Tag: sin

Politics Won’t Save Us

When traveling recently, I saw a very large sign that read, “Save America. Vote Republican.” I can imagine a similar sign from a Democrat.

I believe that politics matters and therefore who we vote for matters. When I consider who to vote for, I look for those who demonstrate some sense of social justice, mercy, and faithfulness. I have in mind the prophet Micah’s words about what God requires of human beings: “Do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with your God.”

I expect that those who are committed to justice will have some understanding of what is unjust in our society, what government policies and actions are unjust, and what steps a government can take to address injustices. I also want people in government who demonstrate mercy and compassion, who are not entirely self-absorbed and out for personal power. As far as walking humbly with God, I will settle for a demonstration of some humility. I tend to avoid politicians who do a lot of God-talk.

Politics are important and I take voting and participation in the political process seriously. But I expect very little from politics when it comes to salvation. The unethical ways that political campaigns are run and the ways that many voters are manipulated by appeals to the worst in us do not indicate much in the way of a rescue from what is tearing us apart.

We have ways we talk about our torn selves and society. We use psychological terms (repression, suppression, denial, avoidance, wishful thinking, rationalization, anxiety, obsession, addiction, etc.) and sociological terms (systemic racism, ethnocentricity, discrimination, sexism, power structures, class conflict, etc.). But there is another term that, outside religious circles, gets little mention. And that is the word, “sin.” It points to the underlying spiritual condition of our fragmentation.

In the New Testament letters of Paul, “sin” is often used to refer to the underlying power that affects our lives. Indicative of this are various phrases he uses: “power of sin,” “enslaved to sin,” “freed from sin,” “captive to the law of sin,” “sin that dwells within,” living “under sin,” and not letting “sin reign.” With this language, Paul indicates that sin is at the root of all human brokenness. He, therefore, rejects the idea of listing various sins that we must then work on eliminating in order to better ourselves. Our problem goes much deeper than something we can simply work on.

The problem of sin is the problem of our alienation from the source and center of our being and identity. Ultimately, the change that is necessary is spiritual. All other solutions to this fundamental problem are simply ways of managing our emotional, mental, and physical brokenness so that we can, on some level, maintain relationships, employment, daily business, some semblance of “success,” and the ability to “carry on.”

That is why scriptures, in one form or another, call us to the recentering of our lives. Our deepest need is to be reconciled to God. And, given the depth of our problem, only God can do this. So, Paul writes, “In Christ God was reconciling the world to God’s self.” (2 Corinthians 5:19)

The Gospel of John points to an enlightening that must happen for us to begin to acknowledge the depth of our problem. We are told that the Spirit of truth comes to prove us wrong about sin (It is worse than we think). The Spirit brings us to a point where we acknowledge that our problem is something we are unable to manage. It is more than all our psychological and sociological descriptions and solutions.

Furthermore, the Spirit must prove us wrong about sin, “because we do not believe in [Christ].” (John 16:8-11) We do not believe in the need for God as our Rescuer. We think we can solve our problem. We do not need outside help. We do not need the work of reconciliation that God has accomplished for us in Christ Jesus. So, the Spirit comes to enlighten us.

When we find ourselves giving up on ourselves to fix our problem; when we come to recognize our radical need for help and begin to turn to God, our Liberator, it is the Spirit proving us wrong about the nature of our condition and drawing us toward the help we truly need. Spiritual change is on the way.

Filed under: Grace, Humanity, Spirit, TruthTagged with: , ,

The Coming Collapse

Hanns Lilje, a Lutheran pastor in Nazi Germany, in his book, The Valley of the Shadow (1950), shares his experience with arrest, interrogation and a trial that ended with his being sentenced to death. (Before the sentence could be carried out, however, communication broke down and the Allies gained control of Germany.) One of his observations in this book was that the Nazi regime was collapsing from within. He sees the collapse in the faces, features, and actions of guards, interrogators, and judge.

He views young men whose lives were “empty,” who “were forced to be brutal” which “caused them to crumble inwardly.” He describes the judge’s face, at his trial, in this way: It “had originally been a good one, almost noble, with clear-cut and intellectual features, but it had decayed (as it were) from within, and all his features bore signs of a terrible inner decline.”

Of tyrants, like Hitler, Lilje writes: “God allows the tyrant to follow his way blindly, to the end, until nothing remains.” Evil sown reaps the decline and fall of the evil-doer.

We are reminded of Paul’s words: “Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for you reap whatever you sow.” (Galatians 6:7)

Evil sown carries its own demise within it. Sin is like a parasite. It eats away at truth, compassion, justice, mercy, and faithfulness until it has nothing left to feed upon. St. Augustine says, “Sin is nothing and human beings become nothing when they sin.” Sin always robs us of reality. The “nothing” that is sin produces no love; it undoes love. It shows no compassion, no mercy. Where justice is required, it is unjust. And it is untruthful: It takes away from and distorts the truth.

We experience this undoing personally, and we see it taking place all around us. None of us are without sin, and we all experience the breakdown sin causes in our lives and relationships, whether from our own sins or the sins of others against us. We see this corruption on a social and global scale. We see the loss of compassion daily in the mistreatment of human beings at our border, in our warring ways, in the gangsterism on our streets and in corporate boardrooms, in sexual assault and harassment, and in all forms of inhumanity towards others: the injustices in our criminal justice system, discrimination in housing, health care and educational resources, and in the neglect and hurt of the most vulnerable among us.

We see the disintegration of truth and compassion among those who are placed in positions of leadership. We currently have a man in the office of the presidency who has lied or made misstatements, according to fact-checking, more than 11,000 times in his presidency. Many have become numb to this situation. We have leaders who disparage and demean various ethnic groups and religions among us and leaders who show little regard for future generations as they refuse to address the issues of climate change, seeing such actions as disadvantages to their wealth and power.

But what we are seeing is not only the great hurt being perpetrated on others but the steady breakdown and destruction of the perpetrators themselves. They are unwittingly sowing the seeds of their own demise. Their corruption is eating away at branch and root. It is not surprising that our present government has had a steady flow of those who have had to leave their positions.

The New Testament book of James says, “Not many of you should become teachers…for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.” Not many should become leaders. Judgment awaits. What has been sown will be reaped. If we have sown to destruction (the destruction of compassion and justice and mercy), we will reap destruction. We will reap our own inhumanity with its consequences in the hollowing out of our lives and our eventual collapse. Yes, we will leave carnage in our wake, but we will also lose our own souls.

We see this debilitation in the leadership of our government. It is a sickness unto death. That does not mean that we can simply sit, watch and wait for it all to fall apart and then attempt to pick up the pieces. That would mean more affliction on the most vulnerable, and it would mean our own disintegration. People of faith know that they are called to be witnesses. We are to witness from the grace, compassion, and justice we have experienced. As we learn to live from the Source of love, we know that we are under a call to speak to the corruption by witnessing to God’s compassion and justice. We are to join with others to call for compassion, justice, and mercy and do so by addressing the specific injustices of our time, working to make right what is wrong. We are to do justice. We are to be channels of the kind of love that effects actual change.

To those who continue down the road of destruction, who have committed themselves to that road, we will be viewed as subversives. To those who hold onto power for themselves (and “their people”) over against others, we will be called radicals. But then love, care for the truth, and doing justice are radical; they go to the root (radix) of being the humans God calls us to be.

Filed under: Evil, Humanity, Justice, Society, Spirituality, WitnessTagged with: , , ,