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.
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.
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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.
