How can God's law create such violent hateful people?

I have been frustrated lately

yes, it has to do with the elections

about all the people who claim to be the champions of morality

and yet... in the end

are nothing more than the purveyors of anger, and hate

and even violence

we see it clearly in the middle east, where religious systems 

battle it out

but it is just as real in America

where those who would uphold the law

actually end up

(or so it seems to me)

 

on the wrong side of the Gospel

 

It is an old story, this battle between law and grace

it is not that we don't need law

we certainly do...

but what is law about?

 

Paul struggles mightily with this

and at one point 

remembering the way he had persescuted and murdered Chrisitans

actually asks the question (Philippians 6) 

 

"How following the law so faithfully still create hateful and violent men like me?

God question

As we see so called people of faith saying cruel and hurtful things

Supporting legislation that harms

Being, bottom line, a negative force

Because the law is not an end
but a means
we turn God's law into a matter of
fallowing a check list of rules

rather than a tool for promoting God awareness
a tool for seeing the intimately personal struggles we face
between love and hate
generosity and greed

struggles that can only be resolved
at whatever level they can...
by the presence of God/Christ/Spirit in us.

law is where we begin
where we see our need of God
where we understand the big conflicts of the soul

law takes us to God
to grace
to empowerment

not to attacking and dehumanizing others
not to flying planes into buildings
not to obscene signs at funerals
not to name calling

if we find ourselves in the places of hate
and rigidity and intolerance
that place or moral superiority
we have made law an end in itself
and we have become lost
and taken those around us with us!

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You must learn the meaning of the law very well, so you will know how to disobey it properly (Dali Lama)

I would not, Jesus was one person who clearly knew the law well enough to "disobey" it (probably the wrong word, properly