When Calling Sin 'Sin' Becomes Hate Speech

For nearly 2,000 years, the Christian message has contained an uncomfortable word: repent.

Jesus used it. The apostles preached it. The Church has carried that message across cultures, continents and centuries.

But what happens when a culture increasingly decides that calling certain behaviors sinful is itself harmful--and government begins requiring employers to train workers to recognize and confront speech it considers hateful?

California may be giving us an early glimpse.

Governor Gavin Newsom recently signed AB 1803, legislation requiring California employers covered by the state's workplace harassment-training law to incorporate "anti-hate speech" instruction beginning January 1, 2028.

The law requires training that provides guidance on recognizing, reporting and confronting workplace speech that "vilifies, humiliates, or incites hatred" against people because of protected characteristics. Those characteristics include religion, race, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression, among others.

The legislation applies through California's existing harassment-training framework for employers with five or more employees.

On the surface, the goal sounds unobjectionable. Christians should be among the first to condemn genuine hatred.

Racial slurs are not Christianity. Mocking someone because of his ethnicity is not Christianity. Threatening homosexuals or transgender people with violence is not Christianity. Cruelty is not a fruit of the Spirit.

But that isn't where the difficult question ends.

The difficult question is: Who defines hate?

Because Christianity makes claims about human behavior that modern Western culture increasingly finds offensive.

Christianity teaches that sex belongs within marriage between a man and a woman. It teaches that adultery is sinful. Pornography is sinful. Homosexual behavior is sinful. Drunkenness is sinful. Greed is sinful. Pride is sinful.

And Christianity does not reserve the word "sin" for people outside the Church.

Quite the opposite.

The Bible's call to repentance begins with every one of us.

That is what makes the growing debate over "hate speech" so important for Christians.

The Gospel cannot be separated from repentance.

Jesus began His public ministry proclaiming, "Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."

When Peter preached at Pentecost and his listeners asked what they should do, his answer began with the same command: "Repent."

The Christian message is not simply that God loves humanity. It is that humanity has rebelled against God, Christ died for sinners, and sinners are called to turn from sin and follow Him.

Remove repentance and Christianity becomes something entirely different.

Yet increasingly, the cultural definition of compassion demands precisely that.

Love is being redefined as affirmation.

If someone identifies a behavior as fundamental to his identity, telling him that behavior is sinful can be characterized not merely as disagreement, but as an attack on the person himself.

That creates an unavoidable collision with historic Christianity.

The Christian says: "I love you enough to tell you what I believe God has said."

The culture increasingly answers: "If you loved me, you wouldn't say it."

And now government is entering that conversation.

AB 1803 does not say that churches may no longer preach biblical teachings about sexuality. Nor does it specifically declare Christian doctrine to be hate speech. Those distinctions matter.

But critics are concerned about something broader.

The statute requires training concerning speech that "vilifies" or "humiliates," terms whose application can depend heavily upon context and interpretation.

California Family Council, which opposed the legislation, warned that religious organizations and believers could eventually find themselves pressured to treat traditional convictions about marriage, sexuality and gender as hateful.

That concern should not simply be dismissed.

Imagine the questions that could eventually arise inside a Christian organization.

If an employee tells another employee that homosexual behavior is sinful, is that biblical counsel--or humiliating speech?

If someone says God created humanity male and female, is that Christian doctrine--or does it vilify someone who identifies as transgender?

If a Christian employee tells a coworker living with a boyfriend or girlfriend that sex outside marriage is sinful, is that religious expression--or workplace harassment?

Those questions will increasingly matter because America's disagreement is no longer simply over what behavior is acceptable.

We are arguing over whether people should even be permitted to say certain behavior is wrong.

And Christianity cannot survive faithfully under a rule that says Christians may believe biblical morality privately but must remain silent about it publicly.

There is also a remarkable irony here.

The Christian call to repentance that can sound judgmental to modern ears is actually rooted in hope.

You don't tell someone to repent because you believe he is beyond redemption.

You tell him to repent because you believe redemption is possible.

Jesus ate with sinners. He showed extraordinary compassion toward people whom respectable society rejected.

But He never confused compassion with pretending sin did not exist.

To the woman caught in adultery, Christ offered mercy--and then told her to "go, and sin no more."

Grace and repentance were not enemies.

They were part of the same message.

That is the distinction our culture is rapidly losing.

Christians must never use biblical truth as an excuse for cruelty. We should examine our words, our motives and our behavior. If the world is offended because Christians are arrogant, insulting or hateful, we have failed.

But if the world is offended because Christians faithfully repeat what Scripture teaches, that is something altogether different.

The danger comes when society stops distinguishing hatred of people from disagreement about behavior--and when government begins participating in defining that boundary.

Today the argument is about workplace training.

Tomorrow the deeper question may be unavoidable:

Can Christians continue telling people to repent when the sins they are being called to repent of have become protected identities?

Because a Church that is permitted to preach only the parts of Christianity that the culture finds affirming is not really free to preach Christianity at all.