I was reading Ken Wilson's blog today and was struck by his post about the comment phrase "love the sinner, hate the sin?"
Take a look at the post – it will be worth your time.
A short sample:
We love these sticky phrases, don’t we? Especially the ones that get us off the hook like this one does. The ones that swoop in and lift us right over the horns of the dilemma that another sticky phrase plunges us into: “judge not, lest ye be judged.” How do we do that, without all hell breaking loose? Gosh, we have to judge don’t we? He couldn’t have meant, literally, “judge not, lest ye be judged.” No, he meant judge carefully, judge wisely, judge lovingly, judge well, judge insiders. So why didn’t he just say that? Because he didn’t have us around to write his speeches for him! So we come up with our own sticky phrase to “complement” his. “Love the sinner, hate the sin.” Voila! we’re off the hook! Or are we?[@more@]
How does that actually work: love the sinner, hate the sin? Easy. You love the person but you hate their sin. Exactly. You hate THEIR sin, which is easy. I hate your sin. You hate my sin. But we love each other even as we hate each others’ sins. Please, where can I can get into that community? Sounds like a wonderful place to be. Once they’ve hated each others sins away, that is. Behold the community of love that hates your sins away!