The Response to Evil. Part 4.
- Aug 8, 2018
- 4 min read
Hate the Sin, Love the Sinner
I know it's cliche, overused, and even abused, but cliches are cliches for a reason and the fact that something can be abused is a terrible reason to overlook it. As it happens, this simple injunction is absurdly important.
Just to be clear though, this is not to automatically clear the sinner of responsibility for their actions nor to pretend that nothing wrong happened. On the contrary.
What it does allow you to do is to have the appropriate response to a wrong that is done and to love the person who did the wrong.
If you don't make this distinction you'll swing to one of two extremes.
Either: you will think of the person as evil and cease to love them in proportion to their crime
Or: you will call their crime not that bad in an effort to continue to love them.
No matter the wrong a person has done they are a beloved child of the Father and that dignity cannot be taken away from them. Their actions may warrant not trusting them, it may warrant punishing them etc. but their actions can not take away the inherent dignity of the human person.
Being able to make this distinction also lays the groundwork for a couple of other crucially important foundations to living in a world that is broken:
1. Remember Who the Real Enemy Is
The advice may sound painfully simple, but it can be an unexpectedly profound distinction, and can be applied to all sorts of conflicts. I want to point out one particular sort of conflict where I've seen this distinction frequently not made with disastrous results. The battlefield of the Christian life.
The imagery of the battlefield in the Christian life is wonderful! It inspires and strengthens me and has helped me in more ways than I could tell you if I tried. But when Christians forget who the real enemy is, the imagery of the battlefield can render their efforts to evangelize not only fruitless, but dangerous.
Living the life of a faithful Catholic, espousing all the teachings of the Church, will certainly land you in a place where you disagree with a lot of people. Whoever it is you disagree with and however serious and real the grounds of disagreement are - those people are not your enemy.
I cannot emphasize this enough. Your enemy in this battle is the devil. Period. End of story. You may be in conflict with people in any number of more trivial ways, but when it comes to your role as a soldier for Christ they are absolutely not the enemy. You are fighting for them, not against them.
2. Forgiveness: The Unimaginable
**spoilers**
At the emotional climax of Hamilton the titular character is not in a good place. In order to save his political career from the rumor of embezzlement, he publicized a long term affair, then his son was killed in a duel in defense of his father's honor. This song follows immediately on the death of his son at which point Hamilton's wife, Eliza, has every reason to hate to him.
Forgiveness is not making excuses for the person at fault or pretending that the wrong did not happen. Although seeing and understanding where the person was coming from or the ways that they have been wounded may help you get to a place where you can forgive - the actual act of forgiveness only happens if there's an injustice that shouldn't be simply excused. Forgiveness is putting a higher value on the inherent of worth of yourself and your wronger than on the wrong they did to you. That isn't usually easy but it is profoundly beautiful. Forgiveness is a means for the sometimes senseless suffering of life to be transformed into something redemptive. It is also the only way that we will be able to continue to love and be loved in a world that is made up of wounded and sinful people.
3. The Need for Healing
**spoilers**
This scene is the crucial moment in the film Good Will Hunting and I highly recommend that if you haven't seen it, you go watch the whole thing and see this in context. Be aware that it's rated R for a lot of language, but I personally think it's worth it.
Hurt people hurt people
Once again, this is not to ignore the reality of wrong doing or the necessary consequences. But I think if we had the faintest idea of how much of the wrongdoing in the world is the consequence of deep woundedness and pain, we would put so much more of our time and energy into efforts of healing. I have found this to be incredibly important in my dealings with others, but also in dealing with myself. Sinfulness is deeply tangled with woundedness and facing the roots of those wounds and seeking healing has been one of the most important things in my own growth in virtue and maturity.
(If you know you need this but you're not sure where to start - try this book. It's simple and powerful.)
There's so much more to be said about each of these that it's almost painful, but this is neither the time nor the place for a full length book.
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