{"id":33145,"date":"2015-04-02T21:46:17","date_gmt":"2015-04-03T02:46:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=33145"},"modified":"2015-04-02T21:46:17","modified_gmt":"2015-04-03T02:46:17","slug":"sin-youre-doing-it-wrong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2015\/04\/sin-youre-doing-it-wrong\/","title":{"rendered":"Sin: You’re Doing it Wrong"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Romans<\/a>Religion isn\u2019t about sin.<\/p>\n

Thinking that religion is about sinning (or not sinning) is like thinking basketball is about fouls. You should stop fouling but you can’t make the game be about fouls. That’s an impossible way to play basketball.<\/p>\n

And, more, it\u2019s an impossible\u00a0way to be religious.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

But once sin claims\u00a0center stage and starts hogging all the light,\u00a0everything else gets\u00a0murky: love, grace, law, faith, etc. Sin distorts them.<\/p>\n

As a sinner, though, this\u00a0is\u00a0natural. Sin thinks everything is about itself. And so, since I\u2019m a sinner, it comes\u00a0natural to me to think that religion is about sin.<\/p>\n

But the truth is that not even sin is about sin<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Recognizing this is an important part of my being saved from sin.<\/p>\n

Sin isn’t about sin.<\/p>\n

Sin is about grace.<\/p>\n

Grace is a name for what God is trying to freely give me. And what God is trying to give me (even right now) is the world itself\u2014especially as the world is always imposing itself on me, always pressing in on me through the doors of my senses, through the doors of my heart, through the doors of my mind.<\/p>\n

No doubt, this is a lot to be given. And so much of it is more (or other) than what I want.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s no wonder that, as a sinner, I flinch at these gifts and run. It\u2019s no wonder I\u2019m in full flight from God\u2019s grace.<\/p>\n

But sin, when it bothers to consider\u00a0grace, always starts from itself. And then, distorted by this inversion, sin\u00a0understands grace as\u00a0a name for God\u2019s response to its own\u00a0sinfulness.<\/p>\n

Now,\u00a0once we\u2019ve come this far\u2014once we’ve agreed that grace is about\u00a0sin\u2014we\u2019re all set up for the classic Mormon\/Protestant debate!<\/p>\n

It goes like this: Is grace God\u2019s limited (works dependent) response to sin<\/em>\u00a0or is grace God\u2019s unlimited (works independent) response to sin<\/em>?<\/p>\n

But this whole \u201cworks vs. grace\u201d debate takes sin itself as the undisputed starting point! We’ve all agreed from the start\u2014Mormon and Protestant alike\u2014that grace is about sin!\u00a0No wonder we run each other in circles.<\/p>\n

This is part of what makes Paul\u2019s letter to the Romans so important. There, Paul makes (among others) two crucial points\u00a0about grace and sin:<\/p>\n

(1) In Romans chapter 1, Paul argues that sin is a\u00a0response to God\u2019s grace. Grace comes first, sin comes second. Paul\u00a0characterizes sin as\u00a0a rejection or \u201csuppression\u201d of God\u2019s grace as it is already and undeniably manifest in the gift of\u00a0the created world.<\/p>\n

(2) In Romans 3-7 (but especially in chapter 7), Paul offers a kind of reductio ad absurdum<\/em> in which he demonstrates the absurdities that follow when we try to think about God\u2019s law (or our own works) starting from the perspective of sin. Sin, works, and law can<\/em> all be understood if we start from the perspective of grace. But all of them become\u00a0hopelessly confused\u00a0if we start from the assumption that they are all about sin.<\/p>\n

Let’s take an Easter cue from Paul.<\/p>\n

Sin is real and sin is a problem, but religion is not about sin.<\/p>\n

The law is not about sin. Works are not about sin. God is not about sin. Not even sin is about sin.<\/p>\n

Everything is about grace.<\/p>\n

Religion is about grace. The law is about grace. Works are about grace. Sin is about grace. God himself is about grace.<\/p>\n

This is the good news.<\/p>\n

Happy Easter!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Religion isn\u2019t about sin. Thinking that religion is about sinning (or not sinning) is like thinking basketball is about fouls. You should stop fouling but you can’t make the game be about fouls. That’s an impossible way to play basketball. And, more, it\u2019s an impossible\u00a0way to be religious.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":135,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-politics"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/135"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33145"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33158,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33145\/revisions\/33158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}