Tag: church

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The Lonely Sinner

There is a church in my denomination which has decided to try to be welcoming to gay members of the body of Christ. The rest of the denomination goes, “Amen, brother– what an opportunity to bring the ministry of the Lord Jesus to those depraved souls! May they all, the lord willing, repent and be welcomed into the body of Christ as former sinners.”

That isn’t exactly what they had in mind. What this church had in mind was to welcome practicing gay Christians to their fellowship, to accept them as fellow sinners, and to share communion with them.

So, in other words, these particular sinners are still sinning. Unlike the rest of us sinners who sin no more. But we wouldn’t say that, would we? Would you say that you don’t sin anymore, now that you are a Christian? I wouldn’t.

We don’t commonly tell people that we don’t sin. If we did, and if people believed us, then we would be comfortable reaching for the stones if we met someone who said, “I still sin.” No, no– we smile indulgently. We are all sinners.

If we all take a deep breath and count to three and speak the holy words, “I am a sinner”, we can all smile knowingly to each other…

…and then, when we spot a homosexual, shriek, “now there is a sinner.”

And then welcome him or her into full communion.

Of course, we do not.

So what on earth do we mean when we acknowledge that we are all “sinners”? I’ve been a member of a church for almost 50 years and I couldn’t tell you. I don’t think it means anything. I don’t think we honestly believe that we are sinners. We believe that we are righteous and virtuous and morally pure. We’re reaching for stones. We do it all the time. Nothing makes us feel more righteous and pure and holy than reaching for a stone.

If it doesn’t mean anything, what do we think it means when we say it? Do we think about that time we looked at someone we were not married to and wished for a forceful embrace? That time we were rude or mean to a colleague? Maybe our fantasies about owning a Hummer and crushing a few Corollas underneath those massive wheels? Or the fact that we didn’t give very much, last year, to help people less fortunate than ourselves?

The key difference between the sinner we acknowledge within our selves and the sinner we see in the homosexual is that we really seem to believe that our sins are over. Whatever it is we acknowledge having done wrongly, we seem to believe that we don’t do it anymore.

That’s also the peculiarity of sexual sins. When the preacher stands in front of a congregation and rails about the evil fornicators and homosexuals and adulterers out there– we can safely assume that he doesn’t mean me. We might be doing it, but it’s something we keep secret anyway and can safely assume no one else knows about it.

That’s why preachers would rather preach about those sins than about indifference or materialism or hard-heartedness or hypocrisy.

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The Blunt Instrument of Zero Tolerance

Zero Tolerance is a concept grounded in atheism.

Yes it is. I don’t care if you disagree.

It’s a catchy idea, isn’t it? This is what happens. A scandal. Outrage. Denial by the culprits. Conviction. Confession. Apologies. Then, just to prove that we really are moral and upright, “zero tolerance”.

There is a power structure in every organization. The power structure is always responsible, in a real way, for what takes place in the organization. An organization that is shown to be rife with sexual harassment and discrimination against women must repair the public damage. Since the people in charge never fire themselves and never subject themselves to onerous rules and regulations and never find themselves at fault, and are perfectly able to cut a deal with their lawyers present when needed, they have to name a few scapegoats in middle management, fire them, and pronounce themselves purified. The company then passes “zero tolerance” rules.

Churches do it too now. Which is really odd, because “zero tolerance” is an insanely atheistic concept.

They can believe in zero tolerance because the essence of zero tolerance is not really zero tolerance. The essence of zero tolerance is that we will no longer make judgments or rational decisions or peruse evidence or measure credibility. There’s no question of not tolerating real sin. What we don’t tolerate is the appearance of sin. We think that if we eliminate the appearance of sin, we eliminate the sin itself.

We will not longer consider either the possibility that a person was wrongly accused, or that they might change, repent, or learn from their mistakes, with a reasonable, proportionate response to the infraction.

Waterloo Christian Reformed Church has “zero tolerance”. If any allegation of any kind of improper behavior is made, the culprit is immediately suspended from position or function in the church, before any investigation is made.

Sounds godly, doesn’t it? We are so holy that we punish people without determining if they have really sinned or not.

It’s the product of atheism. Here’s why.

The essence of Christianity is Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. I can’t and won’t go into a long, detailed theological discourse here, but I think most Christians feel they understand that this sacrifice was to make possible the forgiveness of sins, and bring about the redemption of sinful humans by a just God.

We are not worthy of redemption on our own. We don’t deserve it. We didn’t earn it. It is only through the sacrifice of Christ that we are entitled to it.

Zero tolerance makes sense if you don’t believe in redemption, or grace, or forgiveness. Zero tolerance leaves no room for redemption, no room for forgiveness, or repentance. You are done, toast, finished.

I guarantee you that most Christians in churches that have adopted zero tolerance will tell you that, oh yes, we do forgive the sinner, of course we do, amen, alleluia. And they will tell you, yes, we are all sinners. And they will tell you that if the allegations are proven false, the sinner will be fully reinstated. And the damage to his reputation will magically disappear.

But they don’t mean it. As I have argued before, when Christ demanded that his followers forgive those who wish them evil, he didn’t mean “forgive them, and then punish them anyway. If a man steals your cloak, take it back, and then tell him you forgive him. If a man strikes you on the cheek, hit him on the cheek, and say you forgive him”.

But of course, zero tolerance doesn’t mean that we have zero tolerance for sin at all. We don’t have zero tolerance for greed or materialism or arrogance or self-righteousness, or lust, or hatred, or hard-heartedness, or bigotry. We have zeroed in on one particular area of human behavior– sexuality–and because we’re all rather hysterical about sex and ashamed of our own bodily desires and feelings, we make it the scapegoat. Our church or organization is pure, because we punish people who are inappropriate.

I have learned something else through all this.  Once the leaders in a church become enamored of a certain idea that they want, they will stare at you blankly and nod and give you a few minutes to make your argument but they will not hear a single word.

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What Wouldn’t Jesus Do?

What wouldn’t Jesus do?

Well, he probably wouldn’t steal other people’s copyrighted material and then market it like some kind of consumer trinket.

Janie Tinklenberg lead a youth group in Holland Michigan. many years ago. She used some source material by Charles Sheldon, a pastor from Topeka, Kansas. One of Sheldon’s ideas was to frequently ask yourself, what would Jesus do?

Tinklenberg came up with the idea of putting the initials, WWJD, on bracelets, so her students could be reminded constantly of the question. I personally think it’s kind of a dumb idea myself, but that’s not the point here. The point is that she came up with the idea of putting the initials “WWJD” on jewelry.

Tinklenberg’s idea has been stolen by every Christian publisher and trinket manufacturer in the U.S. Not a single one of these companies has offered Tinklenberg a single red cent for her idea. (You can’t copyright an actual idea, but you can copyright the expression of an idea, which is exactly what WWJD is.)

Now, you could argue that the idea of putting “WWJD” on a bracelet is neither original or elaborate enough to justify a copyright at all. You could make a good case for that. The trouble is that these publishers are themselves notorious for demanding draconian enforcement of copyright of their own mediocre ideas and expressions, including all those dumb posters and bookmarks that trivialize spirituality and reduce the precepts of Jesus to cute little mindless mantras and mottos.

Do any of these companies ask themselves the very question they are selling? Do the people wearing this bracelet realize that they have been sold a bill of goods? That they sport an emblem of all that is shallow and trivial and superficial and utterly meaningless about the kind of kitsch that passes for Christian “culture” these days?

Actually, “Christians” in the U.S. don’t seem to mind the merging of commerce and religion, and it’s not because their commerce has a spiritual aspect to it.