“I remember Christian teachers telling me long ago that I must hate a bad man’s actions but not hate the bad man: or, as they would say, hate the sin but not the sinner. …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.” ? C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
OK, let’s get something straight. Hate the sin, love the sinner is NOT an American phrase. If you look it up, that particular version–in English–was actually used by Mahatma Gandhi in India. It became a catchphrase very quickly, so much so that by the writing of Mere Christianity, just a few years later, C.S. Lewis is able to cite that phrase as something that everyone would know, recognize, and maybe even use. So, the phrase has nothing to do with American Christianity. The phrase, in the form that is quoted most often, comes from an Indian hero of the “fight” for the independence of India. I put the word “fight” in quotation marks because Mahatma Gandhi led peaceful change, and many of his tactics are still taught by those who believe peaceful change. He was not a Christian per se, but he was also not anti-Christian.
He himself is not the originator of the thought. You can find the same idea in Saint Augustine of Hippo in the year 424. In his Letter 211, Saint Augustine says, “Cum dilectione hominum et odio vitiorum,” which means, “With love for men and hatred for sin.”
But, here is the thing. That phrase has been so useful, and such a helpful expression of how we should behave towards others that it has crossed from country to country, from culture to culture, from language to language, and from religion to religion. Here is what it has not been considered over the centuries. It has not been considered an expression of hate. It took a particular American spin to turn a phrase that gives incredibly helpful advice as to how we need to differentiate between people and sin into an expression of hate. You can do a search for that phrase and see how it went from sound multi-cultural multi-religious advice to a phrase that has been spun into a phrase of hatred. It was not a phrase of hatred for more than a thousand years.
It is still not a phrase of hatred. It is a phrase used by people as diverse as Saint Augustine, Mahatma Gandhi, and C.S. Lewis. I frankly much prefer Saint Augustine’s version, but then, C.S. Lewis prefers Mahatma Gandhi’s version. And, as he points out, he came to know the absolute truth of the phrase when he applied it to himself. It was when he realized that he always loved himself but hated his own sin that he realized that the saying was true. In fact, Saint Paul makes the comment in Romans 7 that he does things which he wishes he would not do. Yet, by Romans 8, he makes the declaration that he is a forgiven man, thanks to the grace f God.
So, next time someone tries to put the spin on you about loving the person but hating sin, stop them. Ask them whether they thought Mahatma Gandhi was a hater. If they say, “no,” then hit them with C.S. Lewis and Saint Augustine. I suspect they will not listen, but, you will have the comfort of knowing that you might have given them pause to think.
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