Yes, it’s a marvelous conundrum:
I remember Christian teachers telling me long ago that I must hate a bad man’s actions but not hate the bad man: or, as they would say, hate the sin but not the sinner…I used to think this a silly, straw-splitting distinction: how could you hate what a man did and not hate the man? But years later it occurred to me that there was one man to whom I had been doing this all my life–namely myself.
However much I might dislike my own cowardice or conceit or greed, I went on loving myself. There had never been the slightest difficulty about it. In fact the very reason why I hated the things was that I loved the man. Just because I loved myself, I was sorry to find that I was the sort of man who did those things–C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
But, as Lewis point out, loving himself precluded him from hating the sins of which he was guilty. Until he got himself sorted out.
Sorting oneself out (and dismissing the “love of oneself” component) is tough. And Lewis’s concept that we should love ourselves, no matter how much we have failed our God, is difficult.
I’ve never been a fan of the idea that “because I accept Christ as my Savior, He’ll see me through, no matter how much I veer from the Christian path myself, because I’ve been saved.” I wish I actually believed that, because it would be enormously comforting and so much easier! For my own part, though, I cannot help thinking that–just to make assurance doubly sure–I should give the Christian life, and everything it entails. the old college try.
You do you. I’ll do me.
What I’ve found lately is that seeking common ground on the basis of positivity and love is harder than it used to be. Forming groups based on affection and caring seems to matter less than doing the same thing based on tribalism and hatred of the “other.”
You can look it up.
Frankly, I couldn’t give a pig’s rear end about the “other.” Most of the people in my life, regardless (or irregardess as the case may be) of what end of the political spectrum they are on couldn’t care less about the ‘other.’ Either you’re on the side of humanity, commonality, affection, and love, or you’re not.
And–if you’re not–I no longer much care why, or anything else about you. That doesn’t mean I hate you, and–oh dear Lord–I wish you didn’t hate me either. It simply means that–wherever you are, I am indifferent to your peculiar persuasions..
CS Lewis had it pretty much nailed (as always) in The Screwtape Letters, I think:
Hatred is best combined with Fear. Cowardice, alone of all the vices, is purely pain–horrible to anticipate, horrible to feel, horrible to remember; Hatred has its pleasures. It is therefore often the compensation by which a frightened man reimburses himself for the miseries of Fear. The more he fears, the more he will hate. And Hatred is also a great anodyne for shame. To make a deep wound in his charity, you should therefore first defeat his courage.
I am not afraid.
“I’ve never been a fan of the idea that “because I accept Christ as my Savior, He’ll see me through, no matter how much I veer from the Christian path myself, because I’ve been saved.””
Nor have I, and frankly such a sentiment is a late (i.e. post-Reformation) one, stemming from the watered down teachings of Calvin (Irresistible Grace, minus the predestination bits), coupled to the modern desire to “be nice”. One need only read Matthew 25, from verse 31 onwards, to see how Jesus Himself put it.
I heard something the other night that I thought was apropos about consistently hating the “other”, and nursing grudges. One can only truly be a victim once, after that it becomes willing participation. That is to say, we can of course truly be harmed by any direct action, but if we keep nursing that hurt, and using it to keep alive anger (which we then use to justify our own malice), then we are re-participating in that hurt willingly.
Thanks for the thought-provoking comment. The last paragraph nails it.
“Anger used to justify malice” is a pretty good summation of how many people seem to operate. As a lifestyle, it must be simply exhausting. And as is often observed, it is the haters who are–eventually–most harmed, because they become consumed, with it, until they can’t think about, or talk about, anything but their anger and their hate.
I’ve always liked that saying, which appears in many different forms, and is attributed to many different sources, that: “To hate someone is like drinking poison yourself, and then expecting the other person to die of it.”
Gagara yasin.