Several years ago, I read something that convinced me that every sinner, even the worst sinner, is really a victim and deserves our sympathy.
The great Saint Augustine said 'Love the Sinner, Hate The Sin'. It's true. And I will prove it to you.
For I know what broke Hitler's heart and mind.
Adolf Hitler is the worst sinner in history. Other than Josep Stalin and the hypothetical Devil, it is hard to think of anyone who is as great a sinner as Adolf Hitler.
If he deserves our sympathy, than surely so does every sinner in history, including any Devil, if any world exists that has a real Devil.
It is in Norman Davies' Europe, in a box (you'll see what I mean) on page 904 titled Langemark, that I learned what broke Adolf Hitler's heart and mind.
I will quote for you, and you judge for yourself:
'Hitler, an unsuccessful art student and draft-dodger from the Austrian army, had listened with rapture in a Munich crowd to the declaration of war on 1 August 1914, and had immediately signed up for service in the German army. ... And arrived on the Western Front in October, just in time for the first Battle of Ypres. In this way he became a witness to the terrible kindermord, the 'Massacre of Innocents', where tens of thousands of half-trained German recruits, mainly eager university students, were cut to pieces by the steady firepower of professional British soldiers. ...
Hitler's 'supreme experience' in the trenches, where for four years he lived the charmed life of a Meldeganger or 'regimental runner', undoubtably fired the pathological drive of his subsequent career. Tormented by the fate of his dead and mutilated comrades, and by a huge German sacrafice that led only to defeat, he set out to avenge their deaths. ... His vow of vengeance struck a common chord in millions of wounded German hearts.'
The poor man! No wonder he went mad!
And if we should feel sympathy for Adolf Hitler, then surely there isn't a sinner in the world we should not feel sympathy for.
Love the sinner, Hate the Sin!
But also remember, Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin means don't let them sin against you!
Protect yourself and others from the Sin even as you cry for and pray for the Sinner!
And thank you, Norman Davies. When you understand history, you learn so much!
One more thing: the British suffered from a defeat just as heartbreaking as that that Hitler witnessed. J.R.R. Tolkien was among those who witnessed it. But he had something that Hitler didn't have: many friends and his beloved Edith safe home in Britain. And, even more, he knew God. Through his Catholic mother. Tolkien had the comfort of knowing the Love of God. Tolkien instead was able to take inspiration from the courage of all these little people in the face of all that horror, and to pay tribute to those little people and their courage in the face of unspeakable horror he gave us the Hobbits in the face of Mordor.
Love the sinner, Hate the Sin! And remember the courage of the ordinary people in the face of the darkness that Tolkien told us about!
Sincerely,
David S. Annderson