The last time we were in our Faith category — see the post from August 11 — we looked at the doctrine of sin, as understood by Mark Twain.  And we saw that Twain had a pretty flippant attitude toward the whole concept.

This, unfortunately, has become commonplace in our day.  Think about it.  When was the last time you heard a conversation where the word “sin” came up and it wasn’t said with a grin, as part of an inside joke of some kind? 

Of course, conversations about dessert menus don’t count.  We all know that sin shows up regularly on dessert menus.  Sinfully Chocolate, Sinfully Cinnamon, Sin City Cake, etc.  But this just makes the point, doesn’t it?  When our culture does measure sin, we do so by calories.

To put it mildly, our culture just doesn’t have the robust, vigorous view of righteousness and sin, virtue and vice that the Bible would seek to cultivate within us.  In fact, we’ve taken the Bible’s rich and compelling view of virtues and vices, and we’ve narrowed them all down to a mere two… tolerance and intolerance, respectively.

We are a muddled and confused people when it comes to thinking about the nature of sin.  And when we’re forced to inquire about human evil and its root cause (like we did after the 9–11 attacks, for example), we too often try to find our answers in the departments of psychology and sociology.

Now, don’t misunderstand me.  Those two departments have a lot to teach us!  After all, all truth is God’s truth.  But, the disciplines of psychology and sociology all by themselves will not help us to fully understand sin.  In fact, when misapplied, these disciplines are often used to praise and cultivate sin.  When does self–esteem become pride?  When does self–expression become lust?  As I said, these departments are simply inadequate to the question before us.

And a big reason why this kind of confusion is so rampant in our day is because the church has so often been unwilling to boldly proclaim what God teaches us about sin in the Bible. 

How often has the church watered down God’s language, to the point that it’s no longer worth listening to because we’ve made it so feeble? 

How often have we tried to make God into a nice, middle–class, respectable American Republican (or Democrat, depending on the church in question)?  This is to do the unthinkable: this is to make God boring.  A Holy, Righteous, and Sovereign King would get people’s attention.  You might not like him, but you couldn’t ignore him.  But a squishy republicrat?  Givemeabreak.

And how often have false churches actively promoted what God calls evil and condemned what God calls good? 

In all three scenarios our instincts have been worse than foolish, because strong and healthy teaching about our sin and guilt is actually very clarifying for us.  And it’s also very assuring.

Did you catch that?  Strong and healthy teaching about our sin and guilt is very assuring.

“How is that?”, one might ask.

Because — unlike all of the other attempts to get to the root of human trouble — the diagnosis of sin and guilt allows for hope.  That beautiful word — hope. 

And that hope is possible because something can be done about our sin and guilt.  In fact, something has been done about our sin and guilt. 

So, let’s not mumble or whisper when we speak of human sinfulness.  Rather, let’s look at it clearly and boldly and faithfully.  For hope’s sake, let’s recover and renew our knowledge of sin.