It seems counterintuitive that there would be so many different ways of dealing with sin among Christians. If you found one of the last remaining uncontacted civilizations in our world, and started to honestly explain, not only Christianity, but Christendom to them, the last thing that would occur to them is that we would all have our own ways of handling sin.
You would think, that if we have a whole system of beliefs built around the mechanisms of resolving our evil deeds to our purely good Creator, that those mechanisms would be somewhat uniform. It turns out though, that for various reasons, we have dozens of ways to deal with sin.
So here is our question for our representative group of Christians: “What is the most accurate truism about vice?”
Liberal Mainline: “Very little, if anything, of what is called a vice is actually a sin.” This is a bit of an odd question. A liberal can easily give another answer and still be a liberal. However, if you give this answer, or anything remotely like it, you are almost guaranteed to be a liberal. It’s a fact of life that our liberal friends just don’t like to call out sin. They do like to call out esoteric blame on any arbitrary nation or race or whatever large group happens to be in their sights. The degree to which a person fits into this category determines how large and esoteric that group must be.
It is, however, a reasonable general rule that a sin must be a part of a group vice in order for a liberal to call it out as such. Polluters, war-mongers, and misers are among their favorite targets. That is convenient for a number of reasons. Either the offenders are everyone, or they are practically no one. Either there is practically nothing that can be done about the vice, or there is nothing to be done about it. No matter what, there is simply nothing practical about the sin.
That is what turns most of the other cosmologies against Liberal Mainlines. They tend to be intensely passionate about these things that no one around them can do anything about. It is frustrating to anyone of a cosmology that believes in confronting and stopping sin, which incidentally, is most of them.
The trick though, is that all of this is simply misdirection. The question was about vice in the vernacular sense of the word. Drinking, smoking, sexual vice, and anything else you can think of that most of us commit every day simply don’t show up on the Liberal Mainline radar. They catch a lot of flack for this, but their particular attention to mob vice has its place. In the Old Testament, Israel was consistently punished for the sins of Israel, and not any particular Israelite. It is a foregone conclusion that the crimes of a group will be worse than any particular member of the group is willing to commit. Therefore, in a properly balanced community, there will always be some subset that is willing to look at us as a whole, and show us what we do that is unbearable. It is a tough job, but the Almighty seems to reward them with a great sense of accomplishment for their sufferings.
Conservative Mainline: “Never trust a man without a vice.” It’s quaint that a quote by Mark Twain would end up as the truism for a group of Christians. That is a particularly fascinating subject for me, which I will cover sometime in my advanced series on cosmology. It deals with the pervasiveness of the overarching Christian cosmology into Atheist thought.
The crux in understanding this answer is in knowing a large group of Conservative Mainlines. They will each have a glaring and open vice. Some smoke. Some drink. Some over eat. Some have a guilty pleasure in a fascination with a trashy pop culture phenomenon. No matter what it is, it is fairly open, and fairly harmless, in that it might kill them, but only very slowly. They wear it on their sleeve, and may or may not get gentile ribbing about it. If you watch carefully, you will notice one or two that show no outward signs of a vice. You will then note, that they are always at arms length from the rest of the group. The ones without vice are the ones that everyone suspects of having the worst vices.
The Conservative Mainlines have quietly accepted that we are all sinners, and have left us all to resolve it with our Maker on our own. It is truly the most judgment free of all of the cosmologies. However, if your vice is unknown, then there is no telling what depravity you’ve sunk to, and the imagination runs wild, causing a silent, and often subconscious stigma about you.
The vice eventually comes to the surface. Often it reveals that the person was fundamentally flawed in a way that is hard for the community to deal with. Sometimes the community can overcome the issue and deal with it. Sometimes it simply is not strong enough. I suppose that the fear of being discovered as too spiritually weak to deal with a problem is what really stigmatizes the poor soul from before his problem is even discovered. It is a lonely life being a man without a vice. That is why most of us choose two or three favorites just to be on the safe side.
Megachurch: “Vices are a private matter to be dealt with in very small groups, if at all.” Megachurchers tend to run from sin. I have never personally met one that had the stomach to deal with it on any real level. At best they’ll give a rare condemnation from afar, but in general they feel physical pain at the thought of dealing with it. That is why the few rare Megachurch pastors that convict, only do so on very serious issues that do not openly exist in their congregations (read: sexual vice).
I have seen them gang up on someone from the safety of a clique like a group of so many snotty high school girls, but even that is rare. Megachurchers tend to be that guy with the hidden vice. A great deal of the time, the vice isn’t even all that pervasive. They just have trouble dealing with it for whatever reason.
That is why these groups scatter so readily when their leader falls. In order for someone so influential to be broken, the scandal must be spectacular. Typical human hypocrisy takes over, and the congregation scolds the former leader just long enough to distract themselves from their own issues, then they make their escape from all of the painful reminders.
This is one of the few behaviors we will discuss today that has no place in a healthy community.
Calvinist: “Vices are punished duly by the Lord.” GKC once said that moderate strength shows itself with force, while ultimate strength shows itself with levity. The intense sort of Calvinist that we are talking about here has not come to terms with this truth. They are still on the rewards-and-punishments system, and they don’t see a great need for anyone to be rewarded.
To their credit, these sorts of Calvinists are just as ruthless with themselves as they are with everyone else. They are second only to Ascetics in their fervor to drive out vice from themselves, and their example is a healthy part of any community. They do, however, have a couple of flaws that simply cannot go unexamined.
First, the myth that Calvinists believe in a “Strong God.” really falls apart with their treatment of vice. As I said earlier, it is only moderate strength that shows itself with force. Secondly, Calvinists have a paralyzing fear of helping someone who is down and out. They feel that they would be interfering with God’s will if they alleviated a punishment that he was delivering to someone. This betrays how much stronger they think themselves than their Maker.
When Franklin invented the lightning rod, there was a fervor among his Christian peers because they thought that lightning was the hand of God delivering punishment, and that Franklin was stopping that. It was common practice to not stop a house from burning when it was struck by lightning. Now I respect Franklin as much as any red blooded American should, but I do not think that he could stop the will of my Creator by putting a metal pole in the ground.
Charismatic: “Vices should be eradicated by any means possible.” Charismatic groups tend to have a two pronged approach to sin. First, they deal with any issues within their group themselves. This accomplishes a number of tasks. The most important of those being that they get to hush up any scandal before it makes it to the rest of the world as a blight on them. Charismatics tend to be meticulous about vice. They have an insatiable appetite to eradicate it among themselves, and among the rest of us. Those of us unfortunate enough to not yet be a part of their inner circle must be dealt with through the law.
Charismatics, more so than any other group are willing to use the laws of man for their own purposes. Anything that can be used to bend your will to their ideals is a good thing. I am a major opponent of blue laws, so you can guess that this facet earns a great deal of ire from me.
These groups earnestly hate the sin, which is commendable. They don’t hate the sinner either, which is rare among non-charismatics. The problem is that they usually come off as indifferent towards the sinner. His thoughts, and soul are given very little consideration. The only drive is to eradicate the sin. More often than not, this has the effect of pulling out the knife before the paramedics arrive. People simply find ways to hide their brokenness from these communities rather than face and fix the problems. Often, this leads to issues that aren’t even real sins becoming very dangerous to the soul.
Ascetic: “Most vices can be eliminated if you shun the world completely. The few that remain to an isolated soul must be removed through constant effort and prayer.” This is a major requirement for an ascetic. Without agreement to this, you simply aren’t one of their kind. The ascetic shuts off the trivialities of the outside world so that he can work on the real problems in his soul. Once the process is complete, he emerges from isolation to give back to the group that supported him through his trials.
The premise is, that many of what the Catholics call “venial sins” are trivialities that result from more deep seated problems with the soul. To battle against them is to play the devil’s game of whack-a-mole. Instead, cut yourself off from any temptation for these things. With no people around to gossip about, and no possessions around to covet, and no food to be a glutton over, the real problems with your soul surface quickly.
It is an admirable role model to the community. Many of the original ascetics were local heroes to their communities. The modern ascetic never seems to quite commit to this plan enough though. I have known a few that were admirable, and that I wish to emulate, but all were a shadow of St. Alexander at best.
A healthy gathering of such people, in all stages of their journey is a good example for everyone once they are confronted with their most damning flaws. We are all shown the things that are keeping us from the Almighty. The ascetic simply wishes to accelerate the process.
In ways, that’s noble, and in other ways it’s selfish. We’re not here to quibble over that just yet.
The truth of the matter is, that most of what people think of when they think of vice, is a venial sin at absolute worst. Only a select few are really things that can damage your relationship with the Creator, and even those may not always be sins for all people.
Classical Ascetics were the worst at differentiating the rich tapestry of life from sin. Today, most charismatic groups are the ones that practice the harshest forms of self denial. Most groups shun alcohol. Many shun even more innocuous habits. More than not, the behavior comes off as a way to feel smug and superior to the groups around them. This behavior was expressly forbidden by Paul.
To me, that shows how insidious those types of sin are when compared with your run of the mill vice. You’ll have eternity to be around other souls with the temptation to judge or try to feel superior about. You probably won’t have an endless supply of cigarettes to ruin your new body with.
(note: Special thanks to nicubuntu from openclipart.org for all of the images today)
Hawks: Some people just love a good fight. They love to fight, and they assume that most everyone shares their feelings on the subject. This aberration seems to be most predominant in Megachurchers. It is one of the likely pitfalls for a person who is intensely extroverted.
Conservative Mainline
Liberal Mainline
Megachurch
Calvinist
Charismatic/Cult/Secret Keepers
Ascetic