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.
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4 comments:
Yeah Ramon, I do agree. (it's weird to talk with you through posts so that others (3 people precisely) may see what we're talking about)
I more than Keller still tend to get stuck in the "sin and salvation are all about me" mantra. I listened to another of his sermons this morning on the Gospel, and he preaches it holistically so as not to exclude things like social justice and cultural renewal, which New York certainly needs...
One of my first thoughts is that idolatry was and is not confined to personal idols like the kind that Maximus carried around with him in Gladiator (his nice little wooden wife and child). Like you see in the life of Israel, idols were regional and national, even multi-national.
During Keller's sermon this morning he made some comments about how child-bearing in ancient and non-Western cultures was as just as determinitave of self-worth and community-worth as things like appearance, corporate success, and maybe even child-bearing in conservative circles too, and how these things equally serve as oppressive and idolatrous in our culture.
Now, of course the stipulation against idolatry in the first commandment and elsewhere didn't say "don't find your value in anything else than me and don't allow yours or any other culture to oppress people in such a way", but I, following Martin Luther's and others' lead, would like to make the case that that understanding of idolatry makes biblical sense in light of Jesus' talk in the Sermon on the Mount and in his affirming of the Shema (Hear O Israel the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself) over against the ruling Jewish interpretation of that as just relating to national pride. "Rend your hearts and not your garments", and "the Lord does not delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices but in a broken and contrite spirit" to paraphrase some corresponding thoughts from the OT.
So, all that to say, individually our idols are not just our own, they also arise out of a culture of people made up of people with the same sort of hearts as us, and so we must not only do battle with the idols that we have bowed to ourselves, but also the idols that entire cultures of people have bowed to corporately. God will not give his glory to another, and he will not stand for injustice to be done by individuals or by institutions or cultures.
In reflecting on this, I also am reminded that unless you or I or anyone else are simultaneously dealing with the depravity of our hearts as well as the depravity around us, then we will easily get off track. I like thinking about confession as "owning your own sh*t". I think that more accurately portays the nature of things than "aggreeing with God that you are wrong".
Tap. I'm out.
Hey Kerby...I appreciate you. I needed the new thougths the past few days...Im feeling like I am loosing momentum. And yes..good thoughts on the sin stuff. I need to brew over it. I feel like I have been thinking a lot lately about making sure that I am including the salt of the gospel.
it says 0 comments, but I have comments! give me credit!
Hi Kerby!
Just wanted to say hi and that I just found your blog, and am looking forward to reading (and commenting on - hehe) it in the future! Keep it up!
Take care,
Jen
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