11-24-18

SIN

What does sin have to do with anything? Let's get the definition from the dictionary. Sin is a transgression or a religious or moral law, especially when deliberate. In theology it is a condition of estrangement from God as a result of breaking his law. It can be any offense, violation, fault, or error. I have had sin on my mind the past few days. Actually, it has been on my mind more often over the last two years since Trump was elected. Of course, I have calculated the wages of sin in my own case almost all my life and I think it is the persistence of sin that has kept me on the path of right behavior, to the extent it is possible for me to do that. Much depends on my mental life and experiences and those have shaped my idea of sin.

Sin has been a weighty topic for me in my Christianity and less so in my Zen Buddhism. As a Christian one is forever reminded of what price Jesus paid for all of our sins. The foundation of the Christian faith is based on the story of Adam and Eve and how now everyone born to the earth is born a sinner—all because our spiritual progenitors ate an apple. I suppose that supposition of a sinful beginning infused my initial experiences in Christianity and in Quakerism. It wasn't so noticeable in Quakerism as practiced in an unprogrammed way. There wasn't anyone to reinforce one's sinfulness. What sins one had were taken before God in silent worship and dealt with there. I think this is how I have come to the idea of sin.

Now, what has gotten my curiosity is a combination of some promptings from the likes of Krista Tippett and David Brooks. They were included in my musings in this week's letter to the kids. I tend to churn some ideas for a while and try to see them for different angles to better understand them and me. My recent reading of David Brooks' The Road to Character and a Krista Tippett interview with Anand Giridharadas in which they talked about aspects of spirituality related to the economic system we live under. David Brooks calls for a heightened “moral ecology” in his book, all of it devoted to profiling the lives of a few people whom he thought had lived a moral life, given different life circumstances. Both sources probe the question of sin in indirect ways, just as we now acknowledge sin in ways that do not directly name it.

Krista often laments (I think that is the best word to describe her frustration and tone of loss) that we don't have adequate language to talk about some of the most troublesome problems in our society in the 21^st century. She says we don't have the words to create common ground, words that people on different sides of the political and economic divides can agree upon to discuss their biases. My thoughts are that we do have the words and they are common words with many definitions and nuances. We are limited to the words that have always been used to describe everything we now share or experience. I don't think Krista would want to invent some new words for concepts that lie at the heart of our differences. New words in this context would make no sense and would be a return to the Tower of Babel. There would be no way to create a context of sharing in which warring parties could communicate. So, what is the lamentation all about?

I think some of the answer to that question stems from having words with robust meanings drop out of our lexicon. The word “sin,” for example, is a word with meanings almost everyone on the planet can agree on. But in my recent experience, I don't read or hear anyone using it in daily discourse. I don't hear anyone using it in the contexts of politics, economics, social media, medicine, law, journalism, or commerce. In some ways, sin has become a relative term in an age in which the president has normalized sin. He has deceived his own followers with talk that is blatantly false. He has claimed that the media publish “fake news.” He has as much as admitted to acts of misogyny and molestation that in the public square for common citizens have resulted in indictments and convictions. He has criticized and pilloried those he suspects of being “disloyal” to him. He has in this way committed acts of character assassination and outright defamation of character. He infringes on the rules of law and those of globally recognized human rights. He is rude and coarse in his language (not that that is a sin, apparently) and demeaning of others. When his behavior is highlighted in the media (as it is every single day now for two years) there is rarely a reference to his evil nature. The word “evil” can't be used by those who recognize the behavior for what it is, but themselves have some internal proscription against using it in public.

I think we are co-opted by this man and by our own ambivalence with concepts like evil and sin. He has intimidated almost everyone into accepting his normalized sinful and evil behavior. I think we can use the power of these two words in ways that uphold their opposites. We can reinforce the strength of making moral and ethical choices by once again using powerful words to defeat the ideas Trump's alternate reality promulgates. I think these evil ideas and motivations have always been a part of our human condition but over the centuries they have sulked into the woodwork and then resurfaced—over and over. We have had a period with Obama in which they were solidly in the woodwork but now they have emerged once again and they have a voice of a president to give them power they don't deserve in a civilized country. I see this happening in different societies across the globe and an emergence in one place reinforces its appearance somewhere else in the world. Anti-semitism is one of these tools of the aggrieved and it is now on the rise in America. It has always been part of our national character, an evil occurrence at any time. It is not clear to me why the Jewish people have been so targeted over the centuries and it is even less clear to me why it should be reignited now. In any case, we ought not attach the word “evil” only to the killing of Jews in their synagogues, but to call it evil when the slightest hint of anti-semitism arises in conversations, in print, or on the walls of the synagogues themselves.

I have been thinking about the extent to which language and social structures intersect and interact to shape one another. I have curiosity about how language evolves along with society and the parameters that change the way societies change. In what ways has society changed now that has us normalizing evil and sinful acts and speech? If we haven't had a need for the words “evil” and “sin,” then why should that be if the facts of their existence are part of human behavior, albeit an unseemly and primitive aspect? Who can help me understand this?

I recalled reading a Jonathan Edwards (his image graces this post) sermon titled Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God in my high school class on American history/literature, the “combined class” of my junior year. Even then, there were no yawning pits of hell described or subscribed to in the Christianity of my youth. In fact, the sermons of Billy Graham I heard on the radio on Sunday mornings were more intimidating and threatening than what I read of Jonathan Edwards. With that in mind, I reread that sermon and tried to reposition myself in the mindset of his times. We have had layers of centuries to bury the fear and trembling that must have been part of daily life in the early colonies. On this side of life there were fears and threats of a subsistence existence that made a life in heaven desirable. Thinking that all of that safety and comfort from pain and suffering could be wiped away by one's sins on earth must have kept the attention of the faithful. What in our society today could equal the conditions under which morals, ethics, and a faithful life would be the desirable path? What would our hell look like? And to whom would we turn to save us from it?

I read today that a Pew Center for Research poll found that 90% of Americans believe in God or some transcendent force. This was surprising to me, given that it is also true that many now call themselves spiritual but not religious and attendance at formal places of worship has dropped over time. Apparently, there are new expressions of spirituality. Four new paths were profiled in the article in the Washington Post. One was the Christianity of the rodeo circuit where contestants find their spiritual lives in the arenas. Another was the pursuit of witchcraft. A Buddhist monastery in the South was also included—a nod to spiritual but not religious. Buddhism is a mixed concept for many people because it is non-deist but still considered a religion. It attracts many people who don't feel comfortable with present day Judaism, Christianity, or Islam.

I admit to the comforts of Zen in my own life during periods when I questioned the role of Christianity in my spiritual life. I used it as cover for not facing the importance of Christian discipline and commitment in the formation of my own faith. But my own life has evolved and over the years I have found a place for both Christianity and Zen Buddhism. I have been haunted by the likes of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Thomas Merton and have found daily comfort and spiritual direction from the simple faith of Brother Lawrence (The Practice of the Presence of God). Yet, Zen has opened many doors onto the spiritual landscape for me and I adhere to my bodhisattva vows (vows we took as chaplaincy students in our commitment of service) as a path to right behavior. I don't remember Roshi Joan Halifax, my teacher, discussing evil or sin during our chaplaincy training at Upaya, but it was in the background of the teachings around facing one's obstacles, facing social injustices and transgressions, and developing a habit of social action to combat inequities and suffering. So, once again, the powerful words “evil” and “sin” were there but not used in the robust way they could have been. If one doesn't use the word for what it signifies, then there is some commission and omission in bypassing the essence of what they describe. Buddhists refer to such things as delusions which includes the usual human faults and failings such as lust, greed, anger, etc. But the word “sin” isn't used. Perhaps that is a result of the Buddhist belief that all of us are born pure and without fault and that we spend our lives on a path to redeem our purity after backsliding into those states that characterize human nature.

I don't claim any great insights into this dilemma of making meaning of our present day circumstances and somehow relating them to some sort of redemption. In fact, what I say here is pretentious and assumes more than I know. I am in a state of curiosity and that makes me sound more erudite than I really am. But I want to return to Jonathan Edwards and let you read what he spoke to his timorous flock on July 8, 1741.

“There is laid in the very Nature of carnal man a Foundation for the Torments of Hell. There are those corrupt Principles, in reigning Power in them, and in full Possession of them, that are Seeds of Hell Fire. These Principles are active and powerful, and exceeding violent in their Nature, and if it were not for the restraining Hand of God upon them, they would soon break out, they would flame out after the same Manner as the same Corruptions, the same Enmity does in the Hearts of damned Souls, and would beget the same Torments in 'em as they do in them.”

“Sin is the Ruin and Misery of the Soul; it is destructive in it's Nature; and if God should leave it without Restraint, there would need nothing else to make the Soul perfectly miserable.”

“But the foolish Children of Men do miserably delude themselves in their own Schemes, and in their Confidence in their own Strength and Wisdom; they trust to nothing but a Shadow.”

“Were it not that so is the sovereign Pleasure of God, the Earth would not bear you one Moment; for you are a Burden to it; the Creation groans with you; the Creature is made Subject to the Bondage of Corruption, not willingly; the Sun don't willingly shine upon you to give you Light to serve Sin and Satan; the Earth don't willingly yield her Increase to satisfy your Lusts; nor is it willingly a Stage for your Wickedness to be acted upon; the Air don't willingly serve you for Breath to maintain the Flame of Life in our Vitals, while you spend your Life in the Service of God's Enemies. God's creatures are Good, and were made for Men to serve God with, and don't willingly subserve to any other Purpose, and groan to their Nature and End. And the World would spue you out, were it not for the sovereign Hand of him who hath subjected it in Hope.”

“The wrath of God is like great Waters that are dammed for the present; they increase more and more, and rise higher and higher, till an Outlet is given, and the longer the Stream is stop'd, the more rapid and mighty is it's Course, when once it is let loose.”

“... you are in the hands of an angry God; 'tees nothing but his meer Pleasure that keeps you from being this Moment swallowed up in everlasting Destruction.”

“You hang by a slender Thread, with the Flames of divine Wrath flashing about it, and ready every Moment to singe it, and burn it asunder; and you have no Interest in any Mediator, and nothing to lay hold of to save yourself, nothing to keep off the Flames of Wrath, nothing of your own, nothing that you ever have done, nothing that you can do, to induce God to spare you one Moment.”

It is at this point that I turn to the news of the day and the ongoing holocaust wildfire that has destroyed so much of California geography, including the town of Paradise. Its power and ferocity has caught people seeking escape in their cars on clogged roads and incinerated all in its path. How could these people have prepared for such a tragedy? And how about the innocent victims of wars in Syria, Yemen, Iraq, and Afghanistan? And the genocides in Yemen and Myanmar? I think about the catastrophes of Indonesian and Japanese tsunamis and the devastation of hurricanes such as the one striking New Orleans some years back. How does one predict the power of such circumstances and isn't one brought to one's knees without recourse to conventional methods of control?

What is in the offing of a life lived coarsely, deceitfully, evilly, and without regard for the separation that exists between life as a thug on the street (or in the White House) and a life with a view of heaven? What does one turn towards in times of catastrophe and thuggery? Are we not challenged to imagine our lives differently? Isn't Jonathan Edwards pointing towards the inflation of ego that David Brooks names the “Big Me”? It is possible to meet these challenges to ego inflation by reshaping a moral base and reintroducing the words and concepts that “sin,” “evil,”and “soul”, connote. It is possible to formulate a secular and somewhat sanitized “platform” for revising our relationships with the earth and with one another. It is also possible to revitalize the religious base of belief that is still present in the traditional religions as well as the alternative spiritual practices now being explored.

The idea of a newly imagined public theology is surfacing in pockets of discernment. I suggest that we reexamine and reexplore the roots of our American public theology to see if there might be some useful material that could contribute to this dialogue. Is it possible for us to bring Jonathan Edwards and the scientists investigating climate change and its consequences together in the same dialogue about what might be a humane course forward in our fractious world? What do we have to lose by thinking out loud about human pride, acquisitiveness, accountability, and responsibility in light of natural occurrences for which we still have no full explanation, let alone any reasonable means of dealing with their consequences? Public theology must imagine its intersections with science, consumerism, the fate of the earth, as well as the human need, desire, and drive to make meaning of not-knowing and what it means to lack the control over our own destinies that we now assume to possess. Could we turn to faith as a beginning? Could we use our faith not as a way of avoiding our difficult circumstances, but as a way of confronting them and working with them for humane purposes? Could we face sin and evil head on and name them for what they are as a way of deflating their power? What are our intentions for our common fate?