Monday, March 26, 2007

It’s My Party

We have the idea that our spiritual lives are a private matter, between us and God. Our society talks about victimless crimes. And we tend to think that some sins have no victims other than the one who sins. But the reality is that all sin has wide-ranging consequences.

When a person sins, someone else is inevitably hurt. Sin always has social consequences, whether great or small, depending on the person sinning. One cannot sin ever so secretly without influencing the quality of one's relations with others, particularly those within his or her inner circle.

Arthur Glasser, Announcing the Kingdom, p. 55.

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

6 comments:

daniel the smith said...

So you (and Glasser) are making the claim that there is no sin that affects ONLY the person who commits it? That seems like a very broad and hard to prove claim, but I'm inclined to agree. (Personally, I would expect the effects from some things to be small, perhaps unmeasurably so.) The logical converse of this is that if something can be shown to have no ill effects whatsoever (another hard thing to prove), then it must not be a sin. Do you think Glasser would agree with that statement?

The real reason I'm commenting, though, is to say that I don't think it's a good idea to conflate "crime" and "sin". (Just to be clear, I'm taking "crime" to mean something against the law of the state, and "sin" something against God) Hence while I agree with your point, I don't have a problem with the concept of victimless crimes-- there's nothing keeping the state from making bad laws. (And of course, by the same logic, there are plenty of sins that are not illegal)

Pastor Rod said...

Daniel,

I don't know if I'd agree that something with no ill effects cannot be a sin. In my opinion, sin is more about relational issues than legal issues.

I didn't mean to conflate crime and sin. I was drawing a parallel between the idea of victimless crimes and sin that "only hurts me."

Rod

Pastor Rod said...

Daniel,

Must first statement is not clear. It sounds like a contradiction.

My point is that approaching the idea of sin from that angle, whether someone can be shown to be injured, is misguided. It is asking the wrong question.

I hope that is a little clearer.

Rod

daniel the smith said...

I can't resist playing devil's advocate now, even though I'm pretty sure I agree with the point you're making. :)

A: Every sin negatively affects more people than just the one who commits it.
B: An action that doesn't negatively affect more people than the one who commits it is not a sin.

If we agree that B is misguided, then, since it follows logically from A, why is A not misguided?

Or to say it another way, B makes me very uncomfortable, and it's an unavoidable deduction from A. This causes me to think that perhaps A is overly broad.

Oh and I forgot to say on another thread, next time, if there is one, Cicily will be on the list. :)

Pastor Rod said...

Daniel,

I'll play along.

From a purely logical perspective, if A is true, then B is also true.

But here's my point. To ask the question, "Does this particular act cause harm to anyone other than me?" is to view sin in the wrong way.

It is somewhat like asking, "How much can I fool around with another woman before I've technically committed adultery?" Any husband who asks that question is viewing faithfulness from the wrong perspective.

Your turn.

Rod

daniel the smith said...

Ah, I understand where you're coming from now. I wasn't thinking that concretely. :) I agree that "how far can I go" is usually not a helpful question to be asking yourself (or, said another way, if I find myself asking that question, it's a good time to seriously examine my motives for asking it).

I was thinking more along the lines of someone using this logic to challenge an entire sin, e.g. something like, "homosex (to borrow the iMonk's way of describing it) isn't a sin unless you can *prove* that *all* expressions of it harm people besides those engaging in it." It seems to me that this is a very hard thing to prove (so hard that I'm mostly taking Paul's word for it).