Notes from Vox: Please Stop Loving The Sinner And Hating The Sin

Mike Erre / Andy Lara Link to the Episode

Mike talked a bit about feminism at the beginning and differentiated how he thought Jesus would be a feminist and when/if Jesus wouldn’t be. It boiled down to definitions, which it always does. Do you mean that, “Would Jesus hate men and hope for their downfall?” Then no, Jesus would not be a feminist. Do you mean that Jesus would dismantle the power differential between men and women and would treat and think about women as actual co-heirs in Christ and not second class citizens, yeah, by that definition, Jesus would be a feminist.

The meat of the episode though, was about Mike “beating up” the phrase “love the sinner, hate the sin” and how it’s used in evangelical circles today. It’s often justification for telling someone that they are sinning and that you don’t approve of them.

What was poignant to me was the application, love without qualification. As a Christian, don’t tell someone who comes out as gay that they are evil or are doing the wrong thing, they KNOW that you think that. Telling them you love them but hate what they’re doing you are doing the opposite of how you treat people who you really love and are in sin. It isn’t being bashed with the truth that turns people towards Jesus, it is love, unqualified, unrelenting love that wins hearts and later, minds. How compassionate has Christ been with you and your sin?

There is a way that you can love someone towards something, you love your children towards maturity, God loves you towards Christ-likeness. But in these relationships children (should) know that their parent is always for them, will be there no matter what, loves them without qualification and then the parent can love them towards something. There’s something deep here that I can quite wrap my arms around, I don’t know if it’s earning the right to love someone towards something or something different.

The other thing that was eye opening was that Christians would rather be accused of being unloving that approving the wrong behavior. I thought about how much like this I used to be. An example of this is ensuring that if someone is acting out of line of what I understand the Bible to be, I let them know instead of loving them well and having them think I approve of their actions. Jesus loved people so well that the religious folks thought he was approving of their actions. But we don’t reflect that part of his life well. ¹

Further, this importance of letting people know that we don’t approve doesn’t apply to pornography, doesn’t apply to divorce, doesn’t (always) apply to pre-marital sex, doesn’t apply to adultery, doesn’t apply to gluttony, doesn’t apply to arrogance, doesn’t apply to gossip. We don’t apply this attitude towards many kinds of sin but do apply it to homosexuality, so is it really the Bible that we’re concerned about reflecting? Or our own comfort?

If someone came to you and confessed their gluttony or gossip, would a loving response be, “I love you, but hate that you gossip.”? No, and if someone did respond that way to a confession of sin, I doubt that they would receive confession or openness from that person again.

I’m thinking about two families who had children walk away from the faith and how they responded. I don’t know, they could have responded this way, but my suspicion is they didn’t. I know if my sister would have walked away from the faith a few years ago I would have told her “the truth.”

Mike referenced A Fellowship of Differents by Scot McKnight, which is on my reading list.