Full Strength Christianity: Forgiveness of Sins

Near the end of the Apostles’ Creed, we read this phrase, ‘I believe in the Forgiveness of Sins’.

This is a core doctrine of Christianity. Christ died to cleanse us from them. I’m not going to talk about sin itself, but instead look at the church’s response to sin in our Modernist world.

Traditionally, the popular idea was sin was the breaking one of the Ten Commandments given to Moses by God. Or entertaining and acting upon the Seven Deadly Sins.

Ten Commandments

1 You shall have no other gods before Me.

2 Do not worship idols

3 Don’t take the name of God in vain

4 Keep the Sabbath day holy

5 Honour your father and your mother

6 You shall not murder.

7 You shall not commit adultery.

8 You shall not steal.

9 You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour.

10 You shall not covet your neighbour's property

When we look at this list, majority of these commandments are not considered as cultural sins by Modern Western cultures.

When we look at the Seven Deadly sins, they’ve almost become virtues.

• Lust

• Gluttony

• Greed

• Sloth

• Wrath

• Envy

• Pride

Modern Cultural Sins

The Modern Western world may have rejected or downgraded the severity of the sins mentioned above, but new ones have taken their place.

On my Tower of Adam newsletter, I wrote a 7 part series on the Seven Deadly Sins and behind the paywall I outlined what could be considered some of these Modern sins.

• Racism (including having Pro-Western sentiments)

• Sexism (including anti-feminism, Pro-Life stances and expressing male issues)

• Anti-Semintism/Islamophobia

• LGBT-phobic

• Anti-Immigration

• Anti-Science (including vaccines and climate change)

• Pro Far-Right (these include pro-family, nationalism and conservatism)

Rather than relying on God for the absolution from sin, the modern person is expected to become an activist to mitigate against them. Some parts of the Western Church have bought into this idea and have been trying to absolve themselves of these sins; through funding activist groups, creating additional bureaucratic processes and using ‘positive action’ in recruitment.

Whether the activism is virtual and online or in real life, it doesn’t matter. In the words of the activists, ‘being neutral is not enough’. So by publicly standing up against these new cultural sins, individuals can prove their worthiness to society. Though, no matter how much work they put in, they will never be forgiven.

What I find interesting is how I’ve never heard the Modernist Western Church proclaim that Christ’s sacrifice covers these sins. It appears, even God cannot absolve them.

If the Modernist Church truly cared about people who commit these cultural sins, then they’d seek them out and find ways to bring them to ‘holiness’. Though I don’t see this happening either. It feels like they don’t want ‘habitual sinners’, who struggle to accept The Science or may hold Islamophobic views to come to their churches.

Cultural Sins vs Timeless Sins

The most heinous ‘sin’ committed by Christians in the pagan Roman Empire was to not make sacrifices to the emperor. This could result in a person being excluded from the community or even executed. Christ’s sacrifice would obviously not cover this ‘cultural sin’ of sacrificing to the emperor as it is breaking the 1st and 2nd Commandment. Refusing to sacrifice was breaking the cultural rules, but not God’s law.

This then means the sins mentioned in the Bible and the many other cultural sins are in a different categories. Though there may be an overlap. For example, sexism (as it is commonly understood) could be seen as ‘not loving your neighbour as yourself’.

But ultimately, these cultural sins are in reference to a culture and not to God. Unlike God, they are subject to change. The cultural sins above were not sins one hundred years ago and they likely won’t be sins in a hundred years time. These sins are therefore temporal.

The sins mentioned in the Bible are timeless. They are relevant to all people in all times, no matter the culture. If a civilisation allows the mass murder of its own population, allows stealing, sloth and gluttony, then it won’t last long.

Social Justice and Forgiveness

The key phrase which connects these Modern sins is ‘Social Justice’. This is the process by which the ‘atonement’ happens. Though there is no firm understanding about how this plays out.

Christianity provides a path by which both justice and forgiveness works hand in hand. God provides eternal judgement, but also gives forgiveness for all those who repent. However, in Social Justice, there is no forgiveness. Maybe this is why the Modernist Church doesn’t talk about the absolution of these specific cultural sins.

Full Strength Christianity is about embodying forgiveness. We can show forgiveness towards those church leaders who have become distracted by the culture and who have wandered down this avenue. We can prayer for them to return to orthodoxy.

But it is also pressing on us to prioritise timeless sins over cultural ones. The cultural sins are important, as they regulate relationships within society. But we should primarily focus on the timeless sins. These are the ones God calls us to resist. And the cultural sins will pass away in time.