Christians tend to fall into two camps when it comes to sin. Conservatives tend to condemn sinner and sin while liberals condon sinner and sin. This is not the case for every single person, but does encompass the general attitude. Luckily there is a third way, and a more biblical one in my opinion. We are to love the sinner, but not the sin. This is a common catchphrase I know, but I think if we dig into it a little we will see that it is a challenging idea.

The first question that comes to my mind is how do you love a person who is a sinner? Easy. We are all sinners. I am a sinner, you are a sinner, and every person in the Bible, save one, was a sinner. If I know that I sin every day than I know that I can forgive others who also sin every day. I have every vice (hate, lust, greed, gluttony, pride, sloth, and jealousy) in my heart. Some days it feels like a rager is being held and the seven vices are the attendees.

This realization is what awakens compassion. I can love other sinners because I am in their camp as well. Being poor in spirit (Matthew 5:3) means that I have come to this important realization. But there is another realization that I think helps Christians love other sinners.

The idea that we will never fall into fleshly sins is firstly preposterous and secondly unbiblical. Jesus makes it very that we cannot escape fleshly sins because our base instinct is to follow them. If we lust in our heart our hate in our minds we have commited sin. I don’t know about you, but I sin in my mind probably once an hour. I like CS Lewis’s response to this reality.

The sins of the flesh are bad, but they are the least bad of all sins. All the worst are purely spiritual; the pleasure of putting other people in the wrong, of bossing and patronising and spoiling sport, and back-biting, the pleasure of power and hatred…That is why a cold, self-righteous prig who goes regularly to church may be far nearer to hell than a prostitute. But, of course, it is better to be neither.

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Lewis is differentiating sins. To God sin is equally deserving of death. In this world though, we are to treat different types of sins differently. Lewis wisely ends his statement with the idea that fleshly sins and spiritual sins are both bad, but he is mature enough to understand that fleshly sins are far inferior to spiritual ones. Christians all to often get hung up on unfashionable fleshly sins. Adultery is accepted by most American Christians today, but God forbid that a person struggles with same-sex attraction. Likewise a person who is egotistical can be excused, but don’t you dare struggle with some of the difficult aspects of Christianity.

It is hard, but we have to treat every sin as sin. Pride is sin just like same-sex attraction is. A person who struggles with pride or homosexuality both deserve our compassion and love. Saying that a person who has identified as gay, but is actively denying themselves for God, can’t be a Christian is wrong. If that was the case than no person can be a follower of Christ because we are all struggling with something.

So here is the kicker: love everyone no matter what. Treat everyone with the love that Jesus treated us with. View all sin as against God, not just the flashy sins.