78: We Can’t ‘Love the Sinner and Hate the Sin’

Raise your hand if you heard the phrase “Love the sinner, hate the sin.” Turns out there’s a psychological reason why this is impossible. Dr. Richard Beck joins us today to talk about the psychology of disgust and the unconscious ways in which we push people away whom we believe will contaminate us. Jess and Devi also debrief the power of metaphors, and the ways a metaphor can harm us (crumpled rose anyone?). 

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Show Notes:
Experimental Theology by Richard Beck
Unclean: Meditations on Purity, Hospitality, and Mortality by Richard Beck
2: Is Purity The Word The Bible Uses To Talk About Sex?
3: What Chewed Up Gum Has To Do With Sex
A cup full of spit, a chewed up piece of gum. These are the metaphors used to teach kids about sex
One problem with Kim Burrell’s ‘hate the sin, love the sinner’ argument by Jonathan Merritt for Religion News Service

Richard Beck is an author, blogger and professor of psychology at Abilene Christian University. His most recent books are Hunting Magic Eels: Recovering an Enchanted Faith in a Skeptical Age and Trains, Jesus and Murder: The Gospel According to Johnny Cash. Richard writes daily about the intersections of faith and psychology on his blog Experimental Theology.