Understanding Sin

I was replying to a comment to a post on Fireseed Anthology, and well, it just got too long to be a comment-reply, so I'm putting on here. Heck, anything I can do to keep the blogging up is good, right?

Hmm...yeah, there certainly is a problem with understanding sin, either the seriousness of it or it's existence altogether, depending on how much the person is a product of the current post-modern culture or the modern one.
Tim Keller, a pastor in New York City commented on this, and I think it is spot on when it comes to discussing sin with people. He said that when he talks to someone from his generation, say 40 and up, about sin being "not morally perfect" or "missing the mark", they get it. But when he talks to someone of the current generation, it just doesn't make sense to them b/c "morals are relative" and "whose to say whose 'mark' you should be hitting anyway". Instead, Keller says, he finds that when he discusses sin in terms of idolatry, looking to activities, relationships, achievments, cool stuff, to make you a whole or valuable person and exalting those things as your "savior" or "life-center", people look at him and say "oh". They get it.
I personally think that this is what we should have been saying all along, seeing as Paul, Jesus, and the whole of the OT put idolatry as the fundamental error of humankind.
When I think about it that way, I get it, and it's much more convicting and producing of repentance than when I just think, "oops, i broke the 'love your neighbor' rule".
I'd much rather be pointed, and point others, away from a non-person, a non-god, to the person, the one true God, than make the center of the conversation about some abstract moral code.
I think that's what Paul was focused on when he said to the Thessalonians "For the people of those regions report about us what kind of welcome we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols, to serve a living and true God..." in 1 Thess. 1:9.

I hope this makes someone angry and want to comment because I like it when people comment because no one ever does, except for a couple people who are very excellent.
Okay, I don't really want anyone to be angry, I just would rather have a conversation than a monologue, even if it's in disagreement.

Peace.

story

I am copying this over from something I wrote in reply to a friend's question: why do stories have the ability to awaken parts of our soul?

I like stories. I think they're good, and here's why I think they might be important too.

Hmm... good question. I have been intrigued by this question, and so the other day I rented and watched Tim Burton's Big Fish. It's all about the power of stories, especially in light of their correspondence/non-correspondence to what actually happened. As the movie goes, several things come to the surface, one of which is that we all tell stories, just in different ways, and with different sorts of embelishments, but in the end, the power of the story lies in it's ability to communicate reality in such a way that it disturbs your view of reality, your own self-told story, to the end that you begin to live in that reality, you begin to tell that story as your own.

To quote somebody who seems to know a thing or two about stories:

"We (humans in general; the communities of which you and I, as readers, are part) tell ourselves certain stories about the world, and about who we are within it. . . The point at issue here is that the story (of Jesus) has brought a worldview to birth. By reading it historicaly, I can detect that it was always intended as a subversive story, undermining a current worldview and attempting to replace it with another. By reading it with my own ears open, I realize that it may subvert my worldview too."

- N.T. Wright, _The New Testament and the People of God_

So, that's a few thoughts on the power of stories. I have also been listening to Patty Griffin a lot recently, and she tells a lot of stories in her songs. And I think the combination of good music and good story are incredibly powerful. You see that a bit in the way that communism spread through poems and songs and things like the "Little Red Song Book" of the Industrial Workers of the World. It may be a stretch for me to say this, but while philosophical dissertations may lay the groundwork, it's the stories and songs that tell those larger stories that bring about revolutions.

I'd love to hear anyone else's thoughts on the matter, especially what to do with those thoughts...how to take those abstract ideas and conclusions and bring them into the concrete of conversations and actions. I think we need to think about it, talk about out, and try it out in order to increasingly bring the kingdom of God to bear on the world of God as people of the family of God.

Kerby

a trinity prayer

The following prayer is from a book by Tom Wright entitled Bringing the Church to the World. Sometimes we neglect the simple, repeatable, foundational prayers because of a misunderstanding of the prohibition to not use "vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words." The issue was the vanity of their babbling, as some translations have it, not just the fact that they said the same thing twice, or three or four times, and the fact that they expected to be heard by their idol-gods because of the quantity of their repetitions or something like that. But for those who personally address the one and only Creator, there is no vanity in addressing him, one, two, five, or even one hundred times a day, regardless of the variety of the content of the addressing. Did not Jesus validate the persistent (or nagging?) widow who won over the unrighteous judge? Or maybe we just don't know the benefits of it... I for one sure don't, but I know there are many whom have gone before me that do. And, I think I'd like to learn. So, anyway, here it is. If you'd like to read the corresponding chapter out of Wright's book, you can find it here. It's a good one.

Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth:
Set up your kingdom in our midst.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God:
Have mercy on me, a sinner.

Holy Spirit, breath of the living God:
Renew me and all the world.

Kerby