Sin and Repentance I: Disgusting to God

I had the following conversation with Scott Morizot of Faith and Food:

[The Heretic]  I’m still struggling with the idea of Sin. I’m still too steeped in the Augustinian idea of Original Sin that condemned me before I was born and the Evangelical idea that sin makes me so disgusting to God that he can’t look at me without the Jesus sunglasses. I don’t accept that those ideas are correct any longer and I am coming to see that there are some other much healthier ways of defining sin (thanks for all your blogging on Orthodoxy) but there is still that knee-jerk self-hatred when I see the word sin or try to request mercy for myself. Sigh.


[Scott replies]  I can empathize. I long struggled trying to grasp what Christianity really meant by that word, though for very different reasons. I did keep hearing explanations like the ones you mentioned, but since I was an adult without any real predisposition to accept them, they mostly got the Spock raised eyebrow reaction from me. (Internally, that is. My life has conditioned me to be able to smile and nod pleasantly even if I believe you’re completely off your rocker.) I also intuitively distrust an approach that basically says that before you can be a Christian, you first have to somehow feel bad about yourself. It can be effective, since most of us have done things over the course of our lives about which we feel badly, but it’s manipulative and paints God in a bad light. 


Almost everyone in any tradition will tell you that the Christian concept of ‘sin’ is most closely tied to the idea of missing the mark. Most people, however, don’t even notice that the statement begs the question: What’s the mark? For Christians, the ‘mark’ is, of course, love of God and others (which is one thing, not two separate things) and union with Christ. So when we miss the mark, we fail to love as human beings should and we try to distance ourselves from God. 


When we repent, then, we keep turning back to God and we keep trying to love. But we’re not good at it and we usually get ourselves and others all twisted up and damaged. So when we pray for mercy, we are asking for help and healing. God offers both in overflowing abundance. He gives us himself (or as much of him as we can bear) to help us. 


The Jesus Prayer, in particular, simply asks for mercy because, if we’re honest with ourselves, we don’t actually know what sort of help we need most of the time. In fact, we sometimes don’t want the help we truly do need. Sometimes we’re afraid of being healed. We are often impatient, but God’s not in a rush. I try to remember that fact.

 (reposted from the-jesus-prayer-18-repentance with permission)

Love in Fundamentalism V: Changing Terms Changes the Terms

[author] Words that come to mind are "love" or "honor", perhaps “service”, I'm sure there are more. 

[commenter] The problem is that it seems you can't really get away from the concept just by using different words.  It seems to me that both “love” and “honor” have just as much opportunity for exploitation and abuse as "submit" does.  It all depends on how you live them out.  The Christian definitions of "love", "honor", "service", and "submission" have been around for centuries, and the concepts are by no means new, though some of the ways they have been used may be.  I have to wonder, though, if back in the day what we've been talking about was the original meaning or definition of these words, and if it isn't the "common understanding" or dictionary definitions that have diverged somewhat.

The difference in the connotations would be that it is possible to mutually honor, respect, or serve one another, no matter which of the many common definitions you use.  It is, however, impossible to mutually submit to one another in any of the standard usages of the word.

I am not trying to get away from the concept of working for the benefit of others in preference to oneself.  I'm trying to get away from the apparent need (based on the number of books, sermons, lectures on the subject) to hammer home to women that they must submit to husbands with the corollary being men taking control of their households (rather than men submit, or men and women honor, or men and women act in service to).

My original point was that if church teachers (those who turn theology into practical application for the rest of us) focused their attention on the real truth of mutuality, using terminology that easily supported the concept, then there would be 1. less confusion about submission being a degradation of one party and promotion of the other and 2. less institutionally sanctioned exploitation of the concept.

What I want is a return to what I am presuming was meant "back in the day" and I think the language is creating a major obstacle to today's people being able to get to that meaning.  If the godly concept is "mutually working for the highest good of the other", then let's say that and not dogmatically hold on to outdated vocabulary simply because of tradition, especially when the use of the outdated words leads to so much abuse that could potentially be avoided simply by using words that speak to modern people.

Love in Fundamentalism IV: Defining Terms of Submission

[commenter] Maybe it's just a matter of semantics - I feel like we're kind of saying the same thing (for the most part) but we're defining "submission" differently. To me, "submission" means putting the other person first or making them more important than you.  By which I do NOT BY ANY MEANS mean "choosing the other person's desires over your own".  A fine distinction but an important one.  I DO mean “making what is best for the other person your priority”.  Ideally, in a mutually submissive relationship, the other person is working for your best just as much as you are working for theirs.  

You ask, "And where does it leave the one who is doing all the submitting?" and say, "Seems to me that God is more about setting up paradigms that are more likely to succeed than fail."  It seems to me he has and it's called MUTUAL submission, that first word being the key.  In God's economy it's not about one person, or many people, giving in to all the desires and proclamations of one or a few people.  When you are truly seeking what is best for others, and they are seeking your best, then there is no room for the kind of despotism and abuse we've been talking about.  The problem is not with the "paradigm" as you call it, but with the way sinful and imperfect people live it out - or don't as the case may be.

I think you've made the very point I was trying to describe about semantics and vocabulary.  If you can't even tell whether we're talking about the same thing or not when we say "submission" when we've been defining it for several emails, then how can the average congregant possibly have a clear understanding of the word?

In the common parlance of the everyday world "submission" means "to seek approval, i.e. to submit a proposal or submit an essay or submit a doctoral thesis" or "to deny one's own desires in favor of another's".  The idea of "mutually submitting" is a logical impossibility in our regular usage of the word.

sub·mit  (sb-mt)

v. sub·mit·ted, sub·mit·ting, sub·mits

v.tr.

1. To yield or surrender (oneself) to the will or authority of another.

2. To subject to a condition or process.

3. To commit (something) to the consideration or judgment of another. See Synonyms at propose.

4. To offer as a proposition or contention: I submit that the terms are entirely unreasonable.

v.intr.

1. To give in to the authority, power, or desires of another. See Synonyms at yield.

2. To allow oneself to be subjected to something.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/submit

In church, "submission" is, if I understand you correctly, supposed to mean "taking action for the benefit of the other".  On the whole page of the above link, including three dictionaries of English, two thesauri and the etymology of the word "submit", there is absolutely nothing that would even hint at your definition of "submit" and a whole lot about things like "knuckling under", "obedience" and "to render up will or authority".

If you want to describe the process of being in a godly relationship as each person "taking action for the benefit of the other", a description I heartily agree with, then we should use a term that everyday English speakers will readily understand to mean that.  Words that come to mind are "love" or "honor", perhaps “service”, I'm sure there are more.

There are way too many sermons preached and Christian marriage books written, though, whose premise and practical advice sound way more like my definition of submission than yours.  That's why I said I don't think even the generally recognized experts in theology are at all clear on this word.  There's lots of advice out there promoting that women submit to husbands, REGARDLESS of the husband's actions.  In the face of outright life-threatening violence, and certainly lesser disrespect, the women are told to "submit" and "keep silent" and “God will honor her in heaven”.  Admittedly, this is an extreme example, but I think if something is True, it will remain True even when taken to its logical extreme.

That's where I say that if we talked more in church about "love" and "honor" and "service", all of which more readily denote "actions benefiting others", and less about "submit", there wouldn't be these kinds of human errors in practical theology.  And there would be less opportunity for the power-mongering among us to exploit those who are trying to apply "submit" to the best of their (dubious) understanding.

I think you and I mean exactly the same thing about God's economy being about the many, with each acting for the good of the others over oneself.  But that is completely not the economy that develops in communities concerned with "submitting" rather than "honoring" or some better-fitting term.  I say that the church has got so hung up over pounding the square pegs of its jargon into the round holes of our common understanding, that it has long ago lost sight of the underlying great Truth.

Love in Fundamentalism III: It's Not Just Semantics. Vocabulary Matters

[commenter] Let's not throw out the truth because it's been corrupted, but rather eschew the lie, reclaim the truth for what it is and live it out as best we can.

  

I think this comment actually hit the nail on the head, but I take issue with the terminology we use to describe the Truth.  The Truth is that Love wants what is best for the other person in the relationship; in fact the best action Love can take will ultimately be the best for both partners.  In fact, quite often, I think submission might actually be the best term to describe the action that Love takes.  But I refuse to limit Love's actions to submission when there are so many examples of when submission will not result in personal growth for one or the other partner in the relationship.

I think a lot of what I so viscerally oppose in evangelical, fundamentalist theology is that there is such a strong Truth buried in the dogma but it gets lost in the wrong-way-round version we are so used to hearing.  The words we say are so emotionally loaded.  We say "submission" in church and we are supposed to think "love in action" but we say "submission" in any other context and we think needing another's approval, always following another's lead, no will of one's one, at the whim of another. How can we not get the issue confused when we are essentially redefining a common English word?

And how often such vocabulary issues happen:  redeem, atone, save, justify. These are the words that come most easily to mind although I remember thinking when I attended church regularly that I really had no idea what most of the hymns were actually saying, or what most preachers meant when they used the church jargon with all its alternate-meaning English.  Frankly, I'm not too sure many preachers are all that clear on what they are talking about because too often use of a word like "submit" ends up supporting ideas like a woman in an abusive relationship must submit to bring her husband around to Christ, or "bringing children up in the Lord" means never letting them be exposed to any ideas except the approved dogma. 

When a Truth gets so distorted through semantics and the sin nature that looks to exploit every power inequity, how are the average churchgoers ever likely to encounter the Truth in the lie?