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May 18, 2009
Faith : “Love the sinner...”
One of the stock aphorisms in Christianity these days is that Christians should “love the sinner but hate the sin”. At some level that sounds like good advice; but the problem I have observed is that the distinction is often too subtle for the “sinners” to tell the difference. Our attempt to love the person while hating their actions just look like us hating the individual to those on the receiving end.
Now looking at scriptures, the commandment to love all people (friends, enemies, sinners, etc.) is quite clear and unambiguous. In fact we are commanded to love them sacrificially – giving of ourselves to serve them all. Yet it is hard to find scriptures which command us to hate sin in other people. Yes, God certainly hates sins – there is no doubt about that; but people seemed to be cautioned by scripture against focusing in any way on other people’s sins. We are told to not judge each other. We are told to not concern ourselves with the splinter in someone else’s eye given that we have a log in our own. We are told to not talk about other people’s faults.
So what does it look like if we reduce that aphorism to just “love the sinner”? Does sin abound because we never challenge it? I don’t think so.
When I see someone whose life is spiraling downward because they bound up by an addiction, my love for them compels me to want to see them free of their addiction. This isn’t because their abuse is a “sin” (that categorization plays no role in my actions)– it is because their abuse is harming them and those close to them. I believe if we simply love people, we will want to see them free of habits and traits which harm them and others. There is no sense of hate directed towards anything, no concern over what is sin or not – only love towards the person.
But, one may ask, doesn’t all sin harm people? Shouldn’t we then seek to see all people free of all sins? I certainly agree that God’s commands are not arbitrary – that they are meant to serve as fences and guardrails to keep us all away from things which would harm us. Yet when we intellectualize this, when we begin with the premise “in theory this is harmful to them” we move away from the realm of a loving heart and into the realm of a judgmental mind. Unless we can perceive the harm some trait or habit is doing to the person, it is hard for us keep our actions motivated by sincere love. I think it is best to stay away from what we “think” someone should or should not be doing, and stay centered on the pain we feel when we see people bound up in destructive behavior.
So how then do the other sins – those for whom the harm is less obvious to human eyes – get addressed? I can say from my own life, they get addressed by God. Most of what God is working on in my life are those things for which the harm is not obvious to other people. Some things, like pride, might even be seen as advantages to others. While no fellow Christian might have their heart break seeing how these characteristics and behaviors harm me; God has a higher perspective, and His heart does break for the trouble I cause myself. So even these issues will get addressed if we all just stick with “loving the sinner” period.
Posted by Steven at May 18, 2009 05:00 AM
