THE INSISTENCE OF SIN

Much of our Western world denies that sin really exists. One respondent stated:

·       I am convinced that sin does not exist; nor am I tainted with it. Sin is the fearful creation of medieval minds.

I responded:

·       To deny the reality of sin is also to deny the objective reality of guilt and shame. It is like denying that your kitchen is on fire or that you have operable cancer. Such denial might be comforting in the short run, but in the long run, there is a great price to be paid.

Is sin really so tangible. Well, let’s look at one of its common manifestations – the wake produced by guilt. Guilt is so powerful that it has taken us captive. Consequently, humanity can be characterized by our attempt to rationalize away this very disturbing and shaming feeling and has resorted to many techniques to overcome these life-controlling feelings. Here are a few of the ways:

1.    We deny the existence of Sin.

2.    We harden our conscience and insist that morality is relative, just something we create.

3.    We might even deny that we have freewill to convince ourselves that we aren’t culpable.

4.    We give ourselves positive affirmations, even when they contradict the reality of our lives.

5.    We distract, drug, and busy ourselves to avoid sin’s voice.

6.    We go to a psychologist to teach us to love ourselves.

7.    We feverishly seek out accomplishments, power, prestige, and money so that we can tell our guilt/shame feelings that they are lying.

8.    We wear fronts to disguise who we really are.

All of these maneuvers represent a flight from the self, making it impossible to really know ourselves, despite all of our mindfulness meditations. They also testify that we do believe in sin, at least on a subliminal level.

Although these solutions might cover or repress our guilt and shame, they are unable to get at its root – that we are indeed guilty.

However, when we treat sin as if it really exists, we can do something about it. Similarly, when we are willing to acknowledge that our house is on fire, we can take remedial action, if only to call for help.

But what action is necessary to address sin? Well, for starters, we have to admit our wrong, especially to the one we have offended, and to apologize!

Here, however, we run into a predicament. For one thing, we have been denying the reality of sin so long that it is also impossible to face it. It is too damaging to our self-image. How? We have to appear right and virtuous. It’s too painful to appear otherwise.

Besides, if you do not believe in sin, then you do not believe you have anything to apologize for. Okay, you say that you have to apologize to repair a relationship, but if you do not believe you have done anything wrong, you are acting hypocritically if you apologize. Besides, eventually you will be found out.

To deny sin is to deny a critical aspect of our lives and to run from what our conscience wants to tell us. And if we will not listen to ourselves, we will not listen to others either. Ironically, by denying sin, we live as its captives.

DENIAL AND THE REFUSAL TO ACKNOWLEDGE OUR EVIL IMPULSES AND EVEN GOD

We have been bred on the philosophy, “You got to believe in yourself.” However, this belief is like an addiction to porn.

Let me try to explain. In order to believe in ourselves, we have to see ourselves in a favorable way. This means that we have to inflate our self-esteem. How do we do this? We feed ourselves on positive affirmations and deny or suppress the negative.

Once we get the rush of thinking that we are superior, it is hard to let go of it. Instead, we have to continually feed ourselves with positive illusions in order to regain the initial rush. This means we will become increasingly self-deluded as we pursue our mentally induced “high.”

So what? Don’t we need to think highly about ourselves? For one thing, I don’t think that we are able to see the costs of this addiction.

If we fail to see our dark side, we will not be able to stand against its power. And it is powerful. In The Significant Life, attorney George M. Weaver has presented many examples of the power of the dark side – our overwhelming need for positive affirmations:

•                Salvador Dali once said, “The thought of not being recognized [is] unbearable”…Lady Gaga sings, “I live for the applause, applause, applause…the way that you cheer and scream for me.” She adds in another song, “yes we live for the Fame, Doin’ it for the Fame, Cuz we wanna live the life of the rich and famous.” (7)

Writer Gore Vidal had been very transparent about the need – the addiction – to continually prove his superiority:

•                “Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies.” (58)

If we have become addicted to an inflated self-esteem, it is an addiction that always needs to be fed. It is also an addiction of jealousy.

The more we are on the self-inflationary track, to more we will become unable to receive corrective criticism. Why? We have trained ourselves to only see the self-congratulatory messages, not the negative. These bring us down, and we need to be high.

In fact, our antennas become acutely attuned to negative messages. On numerous occasions, when I had stated the simple Biblical statement that we are all evil, people have become very defensive, even aggressive. One husband slammed the table, protesting that his wife “is not a sinner.” She then had to calm him down.

He needed to believe that his wife was superior to others, and he was willing to fight to defend her “honor.” His reaction was extreme but it also reflected the extent we will go to defend our or our family’s superior virtue and worthiness.

In order to resist the power of the evil within, we need to both see it, accept it, and stand against it. Believing in oneself opposes these things. It is a drug that resists any true self-reflection. It also destroys and resists humility.

Scripture often points to our blinding pride – our overriding tendency to think too highly of ourselves. In Jesus’ letters to the churches in the Book of Revelation, we read that those two churches that had the highest regard for themselves were actually the worst:

•                “And to the angel of the church in Sardis write: ‘The words of him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. “‘I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead. Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is about to die…’” (Revelation 3:1-2; ESV)

To the church at Laodicea, He writes:

•                For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. (Revelation 3:17)

These two churches had a high estimation of themselves, but they were asleep and had blinded themselves to their true status before God. They were commanded to “wake up” and to repent of their self-trust.

Refusal to see our dark-side is reflected in so many ways. Recently, I went to a meeting of people with emotional/mental problems. To encourage them, I claimed that we are all damaged merchandise. (I didn't add that we are damaged by sin.)

I was surprised to find that several objected to the very-obvious idea that they are damaged. Some didn't like thinking of themselves this way and actively resisted this idea.

Why? After all, they had joined a group which acknowledged that they had emotional problems. Instead, two charged that I had offended them. One fired back:

·       Speak for yourself. I never gave you the right to speak for me.

I was surprised that I had "personally insulted" him. But why such defensiveness? I had surmised that if he had truly accepted himself, he wouldn't have reacted so strongly.

Instead, his reaction suggested that he was unwilling to confront his sin-damaged self. This refusal would damn him to an unending international struggle to suppress his dark-side, as it would continue to emerge, fighting for the stage. This fight also would inevitably deprive him of peace and rest. Besides, when we refuse to acknowledge this dark-side, we no longer have the ability to keep it from stealing center-stage.

He embraced the secular hope - that we have within us the ability to change and to give ourselves the necessary positive affirmations to fuel our engine of transformation. 

However, I offended him again. I suggested that believing that we have the ability to transform ourselves just puts an extra burden on our shoulders. When we find that we are unable, we feel doubly the failure.

I then concluded that we have, therefore, been created to trust in God to do the heavy transformational lifting.

He quickly informed me that I had broken the rules:

·       You can't talk about God here. Not everybody believes in God. If you want to say that the belief in God or the spaghetti monster works for you, that's okay. But you are not allowed to tell me that God must work for me or anyone else here.

God cannot be allowed to exist because He violates the house rules! I guess that settles it. 

However, this rule comes with a high price-tag. We can only deny our dark-side and its Ultimate Answer but at great cost. It is like buttoning our shirt by starting with the wrong button. Every other button will be out of place.

“I’M SPIRITUAL; I’M NOT RELIGIOUS”

These words serve as the mantra of today’s seekers. It is their “declaration of independence” from organized or established religions. It also represents the expectation of finding spirituality within oneself and not through the preaching or teaching based on an ancient book or tradition.

What then is spirituality? Whatever you want to call it! And nobody can judge you for it as long as you are willing to forgo judgment of others’ spirituality, as long as it is not organized. However, this form of spirituality is also coming out of the seminary.

In his most recent book, The Future of Faith, liberal professor emeritus of the Harvard Divinity School, Harvey Cox, celebrates the shift in Christianity away from fundamentalism and its emphasis on doctrine to “spirituality” and social activism. He favors a doctrine-less faith – a faith we experience and perform, not something we believe. (You might ask, “What beliefs enable us to understand our experience and direct our social activism? This vacuum will be inescapably filled by the beliefs of society.)

Cox suggests that the Biblical revelation is entirely unnecessary. He asserts that one can be a “practicing Christian, but not necessarily a believing one.” This makes the teachings of the Bible irrelevant, and Christianity merely becomes a matter of good deeds, and “salvation” becomes a matter of personal attainment. In describing his liberation from his Baptist roots, he explains:

·       We have been misled for many centuries by the theologians who taught that “faith” consisted in dutifully believing the articles listed in one of the countless creeds they have spun out. (18)

However, Cox’ prime targets are the Biblical teachings themselves, which, according to Cox, are irrelevant:

·       I also became friends with several students who seemed to me to exemplify the Christian life better than some of the taut fundamentalists, although they were not particularly concerned with being doctrinally correct. (16)

For Cox, this constitutes a slam-dunk. But what does it mean to “exemplify the Christian life?” For Jesus, we first have to be set free (John 8:31-32) from the lie before we could step into the light of God:

·       “And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.” (John 3:19-21)

Evil can come in many forms. Perhaps its most dangerous form is self-righteousness, which poses as virtue, even godliness. Therefore, Jesus had warned that the most vicious forms of persecution would come from those who were convinced that they were spiritual:

·       “They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. And they will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor me.” (John 16:2-3)

How can this be? Don’t think for a moment that this was because they were following religion instead of spirituality and God instead of their own inner promptings. About them, Jesus warned that their religion was just a show and that they didn’t even believe the Law of Moses (John 5:44-47). Instead, their religion, spirituality, and social activism were all about themselves so that they could look good in the eyes of the world.

Spiritual pride is a life-controlling, self-righteous, and blinding force. It tells us that we are right even in the face of all the evidence to the contrary:

·       Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the LORD weighs the heart. (Proverbs 21:2; 16:2)

Can finding spirituality within ourselves heal us of such blindness? Instead, our normal tendency is to see the things that we want to see. We believe those things that will make us feel good about ourselves.

The evidence for this is overwhelming. We want to be flattered and surround ourselves with “yes” men, people who will make us feel good about ourselves and not those who will tell us what we need to hear.

Consequently, when the psychotherapist advertises her services, she doesn’t say, “Come to me and learn the truth about yourself.” Instead, she says, “Come to me to reduce your unwanted symptomology.”

Of course, many will object to this characterization, but why? We want to believe that we are really seeking after truth, even though this postmodern culture has rejected the existence of objective spiritual truth. It is offensive to us to think that we are motivated to think pleasant, “spiritual” thoughts about ourselves at the expense of truth thoughts.

Is my assessment valid? Yes! It is even largely affirmed by the psychotherapeutic community.

In Positive Illusions, Psychologist Shelley E. Taylor argues that “normalcy” involves layer upon layer of self-delusion. Nevertheless, she argues that these delusions are necessary and positive:

·       People are positively biased in their assessments of themselves and of their ability to control what goes on around them, as well as in their views of the future. The widespread existence of these biases and the ease with which they can be documented suggests that they are normal.

·       Normal people exaggerate how competent and well liked they are. Depressed people do not. Normal people remember their past behavior with a rosy glow. Depressed people are more even-handed…On virtually every point on which normal people show enhanced self-regard, illusions of control, and unrealistic visions of the future, depressed people fail to show the same biases. (214)

If the “normal” are more self-deluded than the “abnormal,” what should be the therapeutic goal? What represents a therapeutic success story? Learning to see ourselves as we truly are? Not according to Martin L. Gross:

·       “The ideal patient must be suggestible. He should be able to easily absorb dogma and ideas of the most abstract, even outlandish dimension. He should be philosophically adaptable and able to ape the therapist’s value system and biases. The more he agrees with the therapist, the better his chances of being helped. This conditioning process is at the core of all faith healing, magic and religion. Psychologist David Rosenberg checked out the connection between improvement and value-conditioning in psychotherapy. He found that those rated as ‘improved’ had changed their moral values in sex, aggression and authority in the direction of the therapist’s own prejudices. Those who had been rated ‘unimproved’ had tended to hold out.” (The Psychological Society, 48)

We do not gravitate towards truth but to comfort. What does this suggest about finding one’s own spirituality? These findings do not bode well for this pursuit.

Instead, the Bible insists that we must first be changed from Above. But how? By the Spirit working through the Word of God – the very object that many have claimed to be irrelevant!

Jesus repeatedly pointed to the relevance of the Word of God in His final pre-cross teaching and prayer (John 14-17):

It is through Scripture that we love God and enjoy His presence:

·       Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me. (John 14:23-24; 15:6-14)

How are we transformed? Again, by the Spirit applying Scripture to our hearts and minds:

·       Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. (John 15:3)

When Jesus was praying to the Father, He expressed the same truth:

·       Sanctify [cleanse] them in the truth; your word is truth. (John 17:17)

Jesus understood that the truth of Scripture transforms. We cannot perform spiritual surgery on ourselves. This surgery must be performed by God Himself through the truth. Nor can we lift ourselves off the ground. Someone else must do this for us.

This sounds strange to modern/postmodern ears, which tend to regard experiences as transformative, not truths. However, right before this, Jesus had prayed:

·       “But now I am coming to you [Father], and these things I speak [Scripture] in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them your word…”(John 17:13-14)

How can truths or teachings produce joy? As a Zen Buddhist, late psychiatrist and writer, M. Scott Peck, wrote the esteemed best-seller The Road Less Traveled. Fifteen years later, he wrote Further Along the Road Less Traveled to bring us up to date with his spiritual pilgrimage. During these years, Peck observed that his Christian patients were improving. Peck concluded:

·       The quickest way for you to change your attitude toward pain is to accept the fact that everything that happens to us has been designed for our spiritual growth.

·       Now what better news can there be than we cannot lose, we are bound to win? We are guaranteed winners once we realize that everything that happens to us has been designed to teach us what we need to know on our journey.

Peck found that believing these truths proved transformational. Consequently, Peck gave up meditation on his changing inner states in favor of meditation on Scripture.

How do we grow in love? According to Jesus, the Word plays a central role:

·       I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them." (John 17:26; NIV)

How can Jesus’ teachings produce love? When we come to know how beloved and protected we are, we too will love. We will be largely freed from the tyranny of having to seek the approval of others. Freed from their opinions and confident of God’s opinion of us, we no longer have to resent those who do not give us what we want and need. We are freed up enough to begin to look to the needs of others.

However, this is a process:

·       So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you WILL KNOW the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:31-32)

However, this is a painful and humbling process of stripping away the layers of self-righteousness and self-deception, and few are willing to bare it.

Real self-examination (spirituality) is so painful that few can tolerate it. I couldn’t, even after the counsel of five highly-recommended psychologists. Instead, we blanket ourselves with “positive illusions” in favor of true but negative and depressing self-knowledge. We run from the light and anyone who will focus the light upon us and into the comfort of darkness and delusion. However, we run to people who will stroke our self-esteem.

What “positive illusions” do we feed to ourselves? Well, I convinced myself that I was better than others in all regards. Although, deep down, I knew better, I nevertheless believed that I could handle anything. However, this was a drug that required increasingly greater doses to get the high. Meanwhile, my delusions were removing me from reality and from meaningful relationships. When we refuse to see ourselves, we also have blinded ourselves to reality and to others.

How did the truth set me free? It taught me that there was something better than my false spirituality – a Savior who loves, forgives, and gave His life for me. Only with the assurance of His love could I endure His penetrating light.

WHAT A BETRAYAL: Pope Francis and Terror

Why are thousands of faithful Muslims sacrificing all to join ISIS? Why does the Muslim world even speak glowingly of ISIS? Why are other Islamic terrorist groups endorsing ISIS? Perhaps they see in ISIS  the true Islam.

In their propaganda magazine Dabiq, the Islamic State described its vision for humanity:

·       “This is a divinely-warranted war between the Muslim nation and the nations of disbelief… Indeed, waging jihad — spreading the rule of Allah by the sword — is an obligation found in the Quran, the word of our Lord… The blood of the disbelievers is obligatory to spill by default. The command is clear. Kill the disbelievers, as Allah said, ‘Then kill the polytheists wherever you find them.’” https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/did-francis-really-say-catholics-are-as-violent-as-islamic-terrorists

ISIS is correct. This is what the Koran teaches, and the Islamic world knows it. The history of Islam testifies to it, but the West continues to deny it, even the leadership who have been entrusted to protect their people.

Pope Francis was just asked: “What concrete initiatives can you advise or suggest in order to counteract Islamic violence? Thank you, Holiness.”

Francis indirectly admitted that he didn’t have any initiative. Even worse, he argued that such an initiative would be misguided:

·       I don’t like to speak of Islamic violence, because every day, when I browse the newspapers, I see violence, here in Italy … this one who has murdered his girlfriend, another who has murdered the mother-in-law … and these are baptized Catholics! There are violent Catholics! If I speak of Islamic violence, I must speak of Catholic violence ... and no, not all Muslims are violent, not all Catholics are violent. It is like a fruit salad; there’s everything. There are violent persons of this religion … this is true: I believe that in pretty much every religion there is always a small group of fundamentalists. Fundamentalists. We have them. When fundamentalism comes to kill, it can kill with the language… I do not believe it is right to identify Islam with violence…How many young people, how many young people of our Europe, whom we have left empty of ideals, who do not have work … they take drugs, alcohol, or go there to enlist in fundamentalist groups… But this is a fundamentalist group which is called ISIS … but you cannot say, I do not believe, that it is true or right that Islam is terrorist.

Why does Francis deny the obvious – Brussels, Nice, Orlando, San Bernardino, 9/11, sex-attacks all across Europe, and the teachings of the Koran? Certainly the Bible doesn’t teach violent jihad for world conquest. Jesus didn’t behead His enemies. Instead, He died for them. In contrast, Mohammad beheaded whole tribes, taking their wives and daughter as sex-slaves, and Muslims appreciate this fact. Consequently, when the Christian sins, he cannot claim that Jesus led him to do it. Christians do not cry “God is great,” as they slaughter the infidels. While Christ civilizes, Mohammad has provided inspiration for the worst crimes imaginable.

The interviewer again tried to bring the Pope back to his original question, “Your concrete initiatives to counteract terrorism, violence?” Francis again made it clear that he wasn’t going to address Islamic terror and the destruction of his own flock in the Middle East and in North Africa:

·       Terrorism is everywhere. You think of the tribal terrorism of some African countries… Terrorism grows when there are no other options, and when the center of the global economy is the god of money and not the person — men and women — this is already the first terrorism! You have cast out the wonder of creation — man and woman — and you have put money in its place. This is a basic terrorism against all of humanity! Think about it!

I guess we haven’t thought about it long enough as the Pope has. We’re just ignorant.

However, never once would Francis admit what Muslims have been consistently saying about their motivation. According to them, it is all about Islam. Why not listen to them? They know the reasons for their actions, and they are very plain about them. Instead, Francis has blindly and stubbornly invoked his own anti-capitalistic analysis as an explanation for Islamic behaviors. Poor oppressed Muslims, according to him. However, no Muslim has ever stated that he became a terrorist because he needed a job or because of the “oppressive” capitalistic system.

What would Francis say about Nazi terrorism and genocide? Would he also say that pious Catholics do the same thing? I doubt it. Why then the difference. Why is he unwilling to name the problem?

What would have happened if the Western allies thought that Nazism was just a product of oppressive capitalism? Would it have made any difference to offer them jobs? In essence, this is what Neville Chamberlain had done, and this allowed the Nazis to solidify their war machine.

Meanwhile, Christians and other non-Muslims are being raped, kidnapped, forced to convert, and slaughtered by the tens of thousands. Who is guilty? Of course, ISIS and the many other Islamic terroristic associations, but also the Pope and the Western leaders who have been allowing this cancer to metastasize.

Not only that, they have provided a protective shield for Islam. They have under-reported and disguised Islamic terror, and they have either criminalized or marginalized any real reporting about Islam. They have even placed Islamic advisors in top positions to determine policy. They have tied the arms of the FBI and law-enforcement, minimizing their ability to protect those they are being paid to protect. WHAT A BETRAYAL!