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The Danger of Discarding ‘Hate the Sin, Love the Sinner’
Yes, it’s cliche, problematic, and often used in a hurtful way — but we must take care before too quickly getting rid of it
7 min readAug 14, 2023
Multiple articles here on Medium, including this recent one by Dan Foster, argue against the saying: “Hate the sin, love the sinner.” In his article (which, like most of his pieces, is admittedly well-written), he argues that it’s not reasonable, helpful, loving, or even biblical.
He’s not alone. To many critics of “Hate the sin, love the sinner,” the saying is nothing more than a contemptible, dishonest effort to couch hatred of certain people or groups in an expression of sanctimony and condescension.
I’ve written about this controversy myself recently…
…so I won’t repeat everything I wrote in that article (see above). Instead, I will focus exclusively on one important aspect of this controversy that is too often ignored.
