(no subject)

[pat]

I have heard several people on my friends list say something to the effect of "It is impossible for someone to 'hate the sin but love the sinner'."



I saw my friend C at church yesterday. I don't get to see him very often -- he is no longer living in our area.

There are decisions I have made about my personal life that C finds appalling. He has never said so directly -- the closest he has come is to say he was "very concerned" -- but I think I know him well enough to have a pretty good idea of what he thinks of the matter. If pressed, I'm pretty sure he would say, yes, he thinks that I am being sinful.

But when he sees me, he says "I really want to know how your life is going" and means it. He does not spend his time telling me that I am going to hell, or that the struggles I am experiencing in my emotional and spiritual life are a result of these decisions.

I think this is a clear case of "hate the sin, love the sinner."

The problem is that most people who actually say the above phrase, don't really mean it.

Comments

Re: Another important point

[dawnd.livejournal.com]

*sigh* LJ ate the reply. Let's try again.

I agree that the listener is also responsible for receiving the message correctly. If they are primed to hear criticism, then it may be next to impossible for them to hear anything other than that, unless the speaker is 100% positive and supportive (and possibly not then).

Not that this has ever happened to ME of course! ;^) (Yes, RJ, I'm kidding. For the record, I've got some serious filters in place I fight against constantly).

Basically, it's a variation on "we see what we expect to see."


Regarding the on-line fora being better in this regard because the wording is checkable by all parties--well, I think that mostly doesn't work because only 7% of communication is carried in the words themselves. On-line communication is severely lacking in this dept., even more so than telephones (and we all know that "playing telephone" can lead to some serious miscommunications). That's why we have smileys and emoticons and LJ mood icons--to TRY to overcome some of this "natural" handicap. So being able to check the words would not change the INTERPRETATION that someone might have had about the meaning of those words; hence the continued possibility of miscommunication.

Re: Another important point

[rmjwell.livejournal.com]

*sigh* LJ ate the reply. Let's try again.

I hate when that happens (usually because Netscape has decided it hasn't had enough love or something).

If they are primed to hear criticism, then it may be next to impossible for them to hear anything other than that, unless the speaker is 100% positive and supportive (and possibly not then).

Not that this has ever happened to ME of course! ;^)

Nor me. I'm talking about gnomes and elves, of course. :-)

Regarding the on-line fora being better in this regard because the wording is checkable by all parties--well, I think that mostly doesn't work because only 7% of communication is carried in the words themselves.[...] So being able to check the words would not change the INTERPRETATION that someone might have had about the meaning of those words; hence the continued possibility of miscommunication.

Okay, this is where I think the reader has to understand both the medium and the communicator and make a choice. If I'm having a conversation with A Dear Friend Of Long-Standing I will likely choose to attempt to fill in missing tone and pacing cues based on my knowledge of said DFOLS and my accuracy will likely be high. If I am dicussing something with Random Stranger, I will choose to read for literal content, paying close attention to my own triggers getting tripped (again, not perfectly).

I also think that the lack of tone and pacing can be a benefit, not a handicap, if approached as such. I think trying to infer meaning from tone or body-language is as fraught as trying to infer meaning from online content beyond the literal. Even with DFOLS folks make mistakes.

But all this is a digression from the original point "The listener is also responsible for receiving the message correctly" upon which we are in agreement. :-)

Re: Another important point

[dawnd.livejournal.com]

...upon which we are in agreement. :-)

Yay! We agree that we agree! ;^)