In fictional stories of old, important lessons in life often can be learned.

For example, in Lewis Carroll’s old classic, Through the Looking Glass, we read the following discussion between Humpty Dumpty and Alice in Wonderland.

'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone,' it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.'

'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.'

'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master - that's all.'

A major shortcoming of mankind is the unwillingness to hold itself accountable to objective, moral standards. Rather, it chooses to live by subjective mores that are as transitory as the prevailing wind. What is right today will be wrong tomorrow or vice versa.

In George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four, a, then, future police-state world is inhabited in three named regions – Oceania, Eurasia and East Asia. A dismal world to be sure, the novel introduces what are called “thought crimes” of the mind, truth and history "…Going down the memory hole" (referring to a mechanism for ongoing censorship), the futility of trying to oppose the state, and the terrible punishments exacted on a mostly controlled society living under perpetual privation, propaganda and hopelessness.

Current understanding of important issues such as “hate crimes” (an almost perfect synonym with Orwell’s thought crimes) is more difficult to grasp by many of the younger generation. Largely, we can attribute this “historical knowledge vacuum” to the demise of legitimate education in America’s public schools. Consequently, the youth are unable to develop a frame of reference that these, and other indispensable, stories and teachings (including the Bible) help to build.

History chronicles legitimate governments punishing criminals for illegal PHYSICAL acts already committed. For the most part, these crimes have been well defined and have stood the test of time. Curtailing moral governments to specified, limited and defined powers protects the innocent from criminal acts, generally speaking.

In most civilized nations, the “state” has been empowered to investigate anticipated crimes before their actual commission when there is sufficient reason to anticipate that a PHYSICAL crime is going to be committed. This legitimate power, itself, can be dangerous and must be circumscribed by law to prevent its abuse.

There is another important factor that must be considered. Man is not empowered to read the thoughts, much less comprehend the rationale, of his fellow man. We cannot know the entire context of the thoughts of others and we certainly are unable to tell – except by PHYSICAL, demonstrable actions – when and if an individual becomes penitent. That power – known as omniscience – is reserved to the Almighty Jehovah God.

It follows that empowering man to judge others for the crime of thoughts, based on this finite mental ability, is tantamount to creating an evil, leviathan state from which man might never recover until death, or at the Final Bar of Judgment.

Do we really want to subject ourselves to a new, “legal” tyranny that could exceed the gall and crimes of Genghis Khan, Castro, Hussein, Hitler, and Stalin? The consequences of such dangerous thinking should be well thought out before such logic, itself, becomes defined as a hate crime.

And here is why the church must NOT remain silent on this major issue. Many of those seeking (and in far too many cases already having enacted) such legislation are ungodly and are attempting to prop themselves up as gods to judge and punish here-to-fore what has been reserved to the Almighty.

You can be sure that the architects of this “new morality” (actually Solomon stated there is nothing new under the sun) and power eventually will attempt to use it to depose God from His legitimate sovereignty (at least in the minds of the masses) and vanquish all vestiges of remaining christianity. This is not a secular, but rather a profane and wicked, battle employed by soldiers of Satan – no matter their veneer of claiming to help the oppressed and downtrodden.

Two last points!

All of our actions, including the thoughts of the mind (as well as the deeds of the body) indeed will be brought into account at Judgment. This includes those seeking to make hate crimes a “valid” law because they seek to usurp the prerogative of Almighty God.

To those genuinely interested in minimizing hate, learning and obeying the gospel of Jesus would be a good start. Then proclaiming that same gospel to the world would go a long way towards changing the hearts of many.