From: vek@allegra.att.com (Van Kelly)
Subject: Re: hate the sin...
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ, USA
Lines: 54

scott@prism.gatech.edu (Scott Holt) writes:

   "Hate the sin but love the sinner"...I've heard that quite a bit recently, 
   ....  My question is whether that statement is consistent with Christianity.
   I would think not.

   Hate begets more hate, never love. ....

   In the summary of the law, Christ commands us to love God and to love our 
   neighbors. He doesn't say anything about hate. In fact, if anything, he 
   commands us to save our criticisms for ourselves. ....

   - Scott

I too dislike the phrase "Hate the sin, love the sinner".  Maybe the
definite article is also part of the problem, since it seems to give
us license to fixate on our brother's peculiar pecadillo which we have
managed to escape by a common grace of heredity, economic situation, or
culture.  Our outrage at evil is too often just a cheap shot.

That said, I don't think Scott has adequately explored the flip side
of this coin, namely the love of righteousness.  In the Beatitudes,
Jesus blessed those who hungered and thirsted for righteousness.  In
the New Testament, it is never enough just to behave well, one should
always actively desire and work for the cause of good.  In that sense,
it should be impossible to remain dispassionate about evil and its
victims, even when these are its accomplices as well.

Maybe "mourn sin, love sinners" catches the idea slightly better than
"hate", but only slightly, since grief usually implies a passive
powerless position.  A balanced Christian response needs grief, love,
and carefully measured, constructive anger.  Jesus has all three.  The
European pietists during WWII whose response to Nazi atrocities was
devoid of anger do not fare well as role models, however much love or
grief they exemplified.

My sister is an actress in New York and a Christian.  A few years
back, Jack, her long-time professional friend and benefactor, died of
AIDS, impoverished by medical bills, estranged from his family, and
abandoned by most of his surviving friends.  Only my sister and
brother-in-law were there with him at the very end.  In her grief over
Jack's death, my sister found quite a few targets for anger: callous
bureaucracies, the rigid self-protective moralism of Jack's family,
the inertia in Christians' response to AIDS, and, yes, even Jack's own
lapse in morality that eventually cost him his life.  Jack himself
shared that last anger.  Brought up with strong Christian values, he
was contrite over his brief dalliance with promiscuous sex long before
his AIDS appeared.  (I imply no moral judgement here about Jack's
innate sexual orientation, n.b.)

Maybe the hardest job is making our anger constructive.

Van Kelly
vek@research.att.com
