"Hate Won't Heal!"
This is the mantra of a special interest group peacefully protesting a clinic in Manhattan that is run by the faith based organization, Samaritans Purse. According to the AMNY article posted recently, the organization has turned away volunteers who are unwilling to sign a statement of faith in order to work for them. The key issue being that Samaritan’s Purse believes that marriage is between a male and a female. So is Samaritan’s Purse expressing hate towards a people group by not hiring them, even though they are not turning away anyone from receiving services in the clinic? Let’s explore:
All organizations have a collection of ideals, beliefs, and culture that makes up their identity. If you want to work for an organization, then you are choosing to represent them, including their ideals, beliefs, and culture, to the public at large and all who you encounter. If you do not share this identity then you should not try and work for this organization, and this organization does not want you working for them. Microsoft does not want an employee who believes that Google Drive is the best collaboration software, and Starbucks does not want an employee who hopes to convince everyone that coffee tastes bad. Mount Siani Hospital told Samaritan’s Purse that they could not operate inside their facility because they didn’t share the same ideals. In the same sense, a group that is a registered faith based organization has the legal ability to require people who work for them (employee or volunteer) to adhere to a statement of faith to ensure that there is a shared belief. So is this hate?
Hate is an intense or passionate dislike for something or someone. So if you hated someone you would act to exclude them from your life. So is Samaritan’s Purse acting hateful buy using their legal ability to exclude people who wont sign a statement of faith from representing them? Are companies hateful for not hiring some one who doesn’t represent their ideals? Was the hospital hateful by not allowing Samaritan’s Purse to work in their facility?
No. A hateful organization would exclude people they dislike from their products, from their clinics, and from the benefits of their skill and services being offered. They would make efforts to limit their benefits to only those who believe, or look, or talk the way that they like. This is not what Samaritan’s Purse, and many other faith based groups like it, are doing. This is not what the hospital was doing either. Mount Siani worked out a way to oversee the clinics that were established in Manahatan so that the service and product could still be provided to all of the public without compromising the ideals they held. Samaritan’s Purse has made it clear, and demonstrated it over decades of service, that ALL are welcome to come and be served and cared for. That ALL, regardless of background, belief, and ideal, will be loved and blessed through their programs. No one has been turned away from the clinics. No exclusion, no limits, no hate.
Sadly, we do have to acknowledge that there are groups who claim to follow the teachings found in the Bible and willfully express hate, exclusions, and rejection to many people groups. To them I challenge to read Matthew 10 where Jesus sent his disciples to go and minister to the people in the towns ahead. He challenged them “(8) Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give.”. We received the free gift of salvation and many other blessings and we should be freely demonstrating that unconditional love to all around us.
Now before you accuse us of skipping over the part where Jesus told them to bypass towns of Samaritans and gentiles, remember that God challenged Peter in the vision of animals in a sheet that he should “… not call anything impure that God has made clean.” (Acts 10:15) and sending him and many others to go to the gentiles specifically. Jesus’s instructions at the time were specific to a larger plan God had in place to invite the whole world into a redeemed relationship with him. “(3) This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, (4) who desires all men [mankind] to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” (I Timothy 2:3-4). Jesus met with and taught gentiles and even Samaritan women (considered culturally undesirable and social outcasts at the time) throughout his ministry.
So because of what we see in scripture, we can actually consider the actions of Samaritan’s Purse the exact opposite of Hate. Not only are they not excluding people from the benefits of their skills and service, but they are inviting all who come to them for help (with no stipulations, catches, or quid-pro-quo) to be healed physically, and have the opportunity to be healed spiritually as well (though not required). A review of their operational history shows a long line of effective efforts to serve the most vulnerable in the world as a mercy mission.
So to those peaceful protesters working hard to root out hate, we agree… Hate Won’t Heal … but the Love of God demonstrated through the hands of those who have made Him their Lord, can heal.