Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin
"Love the sinner, hate the sin" is something that I used to hear all the time when I spent a lot of time on sites like CF or IIDB. After all, there needs to be some way to dismiss Jesus' exhortation to "Love Thy Neighbor."
After all, "judging" people is bad in most Christian traditions. It usurps God's place. However, if what you judge is the intangible sin, then that's just fine. Completely acceptable. Informative even!
Recently, through a link over on Jesurgislac's blog, I came across a link to Renaissance Guy's post To judge or Not to Judge, where Renaissance Guy sort of backhands his way into that argument, arguing that Jesus shows what a great guy he is by telling the prostitute how she's a sinner and damned to hell. Or something to that effect. He thinks that being gay is a sin and he thinks that Christians should say so and speak out about it.
The point is, it got me thinking about that specific idea again; that you can love the sinner while hating the sin.
Then I just found a clip of a 20/20 investigation about same sex couples involved in public displays of affection. The police are called on a male gay couple making out in public in AL, but you don't have to watch the whole thing. The part that I'm concerned about starts at 8:38 and lasts about 10 seconds.
See it here:
20/20 official site
The voice over and the next line that I'm referring to are: "But while some like what they're witnessing, a silent minority can't hide their disapproval. Their faces say it all. 'To me, it's not that appropriate.'"
So, what is a gay person going to feel when they see that? I guarantee that it isn't going to be loved. As a sinner or anything else. All they'll feel is judged, even if the person says nothing at all.
Love the sinner, hate the sin may sound good to various denominations of Christians, but it's not the way that reality works. If you try it, hate of the sin is going to spill over onto the person no matter what.
After all, "judging" people is bad in most Christian traditions. It usurps God's place. However, if what you judge is the intangible sin, then that's just fine. Completely acceptable. Informative even!
Recently, through a link over on Jesurgislac's blog, I came across a link to Renaissance Guy's post To judge or Not to Judge, where Renaissance Guy sort of backhands his way into that argument, arguing that Jesus shows what a great guy he is by telling the prostitute how she's a sinner and damned to hell. Or something to that effect. He thinks that being gay is a sin and he thinks that Christians should say so and speak out about it.
The point is, it got me thinking about that specific idea again; that you can love the sinner while hating the sin.
Then I just found a clip of a 20/20 investigation about same sex couples involved in public displays of affection. The police are called on a male gay couple making out in public in AL, but you don't have to watch the whole thing. The part that I'm concerned about starts at 8:38 and lasts about 10 seconds.
See it here:
20/20 official site
The voice over and the next line that I'm referring to are: "But while some like what they're witnessing, a silent minority can't hide their disapproval. Their faces say it all. 'To me, it's not that appropriate.'"
So, what is a gay person going to feel when they see that? I guarantee that it isn't going to be loved. As a sinner or anything else. All they'll feel is judged, even if the person says nothing at all.
Love the sinner, hate the sin may sound good to various denominations of Christians, but it's not the way that reality works. If you try it, hate of the sin is going to spill over onto the person no matter what.
posted by Spherical Time at
3:03 PM
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