How to Talk about Sin...

It has been argued lately that people don't like to talk about sin anymore, especially their own. It's quite possible that many, in fact, seriously question the usefulness of such a term, as if there were an authority to proclaim what is and is not sin.

Christian evangelists, faced with this (post?)modern mindset, consider this a significant problem as they try diligently to find an appropriate way to demonstrate the need for and effectiveness of Jesus' work. Put simply, how do you tell someone that Jesus has saved them from their sins if they either believe that sin is non-existent or, worse, arbitrarily defined?

I've begun to think that the way forward may actually be through a very different avenue. Rather than speaking of Jesus' work and ministry as one in which he came to save a world of desperate individuals, it may be more productive to speak of Jesus' ministry as a work for the benefit of humankind on the whole, which certainly encompasses the individual.

Whether convinced of their own sinfulness or not, most will agree that much of the rest of the world is in serious need of more than a little help. An old article from US News & World Report cites a study that demonstrates that while most people consider themselves positively, they simultaneously carry a rather bleak outlook toward the rest of the world: "Rich, poor, black, white, young, old - virtually all groups of Americans simultaneously hold sanguine views of themselves and pessimistic appraisals of others. One poll of university professors, for example, found that 94 percent of them thought that they were better at their job than was their average colleague" (David Whitman, "I'm OK, You're Not," US News & World Report 121, no. 24 [16 Dec 1996], 26; quoted in Marva J Dawn, Is It a Lost Cause?: Having the Heart of God for the Church's Children [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997], 28).

It may, then, be quite easy to have someone agree with you that, yes, the world is in a heap of trouble. It is from there that the story of God's work of restoration and redemption through Jesus may be told afresh to an ear that may be willing to listen.