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Sin Management
A column by Kevin D. Paulson originally published on GreatControversy.Org on June 10, 2004.
On the evening of February 8, 2004, CNN ran a special report on the spread of marital infidelity in America. Statistics were explored, as were the new circumstances of the modern workplace, where men and women work and socialize together with an ease and frequency not commonly experienced before. Various couples were interviewed who had experienced adultery in their marriage, each of which chronicled the course of their hurt and healing.
But what, for me, stood out most memorably in this television report, was an interview which might have been funny were it not so serious. A woman was interviewed who frankly stated that she believes adultery is inevitable, that nearly no animal species practices lifelong monogamy, and that our natural drives simply make it impossible to be satisfied with just one partner for life. She at one time had herself been married, but claims she just couldn't confine herself to one companion only.
She has therefore concluded that strict marital faithfulness is an unrealistic goal, and that the solution is what she calls “affair management.” She has even written a book by that title, giving men and women guidance as to how to “manage” extramarital relationships. Not surprisingly, her first four rules for having such an affair are, “Don't get caught!”
In the present age of moral laxity and flaunted licentiousness, such thoughts might seem incredibly unsurprising. But what seemed most significant about them is this same woman's frank admission that she believes adultery is wrong. She didn't try defending infidelity from any moral or philosophical standpoint. Nor did she allege that past moral standards should be set aside as outdated. She simply claimed that, human drives being what they are, extramarital straying is inevitable. So we need to learn to live with it, and manage it well.
The Evangelical Dilemma
While this woman didn't use religion or theology as the basis of her ideas, I found myself incapable of distinguishing the practical impact of her views from the salvation theology commonly espoused by evangelical Christianity.
Moral sermonizing from the evangelical/fundamentalist wing of American religion has become a common feature of our nation's social and political dialogue. Seventh-day Adventists appreciate and understand the pain felt by moral conservatives of all faiths, and of none. They recognize the complexity and hazards of finding for oneself, and one's family, the kind of sure moral grounding which seems—at least in retrospect—to have been so much more evident in former times. But the supreme irony posed by conservative Christian moral outrage is the fact that their cherished theology of salvation—the marginalizing of practical holiness which has dominated much of Protestant theology since the aftermath of the Reformation—has long since made room in Christian lives for the very sins now taking the world captive.
Americans remain the most professedly religious people in the industrialized world. Recent surveys have shown that 96 percent of Americans believe in God (1), that nine out of ten claim membership in a religious organization (2), that at least 59 percent claim religion is “very important” in their lives (3), and that four out of ten can be found in church or synagogue at least once a week (4). The newly released film, “The Passion of the Christ,” has attracted more attention and discussion than any Hollywood production of recent times. Television reports and cover articles in news magazines continue unabated their interest and exploration of Jesus, His claims, and His work.
The point here is that while America may indeed be an immoral country, it is not an irreligious one. The onslaughts of science and secular intellectualism against the Bible and Christianity cannot be blamed for the current moral decline. The real problem, I submit, is with popular Christian theology itself.
On the one hand, Bible-believing Christians denounce the moral decay of society all around them. Yet on the other, they continue to proclaim a gospel of effortless salvation which insists that how a “saved” Christian lives cannot cost him his place in heaven. In words strikingly—and sadly—similar to those of the woman on CNN who claimed people can't help committing adultery, one bestselling Christian author has written:
It is our human destiny on earth to be imperfect, incomplete, weak, and mortal, and only by accepting that destiny can we escape the force of gravity and receive grace (5).
For the world to speak of “managing” sin is one thing. For the church to effectively consign itself to such a course is a scandal of unparalleled proportions. Little wonder that former Boston priest Paul Shanley, accused of molesting over 100 boys, claimed in one interview that he didn't make choices between good and evil, only between greater and lesser degrees of evil.
If in fact our human destiny is to remain imperfect, how can the church raise a credible voice against any moral lapse in the human experience? Must the racist, the miserly rich, the quick-tempered, and the sexually immoral all resign themselves to the achievement of something less than full obedience to God? Must the pedophile priests, whose crimes against children have brought fresh shame to the Christian cause, likewise surrender to this persistent evil? If our frail best is all God asks for, if imperfection is the destined earthly lot of the Christian, just how much less than perfect will God permit us to be? And if imperfection is truly inevitable, must the church mute its condemnation of any moral failure, since the failure in question might well be part of the “destined imperfection” such a one is doomed to live with?
Adventists Confront the Evangelical Dilemma
Many have rightly noted that the more the church emulates the world, the more it suffers the world's problems.
With growing frequency we hear Adventists acknowledging the presence within the church of society's moral afflictions—pastoral adultery (6), addictions of various kinds (7), eating disorders (8), and others. The extent to which the church is plagued by these problems, in comparison with the larger world, might perhaps be argued. Certainly few can properly question the need to frankly address these shortcomings, though many might still be uncomfortable hearing about them.
But what disturbs the thoughtful observer in contemporary Adventism is not the candid admission of problems, but the popular salvation theology that has so weakened the moral clarity of their church's witness. Admitting we are sinners—even if the sins are embarrassing—is necessary and appropriate. But to simultaneously insist that sin is unconquerable, even through God's imparted strength, conveys to every discussion of wrongdoing a presupposed understanding that such wrongs will always be with us. Like the woman on CNN, who spoke of “affair management,” we will be forced to acclimate ourselves to “sin management.”
A Better Way
To those wrestling with addictive practices, to those whose strayings have shattered the trust of loved ones, God offers a better way.
To the adulterous woman thrown at His feet, the Master declared, “Neither do I condemn thee; go, and sin no more” (John 8:11). To the early church the apostle Paul wrote: “Awake to righteousness, and sin not” (1 Corinthians 15:34). “Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God” (2 Corinthians 7:1). “And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thessalonians 5:23).
Even on the CNN special, one student of human behavior described the difference in the human brain between the cortex, where right and wrong are distinguished, and the animal nature which growls for attention. It was then observed that while the animal nature may growl, it cannot force the will. Of course, the student of God's Word understands that unless the power of God is claimed by the human agent through conversion, the animal nature will in time assert its supremacy, and the option of “sin management” will be all one is left with. Jesus understood this when He stated, “Without Me ye can do nothing” (John 15:5). But how we may praise God for the other, most glorious facet of this great truth: “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” (Philippians 4:13).
While Scripture was not mentioned on the CNN program, other than to cite the commandment against adultery, one couldn't help recalling the apostle Paul's statement: “But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway” (1 Corinthians 9:27). Ellen White, in a detailed description of the conflict between lower and higher forces in man's nature, observes:
The lower passions have their seat in the body and work through it. The words “flesh” or “fleshly” or “carnal lusts” embrace the lower, corrupt nature; the flesh of itself cannot act contrary to the will of God. We are commanded to crucify the flesh, with the affections and lusts…. The corrupt thought is to be expelled. Every thought is to be brought into captivity to Jesus Christ. All animal propensities are to be subjected to the higher powers of the soul (9).
May Seventh-day Adventists recover once more the liberating truth that sin is not to be managed, but through heaven's power expelled from the Christian's life.
References
- “Divining the God Factor,” U.S. News & World Report, Oct. 23, 2000, p. 22.
- Survey conducted by City University of New York, reported in the San Bernardino Sun, April 10, 1991, pp. A1, A14.
- Karen S. Peterson, “Poll: 59% call religion important,” USA Today, April 1-3, 1994, p. A1.
- Survey reported by Bruce Morton on CNN's “Inside Politics,” Feb. 27, 2000; see also “Hollywood vs. America, interview with Michael Medved,” Christianity Today, March 8, 1993, pp. 21-25.
- Philip Yancey, What's So Amazing About Grace? (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1997), p. 273.
- Bill Knott & Bonita Joyner Shields, “Unfaithful: When Shepherds Become Wolves,” Adventist Review, Feb. 27, 2003, pp. 8-10.
- “Adventists and Addiction” (special issue), Adventist Review, July 31, 2003.
- Amanda Sauder, “A Picture of Health?” Adventist Review, Feb. 19, 2004, pp. 8-12.
- Ellen G. White, Adventist Home, pp. 127-128.
