If you’re a Christian looking to not be bothered by non-believers, I know exactly where you should go: church. Less than 20% of Americans attend church. You’ll almost certainly be safe there.
Hopefully you can tell I’m being sarcastic. But it’s true; people are staying away from church in droves. And one big reason why people stay away, according to recent surveys, is that they believe that the people at church will judge them.
If you see it from their perspective, they’re right. Even when Christians try to not be judgmental, they can come across as judgmental. We say things like “We love the sinner, but we hate the sin.” Nonbelievers don’t hear the first part. They just hear the word “hate.”
I understand what well-meaning people are getting at when they say “love the sinner; hate the sin.” I’ve said it often enough myself. But to be fair, there is more than a whiff of self-righteousness in it. It’s as if we’re saying, “God may be mildly irritated by my sins, but he is really upset by yours.” It implies that others’ sins are worse for them than ours are for us.
The reason I include “love the sinner; hate the sin” in my list of unquestioned answers that Christians should consider abandoning is that it doesn’t reflect the true state of everyone before God.
In the biblical account of the fall, God pronounced a curse on the man and woman along with the serpent who coaxed them into such a shameful state. At first this seems like an overreaction. God lost his temper and decided to forever ruin the lives of his precious children. But it’s more a statement about what happens when we tell God, “Leave us alone.” Without God’s presence, what once had been pleasurable became painful. What had been fruitful became barren. The fall massively affected the world and everything in it.
And it still does. But the good news is that God is a rescuer. It’s as if we found ourselves toppling headlong over a cliff only to find ourselves in the strong grip of the only one who can pull us back to safety.
One of the most powerful things we can do is focus on asking questions. “Who are you? Tell me more about you. What’s your story?” We never want to minimize the seriousness of sin, but we absolutely want to communicate to people that “your sin is how you are, not who you are. You are made in God’s image Jesus makes it possible for us to live lives that are fully pleasing to God.”
When it comes to helping others grow spiritually, my job isn’t to add my judgment to God’s. It’s to share who God is, who we are, and the good news of what Jesus has done for us. Loving God involves loving what God loves. And God loves people. All people, not just those who feel like they’re doing pretty well.
