Sin Boldly

Working on my syllabus this morning I ended up with a preachy bee in my bonnet.

This was the buzz...
Can we as Christians say we proclaim the God of love if we cooperate with and legitimize institutional systems that by their very nature dominate and destroy?

Gee, that's a stupid question. Of course we can. We do it all the time, and it's not even a matter of of being duplicitous or hypocritical.*

Although it's an important question, it assumes one is willing to see their world as a part of that destructive machine. And who wants to do that?

A step must be made before that question can make sense. It's a step that requires the Word of God confronting us intensely in our humanness. The institutional systems of the above question are the perfect idols. They are a kind of perfect sin in that they can remain unexamined because they are often the very foundations of our world. In that they must be confronted, but in that, it's so easy to see them as separate from what we conventionally call sin. If we address them at all, they are often merely the unfortunate exigencies of our fallen world. It's the way it is may mean that these things are morally neutral or, if morally problematic, they are morally problematic in our favor.

In my metaphysical kookiness I say the Spirit confronts us concerning sin, but it's not the confrontation of asking what is correct; is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?

If it is found with that question, it is in the silence of our response.

* Just blinded by the spirit of anti-christ.