Bright Spot: Hating the sin, loving the sinner isn't so easy

We might agree that enough has been written about what Duck Dynasty patriarch and evangelical Christian Phil Robertson said about Blacks and gays.

He said the African-Americans he grew up with and worked with were as poor as he was and they were all happy together. That was his personal observation and experience. He never said Jim Crow laws or pre-civil rights treatment of African-Americans were good.

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His comments about gays involved naming a whole bunch of sins, which is never popular.

There’s a fairly famous statement that we must hate the sin, but love the sinner. Take it from someone who tried to practice that for 44 years of pastoral ministry – it is easier said than done. Been there, done that, got the scars to prove it.

Here are a few tips I’ve learned from this adventure:

• 1. Do it up close, private and personal. Things said by high profile people in public are seldom read in context, nor are they given the benefit of the doubt. Statements become sound bites that then get skewed and skewered. But face to face there is not as much need for face-saving. Comments can be clarified. Egos aren’t as easily aggravated.

• 2. Pour on the love; just sprinkle on the salt. The apostle Paul told us to make our conversations with outsiders “full of grace and seasoned with salt.” (Colossians 4:2-6) That’s a good recipe for loving the sinner, but hating the sin. Instead we often pile on the salt, adding just a pinch of grace. That’s a recipe for disaster and destruction of any chance for change or closeness.

• 3. Live out loudly in your life what good you are FOR instead of the bad you are against. Most people know what Christians are against. Surveys show that Christians are usually described by all the things we are against. Do we want those to define us – or do we want to be known by our good works and words? When Jesus confronted the Rich Young Ruler with his sin this young man focused on the bad things he didn’t do. Jesus then re-directed him to the positive things he must do to have real life: Sell all he had; give it to the poor, then come follow Jesus. (Mark 10:17-21)

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Following Jesus, the “friend of sinners” (Luke 7:34) shows us the best way to love everyone; not just sinners.

Rick Sams is pastor emeritus of Alliance Friends Church.

This article originally appeared on The Alliance Review: Bright Spot: Hating the sin, loving the sinner isn't so easy