"Hate the Sin, Love the Sinner."
This is one of those cliches that Christians tend to use (or at least I've heard people use them, I don't remember hearing someone say it) and one Christian in particular doesn't like it. Here's what Christian Piatt (a fellow Disciples of Christ pastor) has to say about this:
This is a backhanded way to tell someone you love them, at best. It also ignores the command by Jesus not to focus on the splinter in our neighbors’ eyes while a plank remains in our own. Bottom line: we all screw up, and naming others’ sin as noteworthy while remaining silent about your own is arrogant.Many Christians, mostly those in Mainline churches, hate the phrase and with reason: it's been associated with how some Christians have viewed LGBT folks. While I've never heard people say this, it is common for more conservative Christians to act this out and in some cases there's been more focus on hating the sin than there is on loving the sinner. Because of this tendency, there has been a move to basically be offended at this practice. "Mind your own damn business!" Is the response from most people. While I understand the tendency, I feel we are losing something in throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
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