things god forgot to put in the Bible (#3)

(inspired by a comment made by a nine-year-old)

Loading dishwashers is one of those things in life. There are people who load them willy-nilly and there are the people who load them the right way.

Of course, my right way of loading a dishwasher is not the same as your "right way" of loading the dishwasher. In fact, your way of loading the dishwasher is barely acceptable. And then there's my colleague who does an absolutely abominable job of loading the dishwasher in the staff kitchen!

And people wonder why I'm stressed out at work. Imagine how God feels when he sees all of this!

On a more serious note, have you ever heard anyone say, "God loves straight people but not what they do..."?

[psychological non-starters]

From Richard Beck's book, unclean: Meditations on Purity, Hospitality, and Mortality

In sum, the antagonism between mercy and sacrifice is psychological in nature. Our primitive understandings of both love and purity are regulated by psychological dynamics that are often incompatible. Take, for example, a popular recommendation from my childhood years. I was often told that I should “hate the sin, but love the sinner.” Theologically, to my young mind (and, apparently, to the adults who shared it with me), this formulation seemed clear and straight-forward. However, psychologically speaking, this recommendation was extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible, to put into practice. As any self-reflective person knows, empathy and moral outrage tend to function at cross-purposes. In fact, some religious communities resist empathy, as any softness toward or solidarity with “sinners” attenuates the moral fury a group can muster. Conversely, it is extraordinarily difficult to “love the sinner” –to respond to people tenderly, empathically, and mercifully—when you are full of moral outrage over their behavior. Consider how many churches react to the homosexual community or to young women considering an abortion. How well do churches manage the balance between outrage and empathy in those cases? In short, theological or spiritual recommendations aimed at reconciling the competing demands of mercy and sacrifice might be psychological non-starters.

Beck, p. 3

After drawing numerous cartoons which comment on the idea of "love the sinner, hate the sin," I found Beck's take on this from a psychological perspective very interesting. And it's pretty obvious that most churches who believe this infamous saying aren't doing a good job of following it.

enlightning

I doubt that when making his point, Pastor Stickman expected to have it illustrated so immediately or so aptly. Not only is god taking care of the sin, but the pastor is not exempted from being included as one of the sinners who should be loved.

Granted, perhaps his view of how god takes care of sin has been heavily influenced by Ananias and Sapphira (see Acts 5) and needs some adjusting to reflect more of the example of Jesus.

love covers

Once in a while, Pastor Stickman gets it right, and this is one of those times.

"Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins". I Peter 4:8.

seek and destroy

This is usually not expressed so clearly, but it does happen. We identify the person with their sin instead of seeing their heart, and we seek to destroy them, in subtle or not so subtle ways. It could be the whispers behind their backs or the looks of disgust we cast in their direction. It could be less subtle, like standing outside an abortion clinic or at a gay parade, holding signs that label people.

Definitely some mixed messages here. The initial "so we love the sinner" gets completely neutralized / cancelled out by the idea that "hating the sin" is accomplished by identifying the source (namely, the sinner) and destroying it (him or her).

Would you read this differently?

hellooo

It's easy to "love" people from a distance. But do they feel the love?

 It's also easy to label people from a distance, a distance that lets us think that we (whoever we are) are somehow different, normal, better, right, a distance that hides our common humanity.

opposite sunday

What we do and what we say are often not in sync, and it seems that "opposite Sunday" has made this apparent to this pastor. Not that the "unopposited" saying "Love the sinner, hate the sin" is a good saying to start with, but if a person says it and then is actively doing the opposite....

third row

I often hear Christians use the phrase "love the sinner and hate the sin" when responding to the topic of homosexuality. Little do they know that this statement is hated by many gay and lesbian people.

"Love the sinner and hate the sin." We don't typically use this to refer to our friend, our grandma, our neighbour or the pastor at church. No, it's used to refer to someone whom we see as being different than us, someone who is a sinner unlike me and you who are good Christians. It labels people. It puts distance between us. It others them.

And despite the first half of the saying, the other person in the relationship rarely feels the love.

n.b. This phrase is not in the Bible. It "apparently comes from a letter that St. Augustine wrote to some contentious nuns. Augustine's phrase, "cum dilectione hominum et odio vitiorum," "with love of persons and hatred of sins," is used parenthetically, and does not even mention "sinners." (source)