Love the sinner; hate the sin?

Micah J. Murray's Huff Post blog, "Why I Can't Say 'Love the Sinner/Hate the Sin' Anymore" has been splashed all over social media in the last week. I've seen it twice just today.

Here's a link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/micah-j-murray/why-i-cant-say-love-the-sinner-hate-the-sin-anymore_b_4521519.html

While social media has always been a cesspool of terrible logic and I've learned to overlook most of it, the religious controversy surrounding homosexuality seems to bring out the worst. And then someone shovels a gleaming manure pile like this blog onto my news feed.

Micah Murray really hates the accusing nature of the word "sinner," especially when directed at homosexuals. He's also got a lot of screwy ideas about Christ's ministry which some theologian needs to pile-drive into the ground.

But I'm not that guy. If you want to say Jesus never claimed to be God, if you want to say He never accused anyone of being a sinner, if you want to say he was born in Africa as a woman--I won't argue with you. Not because you'd be right, but because I'm no theologian.

But if you're going to make a statement like:

"We embrace [homosexuals] with arms full of disclaimers about how all the sinners are welcome here. And yet, they're the only ones we constantly remind of their status as sinners, welcome sinners"

--then, as a thinking human, I've got a bone to pick with you.

The first thing you need to understand, Micah, is that a homosexual who doesn't have gay sex isn't sinning. There's no sin to "hate."

We've all got evil desires. We heterosexuals (since I happen to be heterosexual and I assume, from your wording, you are too) have to ward off ALL sexual desire from puberty 'til marriage, assuming we do marry. Even then, extramarital sex is off limits forever.

I'm sure you've heard all this before, Micah. It's nothing new.

When Christians say "love the sin; hate the sinner," they're usually talking about someone with homosexual desires who DOES have gay sex--someone who considers gay sex to be part of his identity and lifestyle, and who doesn't care what the Bible has to say on the matter.

In that sense, the saying "love the sinner; hate the sin" doesn't even refer just to homosexuals. It refers to ANYONE engaged in an unrepentant, habitual lifestyle of sin. Keyword: unrepentant.

Maybe you still take offense at the word "sinner"'s being used to describe anyone. After all, the word is strongly negative--

--but also, highly descriptive. "Sinner" is, after all, just a word. It means "someone who sins," which describes our unrepentant, habitual offender perfectly. Just like "murderer" describes someone who's committed murder, or "singer" describes someone who can make music vocally, or "human" describes a member of the species called man.

Maybe it's just negative adjectives you object to, when used to describe people.

Should we stop using them altogether? Maybe we should find a Sharpie and a Webster's and mark them all out.

Or maybe we should just let people keep loving sinners, but hating sins. Would that really be such a stretch?