When hatred loses its object of hate

We know what ISIS hates, but pray tell, what do they love? What are they for? We know their zeal for beheading, but what do they look forward to after the last undesirable has been beheaded? To put it another way: If Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and his henchmen succeed in making the world their caliphate, and manage to snuff out all resistance, what will their kingdom look like, positively speaking?

The 2001 film Conspiracy tells the true story of the Wansee Conference, in which 15 top Nazi leaders gathered in a suburb of Berlin on Jan. 20, 1942, to discuss a final solution to the Jewish problem. (The minutes of the actual meeting were recorded and distributed to the participants, of which one extant copy formed the basis of the movie.) During a break in the proceedings, Ministerial Director Wilhelm Kritzinger took SS Gen. Reinhard Heydrich aside and said he had a story to tell him. Heydrich’s character is later asked by Adolf Eichmann and another attendee what Kritzinger’s story was, and the following dialogue ensued:

Heydrich: “He told me a story about a man he’d known all his life, a boyhood friend. This man hated his father. Loved his mother fiercely. The mother was devoted to him but his father used to beat him, berate him. … Anyway … this friend grew to manhood. He was still in his 30s when the mother died. … The man stood as they lowered her casket and tried to cry but no tears came. The man’s father lived to an old age and died when the son was in his 50s. And at the father’s funeral, much to his son’s surprise, he could not control his tears. He was inconsolable. That was the story Kritzinger told me.”

Eichmann: “I don’t understand.”

Heydrich: “No? … The man was driven his whole life by hatred of his father. When his mother died, that was a loss. When the father died—when hatred lost its object—then the man’s life was empty. Over.”

Eichmann: “Interesting.”

Heydrich: “That was Kritzinger’s warning.”

Eichmann: “What? That we should not hate the Israelites?”

Heydrich: “No. That it should not so fill our lives that when they are gone, we have nothing left to live for.”

I take this as a cautionary tale not only for Muslim hate and Nazi hate but for all of us who are prone to so devote ourselves to causes and campaigns, be they evil or good, that when they are gone, our life and meaning are gone. The mystery of love is more profound than we had thought. Love’s agenda is ultimately positive and building, not merely tearing down. God’s command to “hate evil” is an assignment that will come to an end. Love only will remain into the coming age (1 Corinthians 13) and be the song we sing forever.