Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin PART 4

I have one final point to make about the phrase, "Love the sinner, hate the sin." I'll admit, there is a lot more I could say about this topic, but for the sake of moving forward, let's consider this my final post in this series.

When people say, "Love the sinner, hate the sin," they often mean to say, "I love this person, but I do not love the bad things they do."

For example, you might say, "I love my son, but I do not love the lies he told me."

In this instance, you are drawing a distinction between a person (your son) and the things they do (tell lies).

First, let me point out that there are some difficulties when it comes to distinguishing a person versus the things they do. This could be the basis of an existential debate about the nature of personhood, and has been before, but this is a mere blog post! Let's stay practical.

Perhaps on paper, it seems easy to separate a person from their actions, but in real life, I am not sure how easily that is accomplished. Is it possible to fully love a person while compartmentalizing the various imperfections associated with their character?

Think of someone you love. Now, take out a sheet of paper and draw a vertical line down the middle. On one side of the page, write your reasons for loving that person. On the other side, make a list of all the actions that person does which do not meet your approval. 

Tell me, does this exercise make it easier or harder to love that person?

As I pointed out before, there will be times, in the context of relationship, when confronting harmful behavior is appropriate and necessary. But this does not mean we must run every relationship through the filter of "hate the sin." If we are going to love someone, we cannot reserve the right to keep a list of those aspects of their character we do not endorse.

There are even deeper difficulties when it comes to matters of gender and sexuality. 

The notion seems to be that it is possible to love a person while holding their sinful behaviors at arm's length. But, can gender and orientation be reduced to behaviors? 

Sexual orientation and gender identity cannot be written off as "things people do." Sexual orientation and gender identity cannot be reduced to a list of actions of which you approve or disapprove.

When we talk about gender and sexual orientation, we are talking about issues of identity. We are talking about attraction. We are talking about a person's innermost concept of self.

It is never so simple as looking at an LGBT person and saying, "I love you, but I do not love the things you do." Because sexual orientation and gender identity have very little to do with what people do. We're talking about who people are.

And when we are talking about who people are, it is not so easy to make these distinctions.

"I love you, but I do not love certain aspects of who you are as a person." This is a very different message than disapproval of sinful behaviors. This is disapproval of a person.

When we use expressions like, "Love the sinner, hate the sin," we risk sending dual messages. When we express our love for a person while simultaneously expressing disapproval of who they are, the result of our message is not a person who feels loved, but a person who feels shame.

Maybe it is possible to separate a love for person from their sinful actions. But it is not possible to love a person while rejecting their identity. 

Milk

In light of last night's Academy Awards (with a shocking, twist ending!), it seems appropriate to mention the role of film in learning to become a better ally.

Feature films, documentaries, and television programs can be helpful in learning about history and culture. Here on the Burgeoning Ally blog, I will occasionally take some time to write about films which have been helpful to me.

At some point, I will be writing about last night's Best Picture Winner at the Academy Awards, Moonlight, which tells the story of a young, gay, black man growing up in Miami. If you get the chance to watch that film, please do so.

Today, I want to highlight another film (which happens to be available for streaming on Netflix for a limited time).

Milk is a 2008 film based on the life of Harvey Milk. Harvey Milk was the first openly gay person to be elected to public office in California.

Harvey Milk is an important figure in LGBT history. At the age of 40, Harvey Milk stepped into local leadership, serving as an advocate and organizer on behalf of his neighbors. He was instrumental in the passage of gay rights legislation in San Francisco. He also helped defeat Proposition 6, a 1978 ballot initiative which sought to ban gay and lesbian people from serving in California's public schools.


Milk is a valuable film, not just because it tells the story of Harvey Milk, but because it also gives a sense of the history of discrimination against LGBT people in this country. The film features archival footage of police raids into gay bars in the 1950s and 1960s, and portrays the passionate efforts of hundreds of everyday people to bring about change in their community. This film also highlights the the Castro neighborhood in San Francisco as an important location in LGBT history.

I must mention the events portrayed at the end of the movie, so if you are hoping to learn about Harvey Milk for the first time by watching the film, you may want to skip to the next paragraph. The film also portrays the tragic events of November 27, 1978 when a conservative political opponent murdered Harvey Milk, along with Mayor George Moscone. After shooting two people execution-style, Harvey Milk's assassin was convicted of manslaughter (not murder!) and served 5 years of a 7 year sentence.

Milk won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, and Sean Penn won Best Actor in a Leading Role for his portrayal of Harvey Milk. The film was also nominated for Best Picture. Milk is currently streaming on Netflix for a limited time.

If you would like to know more about Harvey Milk, there is also a 1984 documentary called The Times of Harvey Milk, which won an Academy Award of its own. This documentary was based on a biography written by Randy Shilt called The Mayor of Castro Street.

Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin PART 3

I am nearing the conclusion of my examination of the phrase, "Love the sinner, hate the sin," but I do have a few more points I would like to make.

One problem I see with the use of the "love the sinner" approach is the sense of entitlement associated with such a position. Many Christians feel entitled to take this posture in relation to others without earning the authority to do so.

Many Christians have no problem saying, "Love the sinner (even the ones I have never met), hate the sin (which I have not personally witnessed)." There is a sense in which this phrase can be used as a blanket generalization, a default position for whoever walks through the door.

As I mentioned in Part 2, it is possible and often necessary to address harmful behaviors in the context of covenant community relationship. But this does not grant Christians the authority to assume this posture from the outset of every relationship.

Trust. Respect. Vulnerability. Honor. Love. These are just some of the relational dynamics that must be cultivated in relationship before we can begin conversations about personal sin. If we become fixated on "accountability" from the outset, we throw our relationships out of balance. True accountability can only be practiced in the context of healthy relationships; you are not entitled to accountability the moment you meet someone. 

When I shared my last post on Facebook, my friend Abby Glaser captured this idea well when she said:

Where I think Christians can get it confused: Yes, we are supposed to hold each other accountable. However, accountability comes AFTER relationship. We must establish the relationship first. So if I walk up to a stranger and tell them something they are doing is sinful, I am not holding them accountable but being judgmental. The people in my life closest to me have earned the right to call me out when needed, strangers or acquaintances have not. Judgmental is me telling you I think your actions are wrong. Relationship means I love you and want the best for you so if I see something that will harm you I will tell you out of my desire for your health and happiness.

One more post to come on this topic! Next time, we will discuss the problem of separating a person from their actions, and the shame that can result from double messages.

Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin PART 2

Interestingly, some of my Christian friends get nervous when I begin to talk about my problems with the "Love the sinner, hate the sin," mindset. They begin to wonder if I have drifted away from an orthodox understanding of the Bible, or if I am abandoning the concept of accountability, or perhaps advocating for excess and lack of restraint.

I've decided against making any sort of rich theological case here, mainly because this blog is intended for an audience wider than just my Christian friends.

(And also, I don't wanna. So there.)

But, I do still have a few general thoughts on the topic.

In defense of the above mentioned phrase, I have heard the following analogy:

"I love the sinner, but I hate the sin. It's just like my love for my own children. My child does bad things. I love my child, but not the bad things they do."

First, I will point out that there may be a few problems with your tone if you consider your neighbors in the same way a parent might consider their child.

 A child's relationship to a parent is subordinate. The parent is in a higher ranking position than the child, and from this elevated position can approve or disapprove of the child.

Are we prepared to say that we are in a position to approve or disapprove of another person?

Hey, I hear you. The Christian Bible teaches that all of us are sinners because we all fall short of God's perfection. Am I suggesting that Christians must toss out (what they perceive to be) one of the core tenets of the gospel message?

Of course not. There is a place for confronting sinful behavior, especially when it is harming someone. There are plenty of places in the Bible that talk about confronting others when they are acting in immoral, unjust, and harmful ways. The Bible does not advocate an "anything goes" mindset toward sinful behavior.

At the same time, there are also plenty of words about not judging others, and pulling the plank out of our own eye before we start fishing for the speck in our neighbor's eye.

In the context of community and covenant relationships, it is true that we may need to call each other out when our behavior is inconsistent with the gospel ethic. But this does not mean we should set our default view of others as "dirty, rotten sinner" first and foremost.

"Love the sinner, hate the sin," is too reductive in approach. It suggests that our relationships with people can be simplified to the exercise of embracing some aspects of a person while rejecting others. There is nuance here, which cannot be captured in a simplistic platitude.

Which brings us to one more problem with the "I love my child but not the bad things he does" analogy.

"This is my child. My child does bad things. I love my child, but not the things he does."

Allow me to change the wording a bit.

"This is my sinner. My sinner does bad things. I love my sinner, but not the things he does."

Sounds a bit off, right? I'd suggest it sounds awkward because we have identified the subject not as a beloved person, but primarily as a sinner.

Check out this quote from Adam Hamilton, in his book Half Truths: God Helps Those Who Help Themselves and Other Things the Bible Doesn't Say:

 I think Jesus knew that if he commanded his disciples to ‘love the sinner,’ they would begin looking at other people more as sinners than neighbors. And that, inevitably, would lead to judgment. If I love you more as a sinner than as my neighbor, then I am bound to focus more on your sin. I will start looking for all the things that are wrong with you. And perhaps, without intending it, I will being thinking about our relationship like this: “You are a sinner, but I graciously choose to love you anyway.” If that sounds a little puffed up, self-righteous, and even prideful to you, then you have perceived accurately.

Perhaps the question we should ask ourselves is, are our neighbors primarily sinners or are they primarily people to be loved?

Maybe we should revise the statement, "Love the sinner, hate the sin," to something more like, "Love the neighbor, but keep in mind that they fall short of perfection just like I do, which does not really bear repeating since it is true of everybody anyway."

That will never fit on a bumper sticker. More on this to come in future posts.

Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin PART 1

When it comes to LGBT people and the Christian church, there is one persistent concept that continues to surface: the idea that we are called to love the sinner, but hate the sin.

Perhaps you have heard a person of faith use this phrase.

For many Christians, this is the go to response for interacting with issues of gender identity, sexual orientation, and same sex marriage. How are we to respond to these matters? It's simple: we love the sinner, but hate the sin.

I plan to interact with this concept over the course of several blog posts, but for now, let's start with the basics.

Many Christians are quick to use this expression in relation to LGBT people, believing this to be a Biblical approach ("Biblical" meaning, rooted in the teachings of the Bible). Given this assumption, the first line of questioning should reasonably include the question, "Does this concept come from the Bible?"

"Love the sinner, hate the sin," does not appear anywhere in the Bible. 

The earliest form of this expression seems to come from a letter Augustine wrote, in which he uses the words, "with love for mankind and hatred of sins." But the most recognizable version of the quote is found in Gandhi's autobiography, in which he said, "hate the sin and not the sinner."

Not only have many Christians adopted Gandhi's quote as a Biblical teaching (it isn't), they have distorted Gandhi's original meaning.

Here is the original quote:

"Hate the sin and not the sinner is a precept which, though easy enough to understand, is rarely practiced, and that is why the poison of hatred spreads in the world... It is quite proper to resist and attack a system, but to resist and attack its author is tantamount to resisting and attacking oneself. For we are all tarred with the same brush, and are children of one and the same Creator, and as such the divine powers within us are infinite. To slight a single human being is to slight those divine powers, and thus to harm not only that being but with him the whole world."

Interestingly, when taken in context, it seems the Gandhi was pointing out that it is nearly impossible to hate the sin but not the sinner. He went on to say that this concept is easy to understand, but very difficult to practice. Gandhi was suggesting that it is possible and necessary to attack systems of injustice without extending that attack to the individual people involved in the injustice.

He was suggesting that we should not lose sight of the precious and valuable people around us by equating their identity with sin. To do so, he said, would "harm not only that being, but with him the whole world."

Gandhi was not trying to make a case for claiming to love a person while simultaneously rejecting their sins. He was saying, "When you attack sin, don't get people tangled up in your hatred."

We will explore this supposedly Biblical teaching further in posts to follow.