WHEN CHRISTIAN LOVE HIDES HATE
We are asked to be moral and to help morality happen. We are to encourage moral behaviour. This basically condemns selfishness which is about wanting justice and respect for yourself as if nobody else counts. You hear people trying to figure out what is right and what is wrong. But surely what lies at the bottom of it all is seeing people's behaviour and judging it? Seeing a partner in a firm running off with all the money and leaving the other in the gutter impacts our thinking more than theorising can any day. It is no exaggeration to say that the theorising comes after. If our morality is that emotional and subjective then if morality is valid and true and rational then what we have is just our subjective morality and real morality is not part of it. It may resemble the real but resembling does not make it the real deal.
"Love the sinner and hate the sin" is nonsense if all you have is this subjective standard of right and wrong! If we do have the real standard of right and wrong and are too inconsistent with it the same problem arises. We end up exercising hypocritical judgement.
Self-centredness and selfishness are not the same. The first can happen if we are weak or sick. We can only think of ourselves. The second however boils down to a choice (we will pay no heed to the free will debate right now).
Simple?
No.
Even if a person has free will, they are also a biological machine and we never know how that makeup interferes with it. We definitely know that our bodies can fool us into thinking we act freely when we do not - when we have too much to drink. Each person is so different.
People say, "The self-centred person can easily pass for a selfish one. People too easily think only of themselves when they can do better, when they know we will think it is because of their circumstances or their illness." It would indeed seem that if a person would be forced by their problems to get too self-absorbed and demanding, it does not follow that the problems are to blame if they are me me me. If that is so, then selfishness and self-centredness can mix which makes it more confusing.
Also, people cannot give clear simple reasons why selfishness is supposed to be wrong. We are told parents are unselfish with their babies though we know that biology as good as forces them to be so attached to them. And we are told it is unselfish to promise somebody you will take them for life when in fact a person changes a lot over time so you do not really know what you are doing. There is much more. And we know that no matter what, we keep taking. In time taking leaves others without. Every cup of clean water means that one day somebody will look for a drink and there will only be stagnant water. Many "selfish" people are just not convinced by the arguments and that is understandable. That makes them self-centred rather than selfish. And as for the non-judgemental unselfish, they are not looking at selfish behaviour and saying, "It is not really selfish".
People sense the hypocrisy in each other and the incoherence of their moral deliberations. Maybe that is why we are not fans of ethics at all and just want people to think we are.
For some odd reason people seem to fear knowing that an opponent has malign feelings towards them more than the harm that the person will do. If somebody threatens your rights, it should not matter if they do this without or with ill-feelings. You simply have no right to know how a person feels about you. Why? Because it is a waste of time to worry about that. You can't program them to feel differently. And if you want nobody to think bad of you then you are a narcissist.
When a person is told by a Christian that they love them but hate their sin
they may take offence. Some Christians say nothing but take action against the
sin. Sometimes it can be a very decisive action. Why is the person saying, “I hate your sin”
so hurtful when their actions that amount to declaring the same thing are not?
Why fear words more than actions?
One reason is that the person does not want to see their sin as sin and actually
does deep down and they get upset at the Christian for bringing up that
awareness. It triggers them for it alerts them to the judgement they have
made on themselves that they wish to forget.
If the act is not a sin and the person feels it is, it is no wonder that they
feel hated by those who oppose the supposed sin.
Some retort to the Christian, “I love and like you but I hate what you believe
especially when it tells me I am wrong.” They report the Christian is offended
by that. That shows that the Christian is not being honest with themselves.
If loving the sinner and hating the sin is possible, that does not mean that that
somebody cannot be using it to hide their hate. They may think it cannot be done
yet they claim to love the sinner they oppose and who they invite to repentance
and reconciliation. Love for sinner and hate and opposition to sin is
Christian doctrine. If that Christian is offended if you tell them you regard
their dogma as hateful but not them that is a sure sign that they are not
confident that they really love you at all. The Christian clearly detects a hidden and crafty hate in
themselves that they bear towards you.
Now there is a difference between somebody telling you that you are doing harm
by having sex outside of marriage or stealing or that your belief is harmful.
Being accused of being harmful is not the same thing as being accused of harbouring
a belief that harms. One tells you what kind of person you are – a harmer. And
it imputes fault. And the other tells you that you have been sucked into a
belief that is bad. That may not be your fault. You may just need
light to cast out the darkness of the belief.
However there are people who advocate beliefs that can be taken for good ones who know fine well they are a lot less good than they are made to appear.
If a person cannot make mistakes, a person cannot really sin. Religion and criminal law hold that being evil is compatible with having mistaken views that are relevant to the evil and help cause it. I am told not to centre on myself, not to trust myself too much. The evidence is that people can swear that x is the right course for them and be disastrously wrong. The person who swears the ice is thick and it has to be, may find out the hard way when he or she falls through it. It was thin after all. But it is luck that makes it a mistake. Bad luck we should say. It is better to freeze to death fast than not to and suffer a lingering death if a nuclear war breaks out or a meteorite hits. Nobody knows or can really make a reasonable prediction. Our moralising involves a lot of guessing. People go along with our guesses for they feel they will be considered immoral and evil if they do not. There is a bullying side to it all.
As tricky as trusting yourself is, at least you are in a position to know best. For that reason handing that trust to God or somebody else is worse In that sense mistakes are collateral damage rather than mistakes.
If you think you have God on your side and that God is hearing your prayers
for guidance you will hate the person who will not trust you enough to do what
you want.
Christians who think they are hated if their belief is hated are clearly
identifying too closely with their belief. The rest may be feigning that they do
this for it is a clever ploy for keeping you from hearing that you may be wrong. Evidence should lead you to belief
and form it. A belief can and should only develop in a person upon exposure to
evidence. Evidence. Not prejudice. Not guesses. Not
feelings. Evidence. Nothing else. If you think you can choose to
believe or that belief is chosen you may take it personally if the belief is
demolished by critics.
Being led by faith to think that you are hated for your beliefs causes you to hate critics eventually. There is a saying that if you see hate in others that is not there that is a sign that the real hate is in you. You see in others what is inside yourself.
We flatly conclude that Christianity and religion are not really
in the service of love or at least non-hate.
