Can You Really Hate the Sin & Love the Sinner? (Part #1)

Within Christianity, it is popular to say we “hate the sin and love the sinner”.  Never is this phrase used more often than when talking about the LGBT community.  The question of how to do this well (and if it is possible) has been raised on this blog over here in the comments section.

Here is what I wrote about the issue:

“I understand the “hate the sin, love the sinner” sentiment. Three problems I see with it… (1) we seem to only say this about sins like homosexuality… we don’t tend to “hate” our own sins… we tend to manage them. We also don’t tend to hate “smaller” sins as much as struggle against them, etc. Maybe we should, but that language seems to only be reserved for gay people (at least within evangelicalism); (2) most evangelicals in practice communicate a hatred for both the sin and the sinner… whether they mean to or not; and (3) when it comes to issues of sexuality and who people love and how they love them, it doesn’t seem always easy to distinguish “sin” from “sinner”. Practically, I have seen this approach for people dealing with being gay lead to serious self-loathing, self-hatred, and depression. Even personally, that has been true. When you learn to hate the fact that you love a certain person or are attracted to a person or feel certain things for certain people… it is very hard not to slip into a self-hatred that is profoundly unhealthy. I’m not sure what the answer is, but it is complicated.”

Brian S. responded by asking this good question:

“Ben – quick follow-up question – do you believe that, in its purest form, “hate the sin, love the sinner” is a biblically sound principal? Not in the context of any specific sin (or what someone believes is a sin) or how people live that out in practice, just as a basic principle.

I agree wholeheartedly that is something that is rarely actually practiced in its purest form – people always make exceptions for certain sins, they cast judgment even while supposedly “loving”, etc. etc. It is something that always sounds good to me and biblically sound, I just rarely see it applied properly… of course that begs the question – what is the proper application, what exactly does that look like?? I am sure I can answer that in some contexts, but not in others. Too often it is thrown out as a justification for unloving and judgmental attitudes and behavior.”

I responded by saying that I think, in principle, the idea is Biblical, pastoral and appropriate.  But how do we do it?  What does it look like in practice? 

These are good questions that I will address tomorrow and Wednesday… I hope you chime in with your thoughts and ideas too.