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- Dec 20, 2009
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A friend of mine just stuck this link onto facebook, followed shortly by just one of the responses to it. The blogpost itself rambles a bit, and isn't the most concise in the world, but the message behind it is a powerful one, and one which I thought well, well worth sharing.
To give a shorter version: "Hate the sin, love the sinner" is one of the better lines that Christianity has to offer - and in general, the theme of "offer love to all" is, to me, the most attractive part of the faith. And there's a version of that message, of love, in pretty much all the big faith systems - and I'd argue that it's an incredibly important thing to do, whether you have faith in a God or not. But all too often, that's translated to mean "love the sinner... if they stop sinning", or "love the sinner... if they repent for their sins", or "love the sinner... but constantly tell them that what they're doing is wrong". That doesn't necessarily refer to homosexuality; it might refer to drug use, or lack of belief (or having a particular belief!), or transgenderism, or a thousand other things, large or small, that make that person different from you in some way. After all, it's what makes people different which is the criticized thing, which is the 'sinful' thing.
Whether someone is a sinner or not; whether someone is different from you or not, should have no effect on how you treat them because of love. To act in a hateful way towards someone different from you, even if you believe that it's 'for their own good', is a justification for them to act in a similar way towards you - after all, from their point of view, it's you who is the 'different' one, who is the 'sinner'. And hatred has a tendency to feed back on itself and amplify itself. Fortunately, so does love - but that requires for people to start acting positively in the first place, to break the cycle and replace it with their own, positive one.
Try. That's the message. Try to love someone, not because you can accept their differences, but in spite of whatever differences you might see between you and them. I'm not the praying sort, but I hope you're successful.
EDIT: Bahahahaaha - after all that, someone tl;dr'd me with a single image (hotlinked for profanity): here.
To give a shorter version: "Hate the sin, love the sinner" is one of the better lines that Christianity has to offer - and in general, the theme of "offer love to all" is, to me, the most attractive part of the faith. And there's a version of that message, of love, in pretty much all the big faith systems - and I'd argue that it's an incredibly important thing to do, whether you have faith in a God or not. But all too often, that's translated to mean "love the sinner... if they stop sinning", or "love the sinner... if they repent for their sins", or "love the sinner... but constantly tell them that what they're doing is wrong". That doesn't necessarily refer to homosexuality; it might refer to drug use, or lack of belief (or having a particular belief!), or transgenderism, or a thousand other things, large or small, that make that person different from you in some way. After all, it's what makes people different which is the criticized thing, which is the 'sinful' thing.
Whether someone is a sinner or not; whether someone is different from you or not, should have no effect on how you treat them because of love. To act in a hateful way towards someone different from you, even if you believe that it's 'for their own good', is a justification for them to act in a similar way towards you - after all, from their point of view, it's you who is the 'different' one, who is the 'sinner'. And hatred has a tendency to feed back on itself and amplify itself. Fortunately, so does love - but that requires for people to start acting positively in the first place, to break the cycle and replace it with their own, positive one.
Try. That's the message. Try to love someone, not because you can accept their differences, but in spite of whatever differences you might see between you and them. I'm not the praying sort, but I hope you're successful.
EDIT: Bahahahaaha - after all that, someone tl;dr'd me with a single image (hotlinked for profanity): here.
