Sin

For the past few months I have been doing my second tour of duty in a Christian Church in Iowa. I spent a few years in central Iowa in the mid 1970’s. I love Iowa. Though I grew up in Kentucky and love the bluegrass state, I have always seen Iowa as a second home. I have been away too long.

It was first Sunday in worship at the church that I was reminded of why I love Iowa. It is the Iowans. I just love these people. They are down to earth and real. The BS factor must be at a national low in Iowa. I’m thinking the BS factor pegs the needle on the right and left coasts and almost fails to register in the Midwest. That is probably one of the reasons why Coasters tend to look down on those of us from the central states. They just don’t get us. Real doesn’t make sense to them. Phony, talking in circles, never really telling the truth; that makes sense to them. It is their way of life. The way they seem to do business. So I can see how the straight forward, no nonsense approach of true Midwesterners is totally alien to the Coasters.

I was surprised in that first worship service when we repeated The Lord’s Prayer. I was not surprised that we said the prayer. It was the content of the prayer that shocked me. Well, really, just one word. “Sin”. We said sin. When we got to the “forgive our trespasses” part, we said “sin”. I had spent the past 25 years in the northern Kentucky – southern Ohio area of the country and that was “trespasses” territory. No matter the religious group one found him or herself in, when the Lord’s Prayer was recited, everyone used trespasses. I have been in groups that inserted the words “debts and debtors” instead of “trespass and trespasses” in the prayer. But leave it to Iowans to go to the heart of the matter, to call a spade a spade, to peel off the veneer and call it what it is. Sin. It’s like, if we are going to say the Lord’s Prayer, let’s cut the crap and just tell it like it is. And sin is just sin.

If you have been paying attention, you may have noticed that sin is a word that has fled our collective vocabulary. It is not only unpopular, it is just never spoken. It has become offensive. How dare you tell me that my behavior is wrong, much less, having the nerve to call it a sin. Shame on you. You are the bad person because you are negative and judgmental. Calling out bad behavior, much less calling such behavior a sin, has become the ultimate in bad behavior. The worst thing one can possibly be is judgmental. Nice is good. Judgmental is bad. Of course, we are all making judgments all the time. We judge when we decide what products we will purchase, who we will hang out with, who we will date or marry, who would or would not make a good employee, who will be an acquaintance or be a close and trusted friend, and the list could go on. We only get uptight about this judgment thing when it comes to naming a sin a sin. Then we fly off in all directions.

Several years ago the noted psychologist Karl Menninger wrote a book with the title, Whatever Happened to Sin? Even as a not so religious psychologist he realized that failing to acknowledge sin in our lives took away the incentive and ability to address and change some very unhealthy behaviors. Menninger was right on target. Because we have lost the ability, the insight, the understanding (morality) and the courage to call a sin a sin, we have also lost a powerful tool to help ourselves and others make some necessary changes in our lives and our lifestyles that could help bring improved mental, spiritual and physical health. If we can’t or won’t come to grips with the truth that our behavior is wrong and detrimental to ourselves and others, our chances of improving that behavior is just about nil.

So, perhaps it is time for the rest of us to join these wonderfully straight-forward and honest Iowans and start calling a sin a sin. Just a thought.

Copyright © 2012, William T. McConnell, All Rights Reserved