Hate is not a purely human emotion. Both gorillas and chimpanzees have shown clear signs of hatred within their societies, and plenty of non-primates exhibit behavior that moron anthropomorphizers like me instantly characterize as hate.

Still, humans do seem to be much better at hating than other critters. We're certainly more efficient at it--we've killed millions of people in the name of hate.

And some of us feel that's how things ought to be. Last week, 88-year-old James W. Von Brunn, an angry old white guy if there ever was one, walked up to the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington and shot guard Steven Tyrone Johns with a rifle. A couple weeks earlier, he'd gone over to the U.S. Naval Academy (in his hometown of Annapolis, Md.) and unsuccessfully protested the Academy's efforts to create a more diverse group of middies.

Von Brunn isn't the only hater out there. Willy Drake, pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Buena Park, Calif., not only said that George Tiller (the abortion doctor killed in Wichita, Kan. a couple weeks ago) "was far greater in his atrocities than Adolf Hitler," but also has been publicizing the fact that he is praying for the death of President Obama.

Unlike Von Brunn, Drake isn't some run-of-the-mill wacko. He served as second vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention from 2006-2007 and was a candidate for its presidency last year. He's also (of course) a Christian radio talk show host.

Drake says that he is praying an imprecatory prayer against the Prez. For those not steeped in the Old Testament, an imprecatory prayer is one that asks the Lord to do some smiting. In any case, here are Drake's words, which have been run in innumerable stories (I've found 47 so far, and I didn't look very hard):

"If he does not turn to God and does not turn his life around, I am asking God to enforce imprecatory prayers that are throughout the Scripture that would cause him death, that's correct."

Lord have mercy.

Tiller. Johns.

Obama?

It's not reported much, but the Secret Service has concerned itself with a myriad of threats against the Prez ever since he asked for protection eight months before the Iowa primary. I know a few reporters in Washington, and many of them have told me that the number of threats dwarfs the number faced by any previous Prez. The massive number of threats is an open secret, one that ought to come as no surprise considering the prevalence of folks like Von Brunn.

In the wake of the Tiller murder, many asked if talk show hosts like Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh ought to be held accountable for their inflammatory (to say the least) statements about Tiller. The general (liberal) feeling is that freedom is speech is absolute until you actively call for someone's death. I tend to agree.

But what to make of dingbats like Drake? I assume the Southern Baptist Convention has some sort of defrocking procedure, and this seems like a pretty clear-cut case. After all, asking the Lord to kill someone (anyone, really) kinda goes against the whole New Covenant thingy. But I'm not going to interfere with someone's deranged prayers. People can say the darnedest things.

We sold our house in North Carolina before moving up here inside the Beltway. Our lawyer, a genuinely good guy and as gentle a soul as any lawyer can be, made a short comment about the state of the presidency in 2006.

"I mean, I don't know what we can do short of--you know--getting rid of him."

This was a personal comment, and not one addressed to scads of listeners. He was a frustrated man who truly believed that the war in Iraq was an evil enterprise. He felt he was at the end of his rope. What could be done?

We didn't report this vague threat to the Secret Service. We knew our lawyer wasn't going to whack Bush. Then again, many of Van Brunn's neighbors didn't think he would actually raise his gun against anyone. How do we know for sure?

We don't. We hope that we, the people, are able to rise above our very human impulses and strive toward the lofty principles that founded this nation. And when we fail, it is most important that we strive even harder. When the Holocaust Museum reopened two days later, the crowds were significantly larger than usual. Plenty of folks saw this as a reaction to Von Brunn's evil deed.

Hate creates enemies where there are none. Using hate, we can kill our supposed foes. But, as Nixon said in his valedictory address to his White House staff, when you hate your enemies you also destroy yourself.

It is love, not hate, that creates. Love is what builds societies and love is what holds them together. And love is what allows us to overcome our only-too-human impulses.

In the anti-spirit of the not-so-reverend Drake, here's 1 Corinthians 13:13 as written in the International Standard Version:

Right now three things remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Amen.

Jon Worley isn't much for religion, but he likes the literature.