The principle of sin

The Scriptures give us a number of ways in which sins can be distinguished and classified.  Numbers 15 gives us the distinction between unintentional sin and sinning with a high hand (translated here 'defiantly').  That same distinction crops up throughout the Pentateuch.  Perhaps 'unintentional' is not the most useful translation; it is more like sin which is wandered into, sin which is not deliberately premeditated.  To sin with a high hand, by contrast, is to sin with a knowing disregard for the will of God.  There is sin into which we are almost surprised - in the aftermath we think 'where did that come from?' - and there is sin which is planned, sin which despises the threat of God's judgement.  In Numbers 15, the former is to be dealt with by sacrifice; the latter results in excommunication and perpetual guilt.

Something similar to this distinction is perhaps at work in Psalm 19, where the Psalmist prays to be delivered from 'hidden faults' and kept from 'wilful sins'.  This seems to envisage sins of which the Psalmist is even unaware, which makes sense - sometimes when someone confronts you with your sin, it's the first you consciously knew of it.  (And of course, that doesn't make it any less sin).  Wilful or presumptuous sins, on the other hand, are committed knowing them for what they are, either in defiance of God or on the assumption that his forgiveness will be cheap and easy to obtain.

Psalm 32 gives another distinction - between sin kept secret and sin openly confessed.  The former is destructive and ultimately leads to death, but confession can bring forgiveness and healing.  We don't know when this Psalm of David was composed, but it is interesting to note that the categories introduced here cut across the others - unintentional sin could be hidden and therefore deadly; by contrast, high handed sin could be confessed and forgiven, as with David's terrible sin against Bathsheba.

Some of the Scriptural distinctions between sins are less easy to understand - for example, 1 John 5 introduces a distinction between sin which leads to death (which should not be [or perhaps need not be] prayed for) and sin which does not lead to death, for which a brother or sister can intercede for forgiveness.  Taking the whole of Scripture into account, it is tempting to map this on to the unconfessed/confessed paradigm from Psalm 32 - but that doesn't seem obviously correct to me from the scant context of 1 John.  I'm not sure I know for sure what this means.

Perhaps the most troubling New Testament distinction is between all the sins and blasphemies which can be forgiven, and the blasphemy against the Spirit which will never be forgiven (see Matthew 12 and parallels).  I think we do here have to see the distinction between sin of which one repents and sin in which one (wilfully) persists - with the added burden that this is sin against light, sin in the face of the Holy Ghost.

Outside Holy Scripture there have been various other attempts to distinguish between sins.  The classic division of sins into 'mortal' and 'venial' tries rather too hard to classify wickedness by acts rather than attitudes, and therefore seems to me to miss the target aimed at by the Biblical distinctions.  The well-known confession speaks of sinning 'through weakness, through negligence, through our own deliberate fault', which seems a more helpful classification.

Anyway, the point is: sins are not all the same.

That seems an important point to make in the current climate of evangelicalism, where the egregious sins of prominent leaders are being dragged into the light.  Sins are different.  There are sins into which all people by weakness stumble from time to time, and there are sins which call into question one's salvation.  There are sins into which even leaders can be expected sometimes to fall and yet not be beyond recovery, and there are sins which disqualify from ministry.  There are patterns of 'minor' or unintentional sin which speak to the ongoing need for sanctification, and there are patterns of deliberate sin which indicate gross hypocrisy and an unwillingness to repent and come to Christ for life.  There are sins, and there are sins.

We have to recognise that so that in the face of Christian leaders who turn out to be abusers we don't just shrug our shoulders and say 'hey ho, everyone sins'.  Not like that they don't.

But there is another point which I fear we're in danger of missing, perhaps because we're rightly trying very hard to make the distinctions evident.  There are sins and sins, but all sin is sin.

There is a principle to sin, a heart to it.  The heart of sin is rebellion against the Lord.  The heart of sin is turning away from the gracious Creator to serve other things.  The heart of sin is elevating self to the place rightly occupied by God.  When we see terrible sins - sins committed seemingly with a high hand and without repentance, sins which have hurt so many and brought disgrace to the cause of Christ - when we see those sins, we recoil.  Here is sin in its full ugliness.  Here is sin shown for something like what it is, in its true colours.  Sin is foul and vile.

But without making the mistake of flattening the distinction between sins, without implying that 'this is just like that', we do need to see that the principle which is operative in those great and terrible sins is also at work in the small and 'inoffensive' sins of our everyday.  No, these sins are not like those sins, not in their severity, nor in their consequences for victims, nor in the reactions which they ought to call forth from God's people.  But whilst there are sins and sins, all sin is sin.  The little sinful habits we indulge, the character defects we choose not to curb or rectify, the minor lapses and falls - they are not those sins, but they are of the same species.  This is what sin would like to make of us.  Those great sins are what these little sins would like to be.  They are not the same, but they are energised by the same principle.

Therefore, fight sin.  Therefore, pursue accountability and repentance.  Fear sin; fear it appropriately.  Have a horror of it.  Detest it.  Look what it would do to you if it could.  Get that sin into the light; it will wither and die there.  Better to be shamed now for your sin than to carry it to the Judgement Seat of Christ.

Whoever thinks he stands must be careful not to fall.

Lent 2021

The season of Lent begins today, marking the period leading up to Easter.  Lent is 40 days (plus Sundays, which aren't counted), reflecting the 40 days the Lord Jesus spent in the wilderness after his baptism.  The themes of the season are communicated powerfully in the words spoken to each worshipper at a traditional Ash Wednesday service:

Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.
Turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ.

Lent is a time to particularly reflect on our mortality and frailty - we are dust, we are weak, our time is passing.  And Lent is a time to particularly reflect on our sinfulness in the light of our mortality - we will die and stand before Christ, therefore we should repent now.

This year, Lent feels strange.  For starters, at some level I feel like we never really got out of Lent 2020!  Of course we celebrated Easter as well as we were able in the circumstances, but the year since last spring has felt, to me at least, like one long reminder of the Ash Wednesday liturgy: you are dust, and to dust you shall return.  Look how frail we are.  See how limited we are, how vulnerable.  These are not bad things to be reminded of - one of the reasons we observe Lent is to remind ourselves of them - but boy, it's been a long year of reminder.

Are we really going to do Lent all over again?

My suggestion is that Lent 2021 is a good time to lean hard into the second theme of Lent: that we are sinners, that we need to repent, that we are clinging to Christ for forgiveness, that we are dependent on his Spirit to live in faithfulness.  I think there is a danger that in the midst of the pandemic, with its accompanying loss of freedoms and pleasures, we could recognise our frailty and seek God for help, but forget our sinfulness and neglect to seek God for mercy.  What I mean is that the big problem right now seems to be disease, and the big need seems to be deliverance from disease (and the painful precautionary measures taken to prevent the spread of disease).  But Lent could be a good reminder to us that the Big Problem - the problem that is really insurmountable for us as human beings - is sin and guilt.  There are no vaccine programmes or treatments for this one.  Only the Lord in his mercy can help us here.

Customarily, Christians have observed Lent by fasting and self-examination.  Fasting means temporarily giving up something which is good and lawful, in order to pursue that which is better.  Perhaps you want to fast this year - perhaps in particular it would be good to remind ourselves that we can voluntarily give up good things because Christ is our Great Good Thing.  But perhaps this has felt like a year long fast and giving up something else now feels like too much.  I can understand that.  So maybe this is a time for self-examination.  To ask ourselves - and perhaps each other - some hard questions about what we really value, what we're really trusting, where our hope is.  At CCC, our preaching series will take us through the Ten Commandments as a way of helping with that.

All that being said, let's not forget Christian liberty.  None of us is under any obligation to do anything for Lent, except the ongoing and joyful obligations to trust the Lord and love one another.  Maybe the way you need to mark Lent 2021 is by simply allowing yourself to rest in the grace of the Lord Jesus after a hard year.  And that, too, will be a good preparation for celebrating the resurrection at Easter.

Live Not by Lies

The latest book from Rod Dreher is a sequel of sorts to The Benedict Option, and continues the author's attempt to navigate a way forward for orthodox (small o, although Dreher is big O) Christians in contemporary Western culture.  I found The Benedict Option stimulating and helpful; I think Live Not by Lies is a significantly better book, which I'd recommend to anyone - and perhaps especially to those who weren't persuaded by the earlier volume.  This might clinch it for you, or at least clear up some of those areas where you had questions.

The book falls into two parts, with the first part diagnosing the problem and the second proposing particular ways to respond.  The whole is really a reflection on the experience of Christians and other dissidents under Communism, in the USSR and its satellite states.  Dreher points out that various survivors of that context have been sounding the alarm at the direction of Western culture in the last few years, pointing out similarities to the rise of Communism in their youth.  Of course, we know that totalitarianism could never take off here - could it?  Dreher knows that we know that; but he also knows that the people of Eastern Europe knew that before the Communists arrived.  Everyone thinks it couldn't happen here.  Until it does.

Dreher describes the current situation in the West as pre-totalitarian.  He means that the situation is ripe for the rise of totalitarianism, but we aren't there yet.  There is some comparison with Tsarist Russia; there is some interaction with Hannah Arendt.  I found the symptoms of pre-totalitarianism listed by Dreher to be terrifyingly convincing: atomisation and loneliness, the loss of faith in institutions, the desire to transgress, the mania for ideology...  Yep, that's us alright.  The soil is prepared for totalitarian takeover, because the things which cultivate normal, healthy human society - family, community, hierarchy, limits - are so badly eroded.  It's worth noting that Dreher does a good job here, partly through the use of pre-revolutionary Russia, of pointing out that it is often the conservatives in society who have failed to make the case for these things; the liberals have not been forced to argue against the institutions of society, because conservatives have so obviously used those institutions to their own advantage, preventing them from working as they should.

But really, totalitarianism?  Could that happen here?  Well, Dreher isn't expecting state totalitarianism of the USSR type - not in the West, although of course that still exists in China and other places.  Rather, what he fears is 'soft totalitarianism'; what you might call social or cultural totalitarianism.  Where certain opinions cannot be spoken; where the pressure to conform is so great.  I don't find this hard to believe.  When I worked for the University, explicit support of a political position by staff would have been frowned upon; but chatting to people still there it sounds like the pressure to wear the rainbow lanyard and signal approval of a particular position on sexuality and gender has now ramped up.  It's just social and cultural pressure; you won't be fired for not going along.  But does anyone think that makes the pressure any less real?  Chatting in the pub, I quietly express my view that perhaps biological sex might be important; though I know a number of people around the table agree, there are nervous glances and somebody says 'you can't say that'.  You can't, you see, even though legally you can.

If you still think that 'woke' just means concerned for justice, and that political correctness is just politeness, I'd encourage you to read this book.  I think you're being naive, and I think in the long run that naivety is likely to come with a cost.

Having said that, I think the chapter on surveillance capitalism is a little paranoid.  So maybe I'm naive.  And I guess just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you.

The second half of the book is about how to respond.  The chapters are shot through with extraordinary stories from the Eastern Bloc - stories which illustrate the resistance which Christians were able to offer to Soviet-style totalitarianism.  Many of these are stories of suffering, but Dreher's interviewees repeatedly stress that the appalling suffering was worth it, was even blessed.  Each chapter ends with an application to our own setting, or rather to the encroaching soft totalitarianism which may lie in the future.  An absolute commitment to truth, the value of the family as the primary 'resistance cell' where values can be passed on, the need to have something for which one is prepared to die...  These are things we need to think through.  As Dreher highlights, it was a conscious decision on the part of these dissidents to take a stand; they had already decided before the trial came what they would do.  We must, of course, hope for grace when the moment comes, but we should not just assume that we will be able to stand then if we are not getting ready to stand now.

For those who feared that The Benedict Option was advocating a sort of Christian isolationism, I hope this book will set you straight.  I can see how it could be taken in that direction, but that's not where Dreher is going with it.  His stories of Christian dissidents who remained so open to wider society, even as that society turned against them, or who worked with secularists to stand against the Communist regime, count against that reading.  I think that he is just taking seriously that if you want to engage the culture, in a way which has the potential to be transformative, you need to be doing so from a place that is deeply grounded, from within a community that is committed to truth, from within a deep understanding and practice of your own religion.  My guess is that it is only with those things that Christians can have the courage to be open and to engage.

I wonder somewhat hesitantly about the intersection between Dreher's concerns and the movements for liturgical renewal in the church.  I think there is overlap in strategy at least - renew the centre for the sake of the church's witness to the world.  I think that is worth thinking through further.

The title for this book comes from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.  We may not be ready to take a courageous stand for truth, not yet; but at the least we can avoid living as if the lies were true.  "Our way must be: Never knowingly support lies!"  I think Dreher is a helpful guide as we wake up to this responsibility in our own context.

Books about corporate worship

These are the books I've found most helpful on the subject of corporate worship - with the caveat that this is not at all meant to be a list of the best books on the subject, just the ones I've meandered through in my idiosyncratic reading and found helpful.

Peter Leithart's Theopolitan Liturgy is the most recent addition to the list - the only book from my Christmas haul that I've finished reading so far.  It's helpfully slender, and makes a strong biblical case for the importance of corporate, liturgical worship.  Creation and culture exist for worship; in the liturgy, far from using created things and cultural forms in a strange way, we restore them to what they always existed to do.  Reality is liturgical all the way down (you could also consult James Smith on this one), and human life is inevitably shaped by sinful, idolatrous liturgies or by Christian worship.

Alexander Schmemann's book For the Life of the World comes from a very different theological and ecclesiastical context than my own - he was an Orthodox Priest - and consequently there are some things in this book which I find off putting.  But the flipside is that it opens up a very different perspective.  Schmemann more than anyone has taught me to value the sacraments.  I could have learnt that from Calvin, if I'd been paying attention, but perhaps it took someone speaking from slightly further away to get through to me.  The liturgy matters at least in part because sacraments matter.

On the practical side, Hughes Oliphant Old's Leading in Prayer has been invaluable for shaping prayer as a substantial part of corporate worship.  The idea of a service of prayer - of corporate worship as substantially a conversation between the congregation and the Lord - is largely absent in contemporary evangelicalism, as far as I can tell, which adds to the general impression on approaching this book that it belongs to an earlier era.  (The cover design and language trend in the same direction, to be honest).  This book springs from years of pastoral experience, and gives a large number of written prayers which the author has used in worship - not with the idea that they would necessarily be used as printed, but as worked examples.  The whole assumes a more formal structure to worship than I could get away with regularly in my context, but it's nevertheless helpful for thinking about the shape of worship and the nature of public, led prayer.

Karl Barth's Homiletics can stand here for more extensive engagement with Barth's theology of preaching - probably I'd have to include large chunks of Church Dogmatics I/1 and I/2 to get the full effect, as well as some of the essays from The Word of God and Theology.  If Oliphant Old helps with the human side of the dialogue that is corporate worship, Barth has really helped me to see preaching as the other side.  Of course, in preaching a human being stands up and speaks, but what Barth sees so clearly is that the church counts on the fact that the Lord himself is speaking as his word is preached.  Preaching is encounter.  I dare say I could have learnt this from many places, but I actually learnt it from Barth.

I'm sure there are others that I've missed here, but there's a few that I've found useful.