This Act will pervade through all of Scottish society. Even children are to be targeted. School handbooks now explain that all hate crimes should be reported to the police. Journalist Jim Spence wrote in the Courier that Scotland is about to become a “two-tier society” where “some folk are given protection by the law from some kinds of hate crimes, while others will simply have to suck up abuse.” For example, “while it will be an offence to stir up hate against trans folk”, it “won’t break the law to stir up hate against women”, because astonishingly under this Act sex is not a protected characteristic.

Most people and hopefully all Christians would agree that hate is bad. So, at a superficial level, it would seem that we should all be rejoicing at a Scottish government bill which bans hate. But as is so often the case in the world, things are not quite what they seem and words have different meanings.
None more so than in The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act, passed three years ago. It was the brainchild of the then justice secretary for the Scottish government, Humza Yousaf. Yousaf is now the Scottish First Minister and his bill is about to become law on April 1st. Sadly it is no joke – other than to make Scotland a laughing stock throughout the world. It is one of the most draconian, authoritarian measures passed by a democratic government in recent times – and it has profound implications for the Church.
The bill will firstly turn any crime into an ‘aggravated offence’ if it is deemed to be motivated by hatred or prejudice. But the controversial part is that it will create a new criminal offence of behaving in an abusive manner ‘designed to stir up hatred’ against groups with certain protected characteristics.
Stirring Up Hatred
The problem with the bill is that it does not clearly define what ‘stirring up hatred’ means. There are already considerable problems in Scotland with this. The main one is with the definition of hate crimes. Police Scotland have a working definition that if the ‘victim’ perceives it to be a hate crime, then it is. An additional problem with the lack of clarity about ‘stirring up’ offences is that Police Scotland define a hate crime as ‘any crime which is understood by the victim or any other person as being motivated, wholly or partly, by malice or ill will towards a social group’.
This means that the subjective feeling of a perceived victim, or of a policeman, could be enough to have you accused of a hate crime – one which carries a sentence of up to seven years. Take for example JK Rowling. If she tweets that a man cannot become a woman, she could be arrested for hate crime. Same for a Christian preacher who says that he does not believe that Muhammad is a prophet or a teacher who says they believe marriage is between a man and a woman.
There’s Been a Misgender!
The police in Scotland have said they will investigate every report of hate crime, despite having recently announced that they would not be investigating every case of ‘low level’ crime, including apparently some cases of theft! If the TV series, Taggart, were being made today, instead of Taggart saying, “There’s been a murder,” he would be crying out, “There’s been a misgender.”
Police Scotland have also gone into full swing with their anti-hate propaganda, putting out a cartoon of the ‘hate monster’ and explaining that, “The Hate Monster represents that feeling some people get when they are frustrated and angry and take it out on others, because they feel like they need to show they are better than them. In other words, they commit a hate crime.”
White Working Class Men Are Hateful
In an astonishing statement they give an example of the kind of people who commit hate crimes as those with “deep-rooted feelings of being socially and economically disadvantaged, combined with ideas about white-male entitlement”.
By targeting white working-class men as being more likely to commit hate crime, Police Scotland are breaking their own law. At least they would be if they were to be consistent. But therein lies the danger of this law. It has nothing to do with consistency or justice.
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Written by C. R. Carmichael |
Friday, November 11, 2022
No doubt the perishing world will still call the Christian’s message offensive and ugly, but we know from God’s word, as it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” (Romans 10:15). This, then, is true beauty. Sadly, our Western society may still crash and burn in its arrogance to dress up their evil. And no matter what we do, many hell-bound people will still persist in calling the Gospel an evil thing and say that evil is the sassy, more chic virtue for today. But Scripture has already exposed this wicked deceit and it will not stand before God much longer. 

Right now in America we are seeing a crazy amount of propaganda from educators, politicians and media hacks trying to dress up immoral agendas in the clothing of love, tolerance and social virtue. To help facilitate this fashion makeover, a liberal arm of our society has actually seized control of the dictionary in a sly attempt to undermine God’s holy design with reworked definitions that display evil as the latest trend in goodness.
Nowadays, for example, abortion is defined as “reproductive justice,” sexually-charged drag shows are called “family-friendly entertainment,” pornographic books in school libraries are labeled “educational materials,” and body mutilation surgeries performed on children are considered “gender-affirming care.”
Moreover, they claim, a man can be a women, a woman can be a man, and that famous vaudeville joke has been reimagined with the hot new punchline: “That was no lady. That was my husband!”
They’re Trying to Pull the Ol’ Switcheroo
Quite simply, the world is still trying to pull the “ol’ Switcheroo,” a satanic wardrobe change that boldly attempts to refashion unrighteousness as a prevailing virtue in society. As touched upon in Isaiah 5:20, the prophet exposed this scam a long time ago and denounced anyone trying to redeem evil’s bad look. “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil,” he proclaimed, “and who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.”
Here Isaiah lays out the classic con job utilized by wicked quick-change artists who “endeavour to confound both the names and the natures of virtue and vice, of piety and impiety; commend and applaud what is evil, and disparage and discountenance what is good” (Benson Commentary).
The latest willing victims of this flimflam are the same ones found in Isaiah’s day: the desperate masses who are all too eager to conceal their moral imperfections with the flattering shadows of the world (John 3:19-29; James 4:4). By limiting their exposure to the Light and accessorizing their look with good deeds, they hope to erase the hard wrinkles of their sins. But according to Scripture, their beauty regimen will fail them when they find themselves in the polluted garments of their self-righteousness (Proverbs 28:13; Isaiah 64:6; 1 John 1:8).
Sadly, there are even professing Christians who have taken off the armor of God to join with the world’s consumers, forsaking the holy pattern of Scripture and stitching together a cheap knock-off from the loose fabric of moral relativism (Proverbs 14:12, 26:4-5; Colossians 2:8). Some do this to earn “likes” and “retweets” from fashionable society, while others would rather question the Bible’s clear stand against sin than have to admit that their dear friend or relative is going to hell if he doesn’t repent and come to Christ. Yet whatever the reason, it eventually boils down to someone who loves the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God (John 12:43).
Why are People so Confused About Evil?
The scary truth is, everyone says they hate evil, and yet evil will rarely come to us wearing a screen-printed t-shirt that says in bold letters, “THIS IS EVIL. PLEASE HATE ME.” The great evils of our day are often cloaked in such a way as to remain hidden from common, everyday perception and many times come into our lives as a specter of virtue for the secret purpose of deceiving us. This deception is especially potent when we try to judge something as good or evil based on the shifting ethics of this world instead of judging with godly spiritual discernment.
This fundamental truth about evil is one about which the Bible has frequently warned us. From the very beginning of creation, evil has appeared in the guise of goodness in order to fool mankind into ruin. Indeed Satan, that serpent of old, tricked Eve into believing that transgression against God had its benefits, and she was thus convinced that the forbidden tree was “good for food, pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise” (Genesis 3:6).
Many centuries later, of course, Satan would try in similar fashion to tempt our Lord to turn stones into loaves of bread as He fasted in the desert, but Jesus sharply rebuked the trickery and exposed the hidden evil with the powerful spotlight of God’s word (Luke 4:1-4).
The strategy of evil to appear in comely attire, in fact, was always a pressing concern for Jesus and His apostles. The Lord himself warned that false prophets would come “in sheep’s clothing” while in fact being “ravenous wolves” (Matt. 7:15). In Matthew 24:24, He tells the disciples that false christs and prophets “will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect.”
Likewise Peter warned of false teachers who tell fabricated stories and promise “freedom” when they themselves are “slaves of depravity” (2 Peter 2). And Paul alerted the Church to the presence of false apostles who would disguise themselves as apostles of Christ, just as Satan often masquerades as an “angel of light” (2 Corinthians 11:13-15).
As John Newton wisely noted, many centuries before the popularity of glitzy cross-dressing:
“Satan is never more a devil, than when he looks most like an angel. But let him look and talk as he will—he is Satan still; and those who are experienced and watchful may discern his cloven foot hanging below his fine garment of light.”
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Tom approaches the doors with caution this week. It has been a discouraging past few days for him. He was not expecting the doctor to call with that diagnosis. The weariness has spread from the physical to the emotional. He doesn’t want to answer the question so often asked in passing: “How are you?” The thought of standing up to sing songs of praise isn’t exactly thrilling. And yet, here he comes, walking in.
Beth is beaming as she anxiously hangs around the entryway. She is waiting for a friend that has finally taken Beth up on her offer to come visit one week. Many times, her name has been spoken at the altar. Beth can’t wait for the conversation she will get to share with her pastor when she gets to introduce her to him. Here she comes, walking in.
Cindy is only here because she is, quite literally, living on a prayer. Her world has fallen apart, her hope has vanished, and she does not know where else to go. She knows, deep down, that there is no where else to go. She doesn’t know, however, what to expect. What are Christians like? What is God like? It’s been years since she was in a church. She’s a little afraid, but she is holding out hope that someone in this building will know how to help her. She walks in.
Every person who walks in every local church on every Sunday morning has a reason for doing so. No two Sundays look the same for the sheep as a whole. There is a mosaic of motivations that compels men and women like Tom, Beth, and Cindy through the doors. But there are two certainties each can cling to as they prepare to enter: through the door they will find pasture, and they will find shepherds.