Ronald V. Huggins

A meme showed up the other day on my FB feed showing a picture of a smiling Mohandas Gandhi with the words “Hate the sin, love the sinner was actually me and Christians quote it as if it was in their Bible.” The reference was to a quote from the second volume of Gandhi’s autobiography, published in 1929, which reads in part: “'Hate the sin and not the sinner' is a precept which, though easy enough to understand, is rarely practiced, and that is why the poison of hatred spreads in the world.” 1   The meme was produced by a group called “Reformed Life,” that is to say, a Calvinist organization. Is it true that Gandhi coined the saying? No.  But in defense of the meme-makers the saying is regularly... very regularly...wrongly attributed to Gandhi.  And besides being misattributed it is also regularly...again very regularly...misquoted as well as "Hate the sin and love the sinner." What Gandhi actually said was: "Hate the sin and not the sinner."   Gandhi qu

  The above hymn is from the early LDS publication Times & Seasons 6.2 (Feb 1, 1845): 799. In studying the apologetic material of a mid-twentieth century LDS apologist some time ago I was struck by the fact that the impression most Mormons of that time had of historic Christianity was not derived from reading historic Christian systematic theologies, talking with members of historic Christian denominations and so on, but rather from a single Mormon source, the parody of Christian theology presented in the preaching of the so-called "Sectarian Minister" in the LDS Temple ritual. That stalk character, who was also represented as a money-grubbing lackey of the devil, was, I believe, finally retired in the 1990s. He was not always a part of the ritual. At an earlier stage several sectarian preachers were present saying the same kinds of things. In the ritual the "Sectarian Minister" preaches to Father Adam at the request of the devil, who is represented as his e