Sin and freedom

Part 2

If you don’t like the word “obey” then I agree with you; I don’t like it either, but after many years of trying to avoid this conclusion, I think obedience has to be accepted. The idea of “following” God, or “living in tune with him” seems entirely positive to me, and in practice following God and obeying God amount to the same thing. However, I didn’t want to hide from the word “obey”, so we need to recognise that this is what we’re doing. We can feel those secular hackles rising: “How dare you suggest that I should obey anyone – even God; I demand complete autonomous freedom”. Well, OK, you’re free to do that if you want, but I think you will find that your “complete autonomous freedom” comes with hidden strings attached – the weakness of the will that makes it prey to seizing advantage for itself at no matter what cost to others, the tendency to justify self-interest as though it was righteousness, the following of fashionable ideologies as though they were true. Christians claim that it is only in the light of God’s goodness, truth and love that we are enabled to choose what is pure and good and lovely. It is in committing to living in tune with him that we receive the strength and guidance that allows us to live in true freedom. On our own, we are often powerless to be the person that we really want to be, but with God, that way of living becomes possible. By ourselves, we fail to live up to our ideals, but giving ourselves into his hands, thinking we were surrendering to his will – as indeed we are – we discover that our own will now has a clarity and depth that it never had before. Enfolded in his love, we discover that following his way becomes truly freedom to live life fully, for we have come to love as he loves, so that “following him” has become the same as fulfilling our own deepest desires.

Sin and freedom

Part 1

Sin is inescapably tied up with freedom, for until we find a way to deal with sin we are not free, but if we can, then we will be truly free. Modern society exalts freedom as perhaps its highest aim, yet I don’t think it truly understands how freedom works, and this is because it has an inadequate understanding of human nature. Many years ago, when I was still a teenager, the Prime Minister James Callaghan gave a speech on education policy. He said that children are like flowers, all that is needed is to give them freedom and they will blossom. It’s a lovely thought – inspiring – the sort of thing we should get printed on a tee-shirt. Unfortunately, it’s not true. If we want to stick with an analogy from nature, it would be more accurate to say that children are like gardens: unless they’re carefully cultivated, it’s always the weeds that grow first. “Aargh, that’s so negative! Why do you have to spoil my tee-shirt!?”. And I agree – this is not nearly so uplifting or positive, but I don’t think it’s pessimistic, it’s realistic.

The only freedom we really have is the freedom to choose who to follow. If we say, “No, I will be myself! I don’t follow anyone!”, we will simply find that we are enslaved by our own weaknesses. And that’s if we can escape succumbing to the pressures of society! What faith gives you is a commitment to follow God, who then gives the possibility of overcoming this immensely powerful opponent, which we have identified as sin. With faith, it becomes a possibility, because God is the only one with the power to counter sin. As so often in the life of faith, the truth is counter-intuitive, and it is in the surrender to obey God, that we discover the freedom to truly be ourselves – if we understand “ourselves” to mean that true or best self – the person that we are when we are not blighted by our own weaknesses, and when we receive the resources to respond positively to the challenges dumped on us through the weaknesses of others.

It’s time to talk about sin

Part 2

“Sin” has a root meaning of “falling short” or “missing the target” as when an arrow misses the bullseye. So, a focus on sin also means that we have a goal of achieving a life that is true to our principles, and it’s these goals that are our true focus. I believe that this strikes a deep chord in people. We want to be people of integrity. However, we discover in ourselves an inner battle whereby, especially in times of stress and pressure, we let ourselves down. This is a straightforward understanding of sin: we don’t want to let ourselves down – or those who depend on us, and so it is right and proper to consciously set ourselves against this force of sin and in favour of all those things that are good and pure and lovely. Christians sum all this up in the calling to love God as he loves us.

This inner battle can be understood as the conflict between our evolved “reptilian” brain, which is intent only on our own needs, and our consciously adopted altruistic principles that our more highly developed brain is capable of. (See Karen Armstrong, one of the best modern writers on the nature of religion, in her book, “Twelve steps to a compassionate life”). Or we might like to see it in terms of Freud’s battle between the id, the ego and the super-ego. Or perhaps in Augustine’s terms of the divided will battling between what you truly approve of and the appeal of illusory temptations to gratify yourself. However you see it, it is a reality of the human condition. Somehow, we have to come to terms with sin: that tendency to take short-term, selfish gains rather than long-term substantial progress in well-being for all of us.

(This week’s article is about Sin and Freedom – coming in 4 parts)

It’s time to talk about sin

Part 1

Secular critics bemoan the way Christians are “obsessed” with sin. “It’s so negative, so pessimistic, so based on guilt”, they say, “time to leave it all behind”. However, my only interest in sin is to be free of it. My faith has given me a wonderful vision of what life would be like if it wasn’t blighted by this thing we call “sin”. The astonishing thing is not that Christians labour under a guilty load of sin, but that they have an inkling of what life is like without it.

We must accept that human beings (in our sinful frailty?) have indeed often messed up in our thinking about sin, and Christians have tortured themselves and imposed burdens on others through our lack of understanding and spiritual maturity. Another reason we’ve messed up is because of the extraordinary power of sin. Evil is so very evil that it has the ability to corrupt even those things that are in themselves  good. So, it’s not as though – if Christians stopped banging on about sin – it would all just go away, and we would live in a guilt-free, happy and altruistic world. All that would happen is that sin would continue to run riot, but no-one would even be attempting to frustrate it. Sin is like a force that apparently has a life of its own (though in reality, it’s simply parasitic upon our own human actions), and, in practical terms, it is as though it assails us and malevolently erodes the foundations of justice, goodness and truth in society, and in individual lives. It is an extraordinary reality. I wish it didn’t exist – not so that I would be free from having to talk about it, but so that we could all be free from its cruel influence. We all know that it can take a moment to destroy what took years to create, and this asymmetry explains some of the power of sin. We all know that even if each person just does one small act of selfishness now and then, somehow, when everyone does the same, it adds up to the nightmare of grinding poverty, of children collecting drinking water from muddy puddles and dying from preventable diseases. Each person just felt a bit afraid and threatened, and before we know it, we are at war, or demonising those who are different. So, let’s not feel bad about talking about sin.