by Delwin Brown
• No one way of life, culture, or religion is perfect. God's gracious presence everywhere is refracted through fallible human beings. For this reason we must not only honor each tradition, we must also look at it critically.
(;hapter G
Sin:
Failing and Hiding
he Christian "doctrine" of sin is not a morbid prescription for guilt or a tirade on the topic of human worthlessness. Or at least it should not be. Discussions of sin should help us see what is going on about us and within us as well. '1 he aim should be to give us insight into our personal and collective failings, not just the simple ones but also the complex failings that seem to continue despite our best intentions. And, in fact, a profound understanding of sin might enable us to see failings that we had not previously noticed, even if at some level we had felt them.
Finally, an analysis of sin should provide us with greater insight into the dynamics of our failings-why and how they happen-and bring us to the question, to he addressed in the next chapter, about how healing is possible. Palk about sin should he a means whereby we see ourselves more clearly, act more humanely, and learn to work more effectively for a better future for ourselves and our planet.
'That said, we must acknowledge that discussions of sin, in American Christianity especially, have not been very useful. 'Ibis is due in part to the way that, historically, sin-talk has seemed-and, in fact, has been-anti-world, anti-sex, antifemale, anti-pleasure, anti-pride, anti-hope, and opposed to equality and self-affirmation, just to mention a few of its drawbacks! To circumvent these consequences, the notion of sin has over time been "revised." In most cases, however, the revision has been pretty shallow-sin is a lag in human evolution (what can we do about that?), a quaint name for psychological maladies (why add to the mystification of psychological lingo?), a deviation from majority expectations (that's bad?), or a violation of somebody else's favorite Bible verses, which is especially shallow because everybody can will that game.
If it is to be worthy of a hearing, progressive Christianity must articulate an insightful and constructive understanding of sin, one that makes a difference to human understanding and potentially to human behavior. And to do so, I think progressive Christians would be well-advised to look again at the historic resources of Christian tradition. However difficult it might be to unhook those resources from the abuses of the past and the misunderstandings to which they have given rise, the effort just might pay off. It's true that much in historic Christian talk about sin has been sick and oppressive. But underneath the layers of disease and destruction there is, I believe, a great deal of insight to contemplate and appropriate for a Christian vision that will truly be progressive in today's world.
Let me explain.
The Forms of Sin: Pride and Sensuality
In classical theology, sin takes two forms, pride and sensuality. Already our hackles are raised because we are all supportive of pride-in ourselves, our families and children (and our grandchildren!), our nation, our human achievements. So the question is obvious: What's wrong with pride? And why should anyone think sensuality is a sin? Of course we may be a bit more self-conscious about saying so, but the sensual, too, is a value that we affirm; sensuality is a part of healthy human experience. Pride and sensuality are good. How can a tradition that labels them "sin" have anything to teach us?
To answer this question, I suggest that we examine what, fundamentally, these terms meant in the Christian tradition. Let's ask, What insights into human behavior and relationships did they supposedly provide? "Then we can decide whether or not there is anything of worth in the underlying concepts, even if we may not want to retain the terms themselves.
We can start with St. Paul (who, for some reason, thought a lot about sin). In Romans 12:3, Paul says to the congregation, "I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think." 'Ihat, basically, is what the theological tradition came later to speak of as "pride." It is excessive self-regard, not adhering to appropriate limits, taking for oneself more than that to which one is entitled. In language more appropriate for today, the sin of pride is too much pride, excessive self-regard.
"Sensuality" referred to the opposite tailing-too little pride, inadequate self-regard, limiting oneself too much, expecting for oneself less than that to which one is entitled. We can imagine why "pride" was used to refer to inordinate self-regard, but why did the tradition use "sensuality" to refer to expecting too little of oneself?
The answer reflects one of the more unseemly aspects of the ancient and medieval (and modern?) Christian traditions. The sensual was associated with the sexual, and both with the "Tower" part of human nature, our "animal" side. So being sensual, in this view, was being animal-like, driven by passion. Sensuality referred to the failure to rise up and act responsibly; failing to exercise the freedom and power that is presumably distinctive of being human. In sum, if pride was, in a sense, pretending to be more than an ordinary human, sensuality was pretending to be less.
These, then, are the two basic expressions of sin, according to Christian tradition. Pride is thinking of oneself more highly than one ought to think; sensuality is thinking of oneself less highly than one ought to think.
We can translate this traditional understanding of the forms of sin into a different language, using as our reference point the two great commandments. The love these commandments require, we noted in chapter 5, is an interconnected and balanced love, a love fitting to the object of love. In light of these commandments, then, sin is disproportionate love, love that is out of balance-excessive or deficient love.
Stated abstractly, sin is an affirmation of oneself that neglects the needs of the neighbor, or an affirmation of those like us that fails to show love for those who are different, or a love for humanity that fails to affirm the intrinsic worth of the rest of creation, or a love for the creation that does not also love God. Sin is also the reverse of these: sin is loving God but neglecting the creation in which God is incarnate, or loving the rest of creation but diminishing humanity, or devoting oneself to those who are different with little regard for one's own kind, or devoting oneself to the neighbor and ignoring one's own needs.
In life, of course, excessive or deficient love is not abstract. It is concrete. In its most grotesque forms sin is the things we condemn as criminal-murder, slavery, torture, rape, and abuse. But sin has more subtle forms, too. It is the husband who leaves it up to his wife to handle her job, attend to the house, and care for the kids. It is the woman who passes up the opportunity for an education because she lacks self-esteem. It is the person transfixed by televised trivia while nations are bombed and villages are burned. It is the progressive Christian who works for social justice but neglects the inner life of the spirit. It is the activist who defends minorities for a living and demeans them in private conversation. It is the champion of legal rights for the unborn but not health care for the born. It is the parents who love their own children but ignore the thousands of others who each year are forced into sexual slavery. It is the preacher who says love is the greatest of virtues except when it joins together gays or lesbians. It is the industry that allows its CEO to earn 300 tines the median income of its employees. It is the economic system that permits the top 1% of earners to receive 22% of the nation's income, and the top I0%%, to earn nearly half. It is the society that permits a 25% poverty rate among blacks compared to an 8% rate among whites. It is the educational system that spends three to five times as much on children of the rich as on children of the middle class and poor minorities. It is the nation that looks upon itself as uniquely virtuous and its adversaries as uniquely evil. It is the countries with 12% of the world's population that produce 58%, of its carbon emissions. It is the species that oppresses and diminishes the rest of nature for its own convenience and gratification. It is the religion that claims to have a privileged perspective on absolute truth. Sin is the Christian who does not rise up against these instances of grossly, even o
bscenely, unbalanced love.
Sin, in a progressive Christian view of things, is loving too much or loving too little any part of the interconnected web of life, from God to all of those whom God loves and in whom God is incarnate, including the very least ones.
This understanding of sin or human failing is not widely debated (which is not to say it is widely heeded). Of course we may differ on some details, but in general this view of sin as "pride" and "sensuality" is shared (often using other terms) by Catholics and Protestants and, among the latter, by Wesleyans and Calvinists. Indeed, it may be shared by religions generally. Loving God, self, and the human and non-human neighbor is really a Christian elaboration of the Golden Rule, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" And in one form or another, this injunction appears to be an ideal in Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and the traditions of indigenous tribal communities. So at least by implication there is pretty general agreement, too, on what it would mean for humans to fail.
This widely shared understanding of sin casts a searing light on our failings, and it is vitally important. But the analysis of sin, at least in the more insightful traditions of Christian reflection, goes one important step further; it seeks to understand why sin in all its manifestations has such tremendous staying power. Why is our failure to love as we ought so persistent, so pervasive? According to this tradition of Christian reflection, the answer has something to do with self-deception, hiding the truth from ourselves.
The Strategy of Sin-Self-Deception
'lhe idea of deception appears rather often in discussions of sin in the Bible, starting at the beginning when Eve says, "The serpent tricked me, and I ate." It continues into the New 'T'estament and is most fully developed in the writings of Paul. Romans 1, a kind of "theo-psychoanalysis" of sin and deceit, is interesting enough to quote:
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of those who by their wickedness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.... So they are without excuse; for although they knew God, they did not honor God or gives thanks to him, but they become futile in their thinking, and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools.... (18-22)
'lhe ingenious strategy of sin, Paul says, is its power of self-deception. 'Ihose who sin, he says, not only sin, they also "suppress the truth" about their doing so. Not only do they fail to honor God (here we might substitute "honor the commandments to love"), they also cease to be aware of this fact. 'I heir self-understanding, therefore, cannot be trusted because they have become "futile in their thinking," their minds have become "darkened;' unable to sense the truth about their failure to love as they should.
In Paul's view, those who fail to love properly are deceived about that failure, but-and here is the stunning claim-that deception is self-imposed. They are deceived and they have done it to themselves-they are self-deceived! After all, according to Paul, they "knew God." "What can be known about God;' he insists, "is plain to them, because God has shown it to them." So they are "without excuse" precisely because, although they no longer know of their failure to honor God, their ignorance is ingeniously self-created and self-imposed. It is for this reason, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 4, that he cannot count himself "acquitted" even though he is not aware of anything against himself. Only God, he adds, can reliably know "the things now hidden in darkness" Still, those who fail to love properly cannot excuse themselves because, at one level, they know the truth that, at another level, they do not know. How is that pos- sible?'They have hidden the truth from themselves.
This is the additional claim about sin that we should consider. Sin is not simply the failure to love properly in all of the ways we have enumerated. It is that failure accompanied by an intricate hiding strategy; it is the failure to love properly and the pretense that we have not failed to love properly. We hide that truth, even from ourselves!
This is a very troubling charge against us. It is not-we should be careful to note-the claim that we never love as we should, and it is not the claim that we always lie to ourselves about our failings. It certainly is not the assertion that "there is no good in us" But it is the claim that we fail and hide a good deal more than we like to admit. Indeed, a great deal more.
If we wish to test this harsh hypothesis, we might set aside Paul's ancient categories ("wrath of God;' "wickedness of men," "futile thinking,' "darkened minds") and directly test his basic point, about self-deception, against our own experience, beginning with our experience of others. Have we noticed any self-deception recently?
If we have, it might be among a few political leaders who, for example, trumpet economic policies that supposedly benefit all by immediately benefiting those who are the wealthiest, or health insurance policies that supposedly benefit all by initially benefiting the insurers; or international policies that supposedly protect our freedoms by basically protecting international finance. In a cynical mood we might think that they know the truth and baldly lie to us, but it is at least as likely that they have persuaded themselves of what to the rest of us is pretty clearly false. They do not know the truth, even though Paul says somewhere deep within they do know because they have hidden it from themselves.
If we have noticed a bit of self-deception lately, it might be someone among the famous religious leaders who, for example, preach that homosexuality is an abomination (or at least an ungodly disease) but engage in homosexual acts on occasion when they are under stress; or who defend the economic interests of the tenuous middle class but never criticize special tax breaks for clergy; or who use the mass media to raise money for God while they build their mansions and buy their Ferraris. We might think they are lying to us; perhaps they have succeeded in lying to themselves, too.
It is not unheard of that a company executive might squirrel away millions while the employee pension funds diminish and insist it was innocent, or an employer might promote a favored staff member on specious grounds and insist it was proper, or a professional activist on behalf of the poor might regularly fly first class and ride in limousines and insist it is necessary, or a shop owner might ... or a colleague might ... or a lover or spouse or parent or sibling or neighbor might.... We can fill in the blanks.
Now to the difficult conclusion: In addition to all of these other people, it is part of St. Paul's understanding of sin that all of us engage in self-deception!
Was our collusion with patriarchy, whether we are male or female, entirely the result of a twisted cultural inheritance, or did we know, somewhere and to some degree, that this arrangement was just not right? We knew, but hid it from ourselves, according to Paul. And what of our acceptance of racial privilege if we are white, or our accommodation to the economic exploitation of the Third World if we are North Americans, or our blind eye to the plight of the homeless if we are housed, or our silence about homophobia if we are straight, or our impoverishment of nature until nature's suffering threatened our own welfare? Did we not know? If not, who so cleverly hid the truth from us?
Here is the point: According to Paul's harsh hypothesis, we all act, participate in, or acquiescence to, actions that fail miserably to love as love should be shown. And, Paul adds, we carefully, skillfully, convincingly hide these failings from ourselves.
What is the result? The answer is what Christianity has often labeled "original sin."
The Structure of Sin-Original Sin
The Christian doctrine of original sin has a terrible reputation, deservedly so-at least in its popular rendition. It is said to mean that we are sinners from birth, that we are "worms:' that there is "no good in us," and, worse, that we get into this awful state because of sex. Well, that's not what the doctrine really means, but I will try to make its point by appealing to a nonbiblical source.
"Mine the Harvest" is a poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay, an American poet of the first half of the twentieth century. In it, Millay
(disclosure: she was no saint!) speaks about the effort to make the world better. "'This should be simple," she writes, "if one's power were great, if one were God, for instance ... to manipulate and mould unwieldy, heavy, obstinate but thoughtless matter, into some bright world." For nothingness is "plastic," she explains, and in the right hands should be "easy to bend" In the next verse, however, Millay sees the human condition as anything but malleable, for now, she notes, we are not beginning at the start but after a long and sad history, one that cannot easily be peeled away. She writes of the human condition as evil laid down upon evil, layer after layer throughout the centuries, like a thick laminate of sedimentary rock-"layers uncountable as leaves in coal."
The Christian doctrine of original sin is about the "evil upon evil" that "laminate" the structures of our existence. It is about the fact that we do not start from the beginning. It is about the fact that these inherited structures are stubborn givens and take possession of our world and of our individual being-they are both external and internal. 'they are "givens" out there-racism, sexism, classism, heterosexism, ageism, speciesism, materialism, consumerism, egotism ... and what else? We are born into these, they are inculcated in us. We begin with them. We have no other starting place.
But it is not as it, apart from that, we are innocent, pure souls who just happened to get placed in some awful environment. 'Ihese layers of evil lie within us, too. The structures we inherit are internalized, easily and pleasantly ingested rather like our mother's milk. There is a lovely passage from the Confessions of St. Augustine that makes the point: "Thus with the baggage of the world I was sweetly burdened, as one in slumber, and my musings on thee were like the efforts of those who desire to awake, but who are still overpowered with drowsiness and fall back into deep slumber... .""