Book Review

Hate-Work: Working Through the Pain and Pleasure of Hate by David Augsburger

by Kyu Bo Kim

On September 11, 2001, the World Trade Center in New York was destroyed by suicidal terrorists. The attack took the lives of 2,800 - 3,500 persons in a moment, and the U.S. government suspected that Osama Bin Laden plotted the terrifying event. After 9/11, the U.S. president strongly proclaimed "war against terror" and sent troops to Afghanistan and Iraq to destroy Al-Qaida, the terrorist group. The war has been going on for a decade. Finally, on May 1, 2011, Osama Bin Laden who is assumed to be the face of global terrorism and the architect of 9/11 was killed in an official U.S. operation. This hateful retribution persisting for a decade now seems to be over after numerous battles, wounded people and deaths. However, nobody knows whether a "second Osama Bin Laden" might come out and commit a "second 9/11." Hate creates hate, and the hate spiral seems to have no end. Why does hate spring eternal? How does hate take control? What is hate?

In regard to the hate issue, David W. Augsburger wrote a noteworthy book, Hate-Work: Working through the Pain and Pleasure of Hate. After September 11, according to Augsburger, there was a serious challenge: "Either we will come to new understandings of hate, hate's causes, hate resolution, or we will accelerate and perpetuate it" (vii). In this challenge, he presents an in-depth understanding of hate, and suggests "Just-Hate" resolving the destructive aspects of hate, which is to reject sin and evil, but to love our enemy, the sinner and all humanity, with empathy.

To understand what hate is, the author describes the spectrum of hate in the first chapter: simple hatred, spiteful hatred, malicious hatred, retributive hatred, principled hatred, moral hatred, and just hatred (9-12). Augsburger does not simply assert to represent the entire spectrum of hatred, but suggests a spectrum from simple and spiteful hatred to just hatred. Just-Hate is the form that expresses passion about evil along with compassion for the evildoer in agape. It moves from subjective hatred, "being directed in a diffuse way toward substitute objects," to objective hatred, focusing on a rational goal, directed toward a more principled end or consciousness (34). He adds that the sign of this transformation is "empathy" (44).

In an in-depth study about hatred in the next chapters, the author searches the origin of hate from our infancy, and indicates that hatred can be succeeded through memory from generation to generation. He suggests that "we are born bilingual-wired for both love and hate" (53). This inborn hatred, as he argues, enters into our shadow, and then is projected onto another person, group, or racial category.

This projection, the author insightfully pointed out, is fundamentally deluded by "the demon of the Absolute," namely "all-or-nothing thinking" (115). He explains that this demon inspires judgmentalism and prejudice, justifies "discriminatory systems, racist laws, and ethnocentric practices" and rules in "polarized minds and paranoid community" (117-8). Then, in chapter seven, the author explores the Holocaust as an example of the worst kind of hatred combined with "the demon of the absolute." He provides six-theological concepts supporting the anti-Semitic attitude, and concludes that the essence of the hatred is "the myth of the devil-Jew" (153). In chapter eight, he further presents the enemy formation in relation to paranoia, enemification, and denial.

Finally, in chapter nine, Augsburger suggests that our task is not to deny hate but to respond with empathy, and seek justice and mercy. This task is not based on a projection of evil onto others, but on "a real wrestling with evil both within ourselves and others" (213) and on "what is truly good for friend and enemy" (194). In justice and mercy, through our self examination against projection and empathy for enemies, there are "no longer the people we previously despised" (222), but the love of enemy.

His work is meaningful in providing a profound understanding of hate, its origin and practical ways of coping. I mostly agree with his ideas of "Just-Hate" and "enemy love," and its practice of empathy and self-examination. It contributes to achieve justice in mercy, overcoming malicious, retributive and principled hate. Indeed, the practice of Just-Hate and enemy love should be encouraged as an ongoing process in our entire daily life. Then, justice and mercy in this world would gradually be accomplished until the day of Christ.

However, I could not follow the author's assumption that God is not the Absolute nor that God's being is "becoming" when he deals with "the demon of the Absolute" (123). Admittedly, God is not the absolute monarch since he gives us free will. However, all our free decisions and behaviors, even in bad, wrong and painful situations, are under the eternal providence and sovereignty of God. God is the Alpha and Omega (Rev. 1:8). This means that God's eternal being transcends the "becoming," which is limited by time and space. In eternalness, he knows absolutely everything and dominates every moment in our world. Thus, it is more reasonable to say that God's being is not becoming, but that our beings and understandings are "becoming" in accordance with the revelation from the Absolute God. Indeed, the assumption that God is becoming seems to be derived from our limitations for understanding the eternal absoluteness of God. If so, the idea of a "becoming God" as a trap of "the demon of the absolute" locks God in our limited understanding of the absolute.

Therefore, we need a clear boundary between God and us. God is absolute, but our understanding of him is not. Our knowledge and belief about the absolute God are relative, limited, and corrupted by situation and interests. Thus, we should not absolutely force our own understanding and view onto others. However, it does not mean that we have to give up belief in our absolute God. The absolute God in his providence and sovereignty must remain in our beliefs over that of limited human understanding.

This clear boundary between Creator and creation leads us to another issue. The author argues that an "absolute deity" leads us to "absolute action," and "violence" (124). However, the acceptance of an absolute deity does not simply mean that our understanding of an absolute god is absolute. Thus, we cannot be certain that the acceptance of an absolute deity really promotes absolute action and violence on the part of humanity. In fact, our absolute action and violence stems from distorted misunderstanding about God's absoluteness and the results of our sinful nature, not from the real absolute nature of God. Rather, a true understanding of God's absoluteness and human limitation makes a clear boundary between the Absolute God and our limitation, which should lead us to humility and enemy love. In other words, when we truly understand the difference between God and us, we, even in an unfair situation from the perspective of human eyes, can fully trust in God's treatment and faithfully obey the commandment for loving our enemy without resorting to retributive revenge. The real issue of this discussion should not be the existence of an absolute deity, but our distorted thoughts that we ourselves actually know the absolute deity and will.

Though he mishandles some theological issues, Augsburger's Hate-Work is an insightful and practical book to use to access hate. Particularly for those who have lost the true concept of forgiveness and reconciliation by considering enemy love as only an inner-psychological problem, his book could contribute to the restoration of real relationships and communities, and enable us to live with the spirituality of loving our enemy and pursuing just hate. When justice and mercy fill our minds and relationships, as the author suggests, we can wisely treat our hatred with agape. Then, we will be able to expect mutual restoration among past enemies and finally break the endless history of the hate spiral.