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.
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