{"id":9880,"date":"2014-03-06T09:43:52","date_gmt":"2014-03-06T09:43:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/andre\/?p=9880"},"modified":"2016-08-29T21:14:07","modified_gmt":"2016-08-29T21:14:07","slug":"hate-the-sin-and-love-the-sinner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/andre\/featured\/hate-the-sin-and-love-the-sinner\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Hate the Sin and Love the Sinner Doesn’t Work"},"content":{"rendered":"

It surprises many to learn that the phrase hate the sin and love the sinner<\/em> is not in the Bible. This idea seems to have originated with St. Augustine (c.424) in one of his letters when he used the phrase \"Cum dilectione hominum et odio vitiorum\" that translates as \"with love for mankind and hatred of sins.\" \u00a0 The phase as we know it today was popularized in Mohandas Gandhi's 1929 autobiography.<\/p>\n

Don't Miss This:<\/h2>\n

Before we go much further, \u00a0I want to say that sin is serious. \u00a0Sin hurts us and others, and it diminishes our capacity to be truly human as image bearers of God. God hates the plague of sin, and God would be neither just or loving if He didn't deal with the plague that is ravaging His good creation. \u00a0God has dealt with the plague of sin in Himself, in the person of Jesus Christ. This is good news! \u00a0 Be assured that the Father has and is decisively dealing with that which plagues creation and is uniquely capable of doing so and still loving at the same time. \u00a0This is key. \u00a0The Father who loves perfectly, who can see perfectly and can judge perfectly can judge and love at the same time. \u00a0It is appropriate for us to hate sin and its carnage. \u00a0Our difficulty comes when trying to separate the sin from the person, and most often we end up hating both the sin and the person.<\/p>\n

Our Difficulty<\/span><\/h2>\n

For humans, hating the sin and loving the sinner isn't so easy. From a psychological perspective, it is quite difficult because disgust \/ hate is a strong, unpleasant reaction to something that we perceive as offensive, gross or revolting and once disgust is formed it provides a formidable emotional basis for judgment. \u00a0This is why we cannot hate the sin and love the sinner, as we cannot love people who disgust us. \u00a0To be disgusted or revolted is the opposite of love.*<\/p>\n[To take sin seriously, we must avoid superficial thinking about sin. The truth is the typical sins we think about are those things that don\u2019t actually disgust us; we don\u2019t actually hate them. Disgust is a strong universal emotion, but the objects of disgust are not. This means the things we find disgusting are heavily influenced by our culture. Consider how we emotionally respond to someone stealing stationery from the office compared to someone murdering and cannibalizing another. \u00a0It is also common to suspend disgust when the issue involves our spouse, children, and friends. When we are talking about \u201chating sin\u201d, we are talking about a deep sense of disgust.]\n

Not an Affirmation of Sin<\/h2>\n

Our inner psychology will always influence the appeal (or the lack of appeal) of a theological perspective, but this doesn't guarantee the theological position is a healthy one. For us to learn to love authentically, our desire to love, to embrace, engage and care for another must always precede judgment.* Resisting the temptation to judge good or evil is not an affirmation of the behavior, \u00a0it is simply suspending our judgment for love's sake. \u00a0To love then, we need to wade into our own sense of socio-moral disgust and recognize it for what it is. \u00a0When we deal with our sense of disgust, we are freed up to be truly able to love with more integrity.<\/p>\n

Jesus Didn't<\/h2>\n

Jesus didn't teach \"hate the sin and love the sinner\" either, and he seemed to take a different approach. \u00a0Jesus spent a great deal of His time with people of all kinds, many of dubious reputation, and he called them his friends. \u00a0 \u00a0He never applied the term \"sinners\" to them. \u00a0It was the religious folks of the day who called them sinners. In fact, the religious folks of the day used his relationships with these kinds of people to discredit him and accuse Him of being \"soft on sin.\".<\/p>\n

There is an important practical implication \u2013 it sets up an immediate division, a \"us \u2013 them\" relationship. \u00a0Instead of \"just people\" like us, they are somehow other. \u00a0This creates an imbalance of power and an inherent self-righteousness. \u00a0When we try to love from this posture, we tend to make others a project. \u00a0We are relating (if we relate at all) for the purpose of changing them and this screams \"I'm better than you!\" \u00a0People clue into this very quickly. \u00a0This is not love.<\/p>\n

Jesus never said anything like \"hate the sin and love the sinner\" but he did say do not judge. \u00a0He also said the measure with which you judge is the measure by which you will be judged. \u00a0Jesus did say to deal with the log in your own eye, and when you have done so you can help another. \u00a0He also said love as I have loved you.<\/p>\n

We Get the Lesser with the Greater<\/h2>\n

I suppose Jesus really did know what he was talking about; the authenticity in the way he loved all people was indeed restorative and transformative. \u00a0Jesus understood something that often seems \u00a0so elusive for us; that love produces abundant life. \u00a0The heart of the Gospel is Jesus and His life-changing life, death and resurrection. \u00a0Jesus is the Gospel focus, not sin. \u00a0When we focus on Jesus, we will naturally leave sin behind. \u00a0The cure for sin is authentic love, a love that reconciles us to the source of love itself \u2013 the Father.
\nSources:<\/strong>
\n* Fitch, Peter. \"Learning to Interpret Toward Love: Actually Embracing People of Different Sexuality (in the Kinds of Churches Where They Haven't Been)\" Chapter: 4 Kindle edition. Referencing Richard Beck in his book \u00a0Unclean: Meditations on Purity, Hospitality and Morality<\/u>.<\/span><\/p>\n

D'Amato, Erik. \u00a0Mystery of Disgust. published on January 01, 1998 - last reviewed on June 13, 2012. Psychology Today.com http:\/\/www.psychologytoday.com\/articles\/200909\/mystery-disgust<\/span><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.catholic.com\/quickquestions\/who-said-love-the-sinner-hate-the-sin<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It surprises many to learn that the phrase hate the sin and love the sinner is not in the Bible. This idea seems to have originated with St. Augustine (c.424) in one of his letters when he used the phrase \"Cum dilectione hominum et odio vitiorum\" that translates as \"with love for mankind and hatred of sins.\" \u00a0 The phase Continue Reading<\/a>","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":9883,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[33,8],"tags":[111,152,179,221],"yoast_head":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n