Politics and the Pulpit continues with the contemplation of the problem of sin. It was sin and vanquishing sin that drove Kostas* from the pew of my new, little, country church. It might have been his sin, the sin that he saw on the evening news or a combination of both. I guess at this juncture, I should include the sin of the lying news outlets of our day. I am talking about sin after all so I might as well be thorough.
Let us start out with a definition of the word sin. Sin is a term used in marksmanship. I learned that in a real way when my youngest daughter excelled in the summer bow and arrow competition that occurred at her summer camp. There was the target, that is the mark that you wish to hit in the center of the field, and then there was missing your mark which was sin.
When we miss our goal in any moral way and we do not follow God, then, we are said to sin. I had an interesting conversation with a friend from Westchester County, New York today. Crystal* told me that it is possible through observation to ascertain what is good and what is evil. She explained that a good deed is not self-seeking. She further went on to tell me that she believes that others, beside those who are Christian, go to heaven because of their good actions.
I told her that everything she told me goes against what God explicitly stated in the Bible. I began with the possibility that any of us are good. We may look good, we may desperately think we are good, and we may even manage to have done quite a few good things, but that does not make us good. Why? Because, we are all sinners and sooner or later we lie, steal, cheat, rape or even kill.
Did you ever notice that when a crime is committed how often people don’t believe their friend or family member could be capable of the crime? Some of the things people exclaim are : “My husband is suspected of murder, he must be innocent!” “I did not raise my child to do that.” “She would never hurt a fly.” People often see superficial attributes and do not understand the deep struggle that people are having with sin.
How many of us have followed the story of a serial killer in the news and come to find out that person was charming and volunteered at church, school, the local library or an animal shelter? The Bible says that “Man judges by appearances but God judges by the heart.” We are often hoodwinked by a physically attractive person. An example that comes to mind is the story of “dirty John” who conned a whole lot of love-lorn women out of money, and worse. The documentary about his case was one of the top most viewed shows of its’ kind in 2017.
Why? Because people are struggling with the question of sin. How can we recognize it and avoid being a victim of it? How can we protect our love ones and society from it? Kostas was thinking that our society can vanquish the evil of school shootings, and he might have thought that his Pastor should be doing more to make that happen.
After God created the world, He pronounced it to be a good thing. It was a good thing, but, it was not very long before the choice to follow God or miss the mark and follow something else occurred. In fact, it was after the creation of the very first man and woman that the choice to sin, or missing the mark of following God occurred. In other words, mankind could not go very long before the temptation of doing whatever was right in their own eyes happened.
The second generation of Adam’s family was no better. Adam and Eve’s son Cain killed his brother Abel and then we hear God tell us that sin is crouching at our door waiting for us to choice it. Even though this lesson resonates for me in my observation of real life (mine and other people’s), there still are those who have proposed alternative theories of existence in opposition to what the Bible teaches. They are just wrong.
The utopian philosophy of communism espouses overcoming sin thru the collective labor of the good and noble proletariat. But since it is based upon a false premise, namely that the proletariat is good, it is doomed to fail, and it has and continues to fail every day. The problem of sin is thorny isn’t it? Is it any wonder that many preachers, if not whole denominations of Christianity have decided to not talk about it?
But, if you do not talk about the origin and the existence of sin and what the Bible says about it, you can not develop reasonable checks and balances in law enforcement and the judiciary to deal with it effectively. The founding fathers of the United States, were either men of faith or close to it. They wove in the cosmology of the christian faith into their founding documents showing a deep understanding of the doctrine of sin in everything they did. That is what kept the United States moving forward in a positive direction for so long.
All of that is currently being thrown out the window. The constitution of the United States with its’ discussion of God-given rights and the need and means to control run away government sin is being challenged. In its’s place stands nepotism in the form of race politics, soft on crime ungodly policies and totalitarian control seeping in for those who would debate the facts. When a people discard biblical facts, it will not go well for them.
How could a true pastor of a church not talk politics when their country is acting in a public way and promoting principles in opposition to God? Politics emerge from the mindset of a people and at any given time they either represent the will of that general public, or the will of some fringe group of people. When a dictator takes over, the people must fight for their freedoms or they are slaves to that new regime.
Pastors of necessity are always on the front lines of a spiritual war which determine everything in our society and our world. If our pastors do not tell us right from wrong, as outlined in our bible, they are delinquent in their godly duty. The battle for good and against evil is played out on the political field every day. There is no separation of church and state, how could there be? The state should represent the people it governs but often it doesn’t
Kostas and his wife Sandra,* by stepping away from a church that teaches the real bible, are stepping away from the possibility of real solutions.
* the names are changed for privacy.
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