RealityRevision

Love the sinner and hate the sin

"Love the sinner and hate the sin"  Yes, I have heard this phase way too much, to the point I simply despise it.   To me it's just another one of those cliche Christian sayings, that I'm sure should be in the Bible somewhere, but isn't.   So no, this saying isn't in the Bible. So who said it? Join me as I fumble through this topic.

Mahatma Gandhi

I was actually quite surprised, that Mahatma Gandhi would say something like this.  Why would he coin a saying that has been used to judge and do injustice to other people (in some cases).  It seems to be the very thing Mahatma Gandhi was fighting against.  So did he coin this saying on one of his really bad days, or maybe their is more here than meets the eye?
So this saying comes from Mahatma Gandhi's autobiography, The Story of My Experiments with Truth, where he says...

Man and his deed are two distinct things.  Whereas a good deed should call forth approbation and a wicked deed disapprobation, the doer of the deed, whether good or wicked, always deserves respect or pity as the case may be.  ‘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.  This ahimsa [nonviolence] is the basis of the search for truth.  I am realizing every day that the search is in vain unless it is founded on ahimsa as the basis.  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.

There it is.  So what is Mahatma Gandhi trying to say here?  First it is important to know, who Mahatma Gandhi was.  To put it shortly, he was huge spiritual and political leader in India.  He helped lead the India to independence, through civil disobedience and other nonviolent means. He has been a large influence and inspiration, for civil liberties, the world over. He practiced Satyagraha (resistance to tyranny through mass civil disobedience) and Ahimsa  (a Buddhist / Hindu belief that all living creatures are sacred and no harm or violence should be done to them).  I know I did a huge injustice to Mahatma Gandhi, by summarizing him in so few sentences. Sorry.
That to say that Mahatma Gandhi valued all life and the dignity there in. Notice how he starts the paragraph, "Man and his deed are two distinct things."  This shows us that Mahatma Gandhi loved man and hated man's deed of injustice, enough to separate man and deed.  It is my understanding that he is writing this to say that when we fight against man's unjust deeds, corrupt systems and/or injustices, we need to be sure to that we are fighting against the bad thing or the sin and not those that participate in it, because we are all human and are of the same flesh.  Mahatma Gandhi is using this phrase in the context of loving those that do injustice and oppress others, while still fighting against the injustice and oppression.

St. Augustine

Now on a different note.  I was not so surprised to, find out that St. Augustine said something like this.  So what did he say?

Cum dilectione hominum et odio vitiorum, “with love for humankind and hatred of sins,” (Letter 211).

Okay, so first off. Who is St. Augustine? Just a disclaimer, I am very very very unlearned in the life and writings of St. Augestine, then again I am rather unlearned in many things. Well, I'll give anther so ridiculously short to the point of being unjust, biography.  Okay forget biography, I'll just give you a quick description.  He was a Latin church father and theologian.  The Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodoxy, Anglican, Protestant (I think) and Lutheran churches like him, a lot (if I forgot an denominations I apologize).  He firmly believed in the concept of  "the grace of Christ for the human freedom" and developed the idea of original sin and just war theory.  Just a quick note, I'm not interested in a discussion the theology or ideas of St. Augustine, if they do not pertain the subject. I apologize again if I miss-represented him.
Now more importantly, what's the context.  St. Augustine wrote this phrase in a letter to a group of nuns that where upset, at their new prioress.  The way I understand it is the prioress was bit sharper and stricter, then the former one.  St Augustine is writing the letter to address the following offenses:  flirting with men with their eyes, having secret stashes of food and clothes (an offense, since secret stashes are counter-productive to communal living), not having their head fully covered and desiring to bathe more than once a month.  It is my understanding that the first one offense, you know the flirting with men one, was the one being referenced to, when he used the "with love for humankind and the hatred of sins" phrase.
St. Augustine is using this phrase to portray the message of love men, but hate and fight the desire for a physical relationship (in this case think sin).  I guess I could just shorten it up to this, the nuns where to love men, but hate sex.  So here we can see that the sin referenced directed at an offense of a personal moral code of conduct verses an offense towards human rights.

What I think

If I'm trying  to say this phrase is illegitimate, then I'm doing a terrible job.  No, what I would like to say is illegitimate, is how we use the phrase.  Mahatma Gandhi used it to convey following messages of "love your enemies", "we're all made by the same Creator and are equals", and "resist sin and injustice."  From my perspective we seen to use this phrase to degrade and politely condemn people who have different a different lifestyle (don't really like the word "lifestyle", but I can't think of an alternative...).  We seem to use this phrase to say remember to hate their sin, do not get close to them (unless have ulterior motives, like fixing them),  or you may become one of them (think the "slippery slope".  So yea, I'm mainly talking of homosexuality as then "their sin."  Do we ever use this phrase anywhere else? (honest question)
So what do I think about St. Augustine's usage of the phrase? Well, I do not think that is a wrong way to use it either. What I hear St. Augustine saying to the Nuns is, you made a promise before God and man, please do not let your fellow men cause you break that, but please do not hate them because of the temptation they pose. Here St. Augustine is warning them away from a "wrong" love of man, but reminding them not to fly over to the extreme and hate man. Again this usage is definitely different then the way I hear this phase used today. How? It seems to me that people use it today to remind them, that they need to love people, even though their sin is just repulsive. So what is the problem with that? Well I'd say the people we direct it towards. These people are normally committing personal moral sins that are we never struggled with and that we consider "just wrong". So we are extra alienated from them, from the beginning. Then we say, I love you but I hate your sin. Which just pushes us apart even more. They say things like, you do not understand me. Which is true in most cases. Doors slam and it is a horrible mess.
What is the root problem? Simply the need we feel to pronounce judgment on, what we perceive as, the personal moral sins of others. Since really personal morals is no ones business, save their own. I think it is clear that Christians are called to love. I also believe that Billy Graham puts it pretty well, “It is the Holy Spirit’s job to convict, God’s job to judge, and my job to love." I like the last part, it is our job to love others. And it is others responsibility to respond to the way God/Holy Spirit leads them, not ours. We are responsible for our self and the love of others. This includes, but is not limited to, listening, praying, comforting, laughing, sharing the way we understand things and helping, all in humility and love knowing that it is not our responsibility to judge them. Let expound a bit on the "sharing the way we understand things" since that is a bit vague. What I mean is basically this, if we love someone, we will be honest and share our personal convictions, at an appropriate time, with humility, with understanding that their convictions my very well be differ from ours, and the willingness to accept and hear their own convictions and beliefs.
I really believe that we are called love and have generous and gracious convictions/beliefs. I hope you found this interesting and informative. (I should quick note that, please do not try to figure out whether I am pro-gay or anti-gay or whatever...that isn't the point and maybe I will write about that later. I will say I love the GLBTQ community and the rest of you.) Sorry if it got a bit long. Please comment any feedback or questions.

If you would like to continue reading more, the previous article is called love loosed, the next article is called New Blogging Engine.