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Something occurred to me and I just kind of needed to rant about it. Was having a conversation with a friend about how often straight Christians sit around talking about “what to do” about including/accepting/welcoming LGBT people. It annoys me, and I couldn’t figure out why, since I’m a straight person. And with the US Supreme Court killing the Defense of Marriage Act, it’s gotten worse. There is a blog post on A Deeper Story that just made me want to scream, because it’s all about straight people expressing their “disagreements” about LGBT people, only trying to do it nicely because JESUS. It’s sickening.
I think maybe I just have had an unusual experience. It wasn’t straight people who helped me through changing my views–it was my loving & wonderful sister, a dear friend, and a pastor with whom I became acquainted online. I started out with a “love the sinner, hate the sin” attitude, then struggled with doing just “love the sinner.” In the end, though, it was the fact that our relationship wasn’t built on my efforts to “convert” them. I stopped doing the “love the…” thing because these amazing people loved ME in my vulnerability (and I don’t just mean over this issue; I mean in general).
I kind of think that’s what’s missing from the whole “love the…” scenario. It’s a one-way thing: “I’ll love you even thought I think you’re wrong/bad/sinful, but I won’t get near enough to let you love me back.” It just feels like it’s a relationship with an agenda, and that’s never healthy. Plus, it still ends up with LGBT people having to defend their identities to people who honestly would rather not deal with that part of them. It sucks all around. It’s just so disappointing that the very people who were most influential in my spiritual journey are merely “invited” to the table rather than sitting at the head of it.
Ok, rant over.
Excellent. I read somewhere that the only sin there is, “is not being kind”.
I totally understand this, and as someone who is part of the LGBT community, I’m on the receiving end of it often. Though I’ve never been explicit about my identity and such, I still get treated kind of off-ish because of how I present, which decreased dramatically since I left the church. Funnythat.
It’s funny because the church my parents attend has thought through this practice quite readily and in their mind, got it sussed. What they’d do, is if a gay, man let’s say, came in to church, and he wasn’t a christian, people would “accept” and “love” him, they wouldn’t talk about his sexuality, they’d just try as hard as possible to get him saved, and then once he “professed christ” tell him he couldn’t ever be in a loving same-sex relationship. The other way round is that he would need to “repent” of his sin of gay-ness before he could be saved, this wouldn’t make him straight, but the willingness to “turn from his sin” would be counted as proof of salvation.
Pretty warped thinking really. Not to mention damaging.
Basically telling people to love the sinner but hate the sin,when the sin they are hating is just love comes round in a circle to point the finger at the hate, which is the only real sin going on here.
What I find interesting about love the sinner hate the sin is that it doesn’t have anything to do with love at all. It always struck me as simply a way for Christians to avoid a guilty conscience when it came to the issue of homosexuality. It simply wouldn’t be ‘proper’ to just openly hate a person for their way of life, so deploy a simple phrase like and suddenly you no longer have to worry about what a horrible person you are being anymore. Its a lie. No Christian loves a homosexual, they’re afraid of them, they view them as ‘different’, people to viewed from within their own bubbles. Love the sinner and hate the sin is essentially a euphemism for ‘I’m homophobic but don’t want to admit it’.
Lovely rant Amy! Whenever I hear love the sinner hate the sin I instantly get defensive. As a Christian or a non-theist I’ve never heard it used in a context that didn’t piss me off. In order to declare something a sin first requires an element of judgement. The person has to have made the determination that the act they are hating is sinful. About 5 years ago one of the the first ripples of discontent between myself and other believers had to do with that saying. Upon hearing it related to the LGBT community I said I saw no sin there to hate. I did so in a small group meeting with people I’d served with for year suddenly looking at me as if I’d just landed from an alien planet. I’ve said for years that tolerance is not acceptance. I don’t want to be tolerated because it’s the “good Christian” thing to do. It closes doors. Why would anyone want to embrace people who simply tolerate parts of them and hate other parts that make them whole?
AnonymousI’m so white and straight and Christian. I repent. There’s not much I can do about the white, maybe the straight, but I absolutely repent the Christian.
@Vic argh. Yes, that’s every church I was ever in until the most recent one. I used to feel uncomfortable inviting my sister for special events because of how they would act around her (in her words, she is gender-fluid; uses pronouns she/her, but doesn’t care if people call her he/him). People would do one of two things: Be overly friendly in the effort to convert her or avoid her because they weren’t sure what to make of her appearance. I was told it was my job to “convert” her. Another friend had someone “pray over” her lesbian mom, claiming to have had a vision that her mom’s partner (of about 10 years) would move out & her mom would be “saved.”
@servantgirl yes, that was my feeling too–what sin is there in love?
What makes me most sad is that so many Christians fail to see that they’re missing out on a lot. When I was at a breaking point in my faith, I met a pastor who radically changed my thinking. He’s honestly the only reason I was able to remain even a skeptical Christian.
I like rants like this.
Anonymous“Another friend had someone “pray over” her lesbian mom, claiming to have had a vision that her mom’s partner (of about 10 years) would move out & her mom would be “saved.” “
Ugh. That is one of many things that drives me crazy about homophobic Christians: they are so nonchalant about wanting same-sex couples and families to separate/divorce, and these are the SAME people who are always talking about how traumatic divorce is!!
Reading this thread made me think: according to Christian theology, we are all sinners, so the best thing to do is throw “Love the sinner, hate the sin” out the window and go back to old school “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
I think you have articulated that very well. I always had problems with that concept. We say we love others but keep them at arm’s length because they “don’t know Jesus like we do” even though part of being Christian is admitting that you are also a sinner. So should people love you but avoid you because of your sins?
It’s very condescending and does not allow us to fully love the person and be loved back by them. What kind of example is that?
I think it also derives from this Jewish-like mentality that Christianity, or in my experience, mainly reformed circles are adopting, this idea that because we know Christ, we are somehow ‘special’ or above others in terms of morality, and specifically in terms of judgement (though they will never, ever admit that). I’ve heard from Christians before that because they can interpret the Bible they can therefore interpret the truth onto others, and in there eyes, homosexuality is a clearly defined sin so they have a right to call people out on it regardless of what effect it has on people. Its a very inhumane thing to do, all they focus on is the sin itself, rather than the person behind it. Its faulty theology though, I genuinely think the only thing that truly sustains this tradition is that people generally see homosexuality as ‘icky’ or weird, its something they want to keep at arms length. Add some mis-translations to the Bible and you have justification to dislike them without feeling guilty about it anymore because apparently God doesn’t like them either!
I will often reflect back the saying by saying, “Love the idiot, hate the ignorance.”
I would imagine those who call gay people sinners might not like being referenced in the same manner.
Good point, Rick…that’s interesting that the argument would be that homosexuality is the only defined sin the in Bible. I would argue the Ten Commandments point out clearly defined sin as do all the Laws in Leviticus. And yes, Christians do feel that they are special, it’s something I work hard not to do but sometimes something I say or do is interpreted as such.
Its a trend I’ve noticed not necessarily with people individually, but more from the theology when I hear it preached. Recently I heard this analogy that there is this great chasm that exists between the believer and the non-believer, like they’re simply world’s apart from each other. How do they possibly think they are going to effectively evangelise if they have that kind of mentality? Its one of the reasons why I had to leave Christianity behind, it just seemed so disconnected from the rest of humanity and just… society in general.
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