SIN: Has the Church Abdicated?

In writing more on this blog I’ve been finding my voice in a different way. I’ve been a preacher for 20 years. I love preaching. I live for it really, but not doing it for some time I find that in this role, my voice has changed. That happens when you’re a preacher, but it usually happens more slowly. Anyway, I’ve noticed that I’m strangely more optimistic in these posts than I’ve ever been. I’m a Calvinist for crying out loud and yesterday I found myself saying that a vision of society based on the creative love of God is not only possible to achieve, but inevitable. Well, I never said I was a Calvinist because of his view of sin. No wait, I did; I always said that. Clearly that’s over. That’s changed for real and final as my friend Kevin used to say.

I assume you can see the graphic that goes with this post, the one that reads “sin,” with a huge red I in the middle. When I was a little boy at the Peniel Bible Conference, Mrs. Mac, (one of the founders), put up that graphic on newsprint, right in front of the Chapel. It had its impact. In fact it makes me shudder. The very idea that somehow I, an eight year old boy, is fatally flawed, deserving of death, that idea is dangerous, and it’s just plain wrong. It was also formative. I haven’t articulated the doctrine of sin like that for years, but it’s insidious; even today I can’t shake the feeling entirely. I’m very prone to believing what others say about my faults, which is good; we shouldn’t just assume we’re always in the right. We’d never grow that way. But I find it difficult to stand my ground, even when I’ve thought it through and found their position seriously wanting. “There must be something wrong with me,” I think, and the origins of that thought are in that graphic. I mention it because I know for an absolute fact I’m not alone.

The idea itself is destructive of the human spirit. It fundamentally assumes that we are static creatures, unable to grow, develop and change in any meaningful way. Everything evolves it would seem, except the “I” in the middle of that word. Without any vision for change and growth we remain entrenched. And it’s not just individuals who remain that way, it is whole societies that seem to just assume things are the way they are. Well if you start from that position, you end up being right; there is nothing you can do about it. It’s a dangerous idea that the church has spread for thousands of years . . . and it isn’t even Christian.

It’s ludicrous to say that the God who literally is love, “makes us” hopelessly flawed, unable to effect change. I’m not buying it. That is not the God Jesus spoke about in John’s Gospel when he said, “Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these . . . “ No, that’s a vision of a humanity able to transcend itself through the creative love of God. That’s a God who sees us as fundamentally gorgeous and valuable, who longs for us to become more of who we are created to be. That is the God we Christians worship, (and a lot of other folk too by the way), that is the God that calls us to be free. Granted, that freedom doesn’t come easy, we have to “work out our salvation,” if I dare quote the Apostle Paul, but we work it out with a God whose very nature puts value into us.

You may think by now that I’m ranting about nothing. I know that most progressive Christians do not articulate such a destructive view of sin, (neither do I any more), but neither do we progressives take seriously our ability to become more than what we are, through the power of the Holy Spirit. I’m not talking about magic here. That God you don’t believe in doesn’t exist. I’m talking about what is ultimately real, the Spirit we see when searching the cosmos our eyes open and everything shimmers with the light of love. We don’t seem to take seriously our responsibility to seek our greater future, filled with the Spirit of God.

There is no doubting that humanity has a long way to go. Our scriptures tell us that. Hell, common sense tells us that. Mrs. Mac always spoke of the Apostle Paul’s description of the human problem; it’s the character of our “flesh.” At this point I’d call it a false version of self. It takes consistent self reflection and practice to dismantle that false self. More important it takes a real connection to what Whitehead called “the gentle persuasion towards love.” The church’s role is to provide the context for that to take place.

We humans have made enormous progress since the advent of modernism but as we’ve done it, our spiritual line of development has atrophied. The church is responsible to carry a message of hope into a society so afraid of terrorist attacks we act out of integrity to protect ourselves while missing entirely the terror perpetrated on an entire race of people in our “melting pot.” I’m not hearing the call to growth. Has the church abdicated? Oh I know we do some nice things for people less fortunate than ourselves, and we help each other along the way, but are we an advocate for human growth and development?

It starts with dismantling the false self which I’ll grant is difficult. Tomorrow’s post will explore how. But it is possible; in fact it is inevitable because God actually is love. God’s grace comes first. (Would you look at that; turns out I’m still a Calvinist.)