{"id":39253,"date":"2015-07-07T08:00:37","date_gmt":"2015-07-07T15:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/redeeminggod.com\/?p=39253"},"modified":"2017-10-24T14:21:16","modified_gmt":"2017-10-24T21:21:16","slug":"love-the-sinner-hate-the-sin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redeeminggod.com\/love-the-sinner-hate-the-sin\/","title":{"rendered":"Stop Saying You “Love the Sinner; Hate the Sin”"},"content":{"rendered":"
It is common in Christian circles to hear admonitions to “Love the Sinner; hate the sin.” <\/p>\n
More and more I hear this said in the context of LGBT people and gay marriage. <\/p>\n
“Oh, I don’t hate gay people, I just hate the gay lifestyle. … You know, I love the sinner, but hate the sin.” <\/p>\n
There are so many things wrong with the “Love the Sinner; Hate the Sin” statement, I hardly know where to begin.<\/strong> So let’s begin with a laugh:<\/p>\n Now… on with the post…<\/p>\n There are several things wrong with the statement, “Love the Sinner; Hate the Sin.”<\/p>\n To label someone a “sinner” is to imply that they are outside of God’s grace and unless they clean up their act, cannot be forgiven. <\/p>\n To label someone a “sinner” reveals an “us vs. them” mentality, where you are the “righteous” person looking down your nose at the poor, wretched, ignorant “sinners” down below who just cannot get their act together. If only they would listen to what you tell them to do…<\/p>\n We Christians pay lip service to the idea that “We are all sinners” but we reveal that we do not really believe this when label someone else a “sinner.” <\/p>\n By labeling them a “sinner,” we condemn the sin of someone else as worse than our own. <\/strong><\/p>\n Why do we have to “hate” anything? <\/p>\n Is it because God “hates” sin?<\/p>\n Well, there are some statement like this in the Bible, but such statements require great care in understanding and applying them to life. <\/p>\n We have to understand why<\/em> God says what He says. <\/p>\n We also have to recognize that even if God does “hate” (which I don’t think He does … at least, not the way we understand it), He doesn’t anywhere tell us to hate. <\/p>\n Furthermore, we have to recognize that when God uses this sort of language about certain sins, it is not because He that upset at the person for committing the sin, or even at the sin itself for being so “terrible.” God isn’t nearly as worked up about sin as we are. God is not in the sin-management business.<\/strong> <\/p>\n The reason God says some strong things about certain sins in the Bible is because these sins hurt us, and He loves us, and doesn’t want to see us hurt by sin.<\/a> <\/strong><\/p>\n So if you really, really want to hate someone’s sin, hate a sin which is actually hurtful to them and to others. Hate a sin like rape, murder, incest, child abuse, torture, sex slavery, or one of the other multitudes of damaging and destructive sins. <\/p>\n But why do we Christians sometimes focus on hating the “sins” in others that they say results in love and community? If a homosexual couple wants to get married because they say they love each other, why would we say they cannot?<\/p>\n “Because it destroys families!”<\/p>\n Really? How exactly does their love hurt your family? I suspect any problems in your family might be found a bit closer to home… <\/p>\n “Because it destroys the definition of marriage!”<\/p>\n Is it really? And even if it does, so what? What is more important? The definition of a word or a relationship between people? Don’t use an argument over the definition of a word as an excuse to hate people. That sounds an awful lot like something a Pharisee would do in the days of Jesus. Even if the definition of marriage changes, will that somehow ruin your marriage? I cannot possibly think how.<\/p>\n “Yeah, but … but … AIDS!!! They’re gonna get AIDS and AIDS will hurt them and so I’m just trying to warn them about the dangers of AIDS! You see? I am concerned about them! I don’t want them to get AIDS!” <\/p>\n … If this is how you express your concern, I think they don’t need it. <\/p>\n I could say so much more about this, but I must move on. Here is a post which says more: Love the Sinner, hate the sin is really just hate<\/a><\/p>\n Yes, yes, “sin” is a biblical word. No, I don’t want people to stop talking about sin. <\/p>\n But here is what I have noticed in my own life, and among the majority of Christians. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Let’s begin with the word “sinner”<\/h2>\n
The simple fact that we label the person we are talking about as a “sinner” indicates that we do not have love for them in the first place. <\/p>\n
Then there’s the word “hate”<\/h2>\n
When a watching world says Christians are full of hate, it is not a good strategy to tell them that we don’t hate them<\/em> we just hate their sin. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
There is also a problem with the word “sin”<\/h2>\n