leading the worship.
7 And Yahweh said to Satan, “From where do you come?” Then Satan answered Yahweh and said, “From roaming about on the earth and walking around on it.” 8 Then Yahweh said to Satan, “Have you set your heart upon My servant Job? For there is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, fearing God and turning away from evil.” Job 1:7-8 (LSB)
Satan is not omnipresent nor is he omniscient. God asks Satan from where he and come. He told God that he had been traveling all through the earth. Then God asks Satan an interesting question. He throws Job up into Satan’s face referring to Job’s faithfulness before the Lord. The scene is intriguing. Here we have believers gathered to worship God.
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A church that is real will not be too quick to judge but will rather be honest enough to recognise that each member sins, each member has their own struggles and each member – if they nevertheless love Jesus and want to obey his commands – is saved by grace and fully accepted by him. All of which means, we won’t be too quick to pronounce judgement recognising that we can all be judged.

You sometimes hear about people wanting church that is real. The other thing people sometimes hanker after is authenticity. But what is a church that is authentically itself? What does that kind of church look like? Here are some possible things.
Free to be individuals
A church that is authentically itself will have room for all the individuals that make it up to be themselves. Nobody will be expected to wear the formally or informally prescribed uniform. Rather, everyone is free to wear what they wear simply because it is what they would wear. Similarly, everybody is free to speak in the way they would naturally speak and talk about whatever it is that happens to be their particular points of interest. In all the ways that people might express their personality, ethnicity, culture and interests, a church that is real will gladly make room for such things.
Free to be honest
A church that is authentically itself will gladly be honest. There will be a culture of honesty – that probably starts with those at the top but reaches down throughout the church – that we can make our struggles known without fear of damning judgmentalism. Being honest about our many and varied struggles – physical, mental, spiritual – is a sign of being real.
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We think God won’t mind a few sins here and there. The problem with this thinking is that we don’t get it. We don’t get how holy God is, and we don’t get how sinful we are. Isaiah understood it when he saw a vision of the Lord in his glory. He cried out, And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” (Isa. 6:5) Isaiah saw his own sinfulness. He saw his total inadequacy to stand before God.

A lot of people think, “I’m not perfect, but I’m a pretty good person. God will let me into heaven.” This kind of thinking reminds me of the Esurance commercial where the woman says, “That’s not how it works; that’s not how any of this works!”
According to the Bible, getting into heaven by our own good deeds is “not how it works.” God is holy, which means that he is pure goodness, and he made human beings to be in a loving relationship with him. Because of the fall of man in the garden of Eden, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23).
Learning what it means that God is holy helps us to understand why the only way we can come to the Father is through Jesus. Here are seven essential things every person needs to know about the holiness of God:
1. God is different from his creation.
While humans have certain attributes that image their Creator, they are different kinds of beings than God. For starters, humans are created beings (finite), while God is spirit (infinite)—he has no beginning and no end:

“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.” (Rev. 1:8)

In his classic book The Holiness of God, theologian R. C. Sproul writes,

When the Bible calls God holy, it means primarily that God is transcendentally separate. He is so far above and beyond us that He seems almost totally foreign to us. To be holy is to be ‘other,’ to be different in a special way” (p. 38). “And one called to another and said: ‘Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!’” (Isa. 6:3)

2. God must uphold all his attributes.
Because he is spirit, God is always purely all of his attributes in complete perfection and unity. It is impossible for God to allow his mercy to override his justice. His holiness never conflicts with his love.
God must be true to all his attributes, because to do otherwise would be to deny his own self. As theologian Michael Horton so aptly states in his book The Christian Faith, ‘God would not be God if he did not possess all his attributes in the simplicity and perfection of his essence” (p. 229).
3. God’s holiness reveals our utter sinfulness.
We think God won’t mind a few sins here and there. The problem with this thinking is that we don’t get it. We don’t get how holy God is, and we don’t get how sinful we are. Isaiah understood it when he saw a vision of the Lord in his glory. He cried out,

And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” (Isa. 6:5)

Isaiah saw his own sinfulness. He saw his total inadequacy to stand before God. He understood that he needed to be cleansed so he would not be destroyed by God’s utter goodness and purity.
We find another such example in the Gospel of Luke. When Peter witnessed the miracle of the great catch of fish:

But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” (Luke 5:8)

And when we get it—when we realize that there is nothing about us that is untouched by our depraved nature and how impossible it is for us to stand in righteousness before God on our own merits—this is when we must run to the foot of the cross and cling to Christ, our only hope.
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Our culture calls many things “hate speech”, but Scripture clearly defines it as any speech which denigrates people’s nature as God’s image-bearers and any speech—or silence—that promotes sinful and destructive behavior.  In order to love our neighbors as ourselves, we must pray for them, acknowledge their personhood, and lovingly seek their good by confronting sin when necessary.  The world will call us hateful for this, but this is what Scripture calls love—and that’s all that matters.

You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.
-Leviticus 19:17-18, ESV

In our day many apply the term “hate speech” quite liberally.  The Left often uses it for any view that makes them feel uncomfortable.  Balking at this, the Right often responds by denying the entire concept of “hate speech”.  But Scripture must define our terms, so we cannot call everything “hate speech” like the Left, but we also cannot deny its existence like the Right.  This post will examine how Scripture defines hate speech.
Denigrating God’s Image
While we may debate what constitutes hate speech, it is clear from Scripture that hateful speech is sinful—and that God takes it very seriously.  The tongue is a restless evil full of deadly poison (James 3:8), so we are foolish to underestimate its destructive power: “Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit” (Proverbs 18:21).  We will be either justified or condemned by our words (Matthew 12:37).  Thus, Scripture is clear how we must speak: “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear….Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving” (Ephesians 4:29, 5:4) and “Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person” (Colossians 4:6).  Therefore, we are sinning whenever our words are corrupting or foolish; not helpful for building others up, gracious, beneficial, or fitting to the occasion.  But sinful speech is not necessarily hateful speech.  Jesus links speech to hate in the Sermon on the Mount:

You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.
-Matthew 5:21-22, ESV

Here, “you fool” was a serious insult that went beyond mere foolishness to denote worthlessness.[1]  While Scripture sometimes calls people worthless, we dare not use such language since we do not know the eternal state of people’s souls.  Such language denigrates people by referring to them as something lower than people made in God’s image.  It is the most common manifestation of the anger of man that does not produce the righteousness of God (James 1:20): “Terms of abuse are not a heightened form of anger; they are its most obvious and common expression”.[2]  That is why Jesus equates such speech with murder:

Jesus establishes a new divine law when He…proclaims in threefold repetition that the term of abuse which is regarded as harmless though spoken in ill-humour is an offence worthy of death….This paradox of unparalleled sharpness is designed to bring home to the hearers the terrible seriousness of sins of the tongue in God’s eyes and hence to save them from having on their consciences the everyday ill feelings towards their brothers which might appear innocuous but in fact poison relationships.
-Joachim Jeremias, “Ῥακά,” ed. Gerhard Kittel, Geoffrey W. Bromiley, and Gerhard Friedrich, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans: 1964: 975–976.

Therefore, hate speech according to Scripture would be any speech that does not recognize another person as a person created in the image of God.  Obviously, things like racial slurs fit into that category, but so do misogynistic or misandristic terms that view women and men respectively as inferior. Since our culture despises marriage, some culturally acceptable terms for spouses would be hate speech according to Scripture, such as a husband referring to his wife as his “ball and chain”.  Our culture’s disdain for children also means that several terms for them are actually hate speech, like “rug rats”.  For the same reason, I refrain from saying “unborn” or “preborn” in favor of “children in the womb” to avoid diminishing their humanity.
Biblically, hate speech also includes viewing a person’s identity as part of a certain demographic or lifestyle as more important than his or her personhood.  The primary and most important identity of any person is as a person—a man or woman made in the image of God.  Second is identity in relation to God.  We are all sinners by nature and either separated from God because of our sin or reconciled to God by being in union with Jesus Christ through faith.  Then—and only then—come other factors, starting with our unchangeable identity as male or female.  We err when we allow any other factor of our identity to supersede this hierarchy.  Any factor can supplant this identity in our minds, but this erroneous prioritization is especially prevalent in the alphabet abomination where sexual orientation is the locus of identity.  They are not gays, lesbians, homosexuals, or anything else but people who practice homosexuality (1 Corinthians 6:9, 1 Timothy 1:10).  While our sin nature is an important part of our identity, we must not make our particular sins to be so central to our identity that they supplant our humanity or relationship with God.  All of these are hate speech by the biblical definition.
It is equally important to note what is not hate speech according to Scripture.  While any term that emphasizes demographics or particular sin over personhood and relationship with God is hate speech, that does not mean that all strong or less-than-complimentary language is hate speech.  Scripture is full of sharp word that our culture would consider hateful.  Proverbs and Ecclesiastes frequently refer to people as fools, and God Himself often mocks the folly of sinful people.  For example, we have previously seen how God calls the complacent women of Samaria “cows” (Amos 4:1).   Jesus continues this practice by calling the religious leaders blind guides, blind fools, and sons of vipers (Matthew 23).
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