Hate the Sin Not the Sinner

For a long time I used to think this a silly, straw-splitting distinction: how could you hate what a man did and not hate the man? But years later it occurred to me that there was one man to whom I had been doing this all my life - namely myself. However much I might dislike my own cowardice or conceit or greed, I went on loving myself. There had never been the slightest difficulty about it. In fact the very reason why I hated the things was that I loved the man. Just because I loved myself, I was sorry to find that I was the sort of man who did those things...[Christianity] does want us to hate [cruelty and treachery and the like] in the same way in which we hate things in ourselves: being sorry that the man should have done such things, and hoping, if it is anyway possible, that somehow, sometime, somewhere he can be cured and made human again.

- C. S. Lewis

Hate the sin, not the sinner is something that I remember hearing quite a bit growing up in various baptist and penticostal churches, and while attending a Christian private school for one year. I remember seeing it on some fat guy's cheesy 'Christian' T-Shirt. I remember hearing it used by well meaning people as a reminder not to get caught in the trap of seeing one set of people as 'sinners' and therefore as second class citizens. The thought made sense to me. Hate the act(s). The act(s) are deplorable, and you may pass judgement on them based upon their own merit. But the person that comitts the act, that's a much tougher call. Better to err on hating the sin, but not the sinner. Part of me right now wants to say that it is based on a particular Bible verse, but my memory of its source eludes me. One thing is certain: the quote above is from a chapter in Mere Christianity called "Forgiveness." Short of the little I've been able to make of the concept of forgiveness in the Bible, Lewis presents the best and most practical view on the subject that I think I've ever read. I have, most of my life, understood that I should love all men. There's a certain passage in Scripture that's stuck with me, Christ's words I believe, or is it Paul?...either way, it says that we can all be nice to people that are nice to us: the real challenge is to pray for those who condemn us, to show goodness and decency to those who speak ill of us, or commit ill against us. That taught me that the people who deserved the least love were the one's that I ought to love the most, in part because it would be pleasing to my Father that I was doing something difficult and right, but moreso because those that need love the most are the ones that exhibit it the least. Forgiveness is what makes this possible for me. Hating the sin and not the sinner is the only way that I'm able to rationalize doing good to those that do evil to me. It is the sin in them that I hate, not them: it is them and the goodness in them that I love. It is the sin in them that's corrupting them, that's making them into the mean callous person that might wound me. I love the person because I don't want that sin in them to choke them and to overrun their heart and mine completely. I want my neighbor cured of their illness, and I can only hope that they want the same for me. Even if they don't, I will continue, with His help, to love my neighbor as myself.