Poor Paulo has been stricken by an Anonymous Nietzschean (A.N.) commenter. Paulo is handling things pretty well but I would like to comment on A.N.’s misunderstanding of Christianity. The fellow said:

I don’t know how in the world – and I mean that literally – a true Christian can speak of “love” when Christianity hates and condemns everything in this world – ourselves included – as an evil error, and only loves it’s unknown opposite.

What he missed is that we don’t hate the rocks and trees and oxygen and water of this world, we hate the sin of this world. It has all been contaminated by sin and yet it groans under the burden of it. When we go to the beach or to the mountains we don’t look around and despise it all or secretly like it but feel like we’re in sin. We love God’s creation because it is so magnificent. When we look at our fellow man we don’t hate them because they are not Christians, if that were so then missions would never take place. We condemn this sin they are engaged in but our desire is still to call them to Christ.

The underlying misunderstanding here is that A.N. missed the truth that it is all about God. Creation is for His glory and man was created to enjoy and worship Him forever. We don’t hate creation just because we don’t worship it. We enjoy creation as it reveals God’s glory. We long for the day when the world is set free and sin is no more.

I’m not sure what A.N. is reacting against, but I suspect that A.N. is a college student who came from a fairly strict fundamentalist home and has read Nietzsche for the first time. What A.N. needs to do now is to read some more contemporary works (I’d recommend Ravi Zacharias’ A Shattered Visage to start with) who deal with Nietzsche pretty well.

Go get ’em Paulo!