Sin vs. Guilt

 

Let me rant.

I suspected trouble when the handout for the session said that Jesus’s crucifixion justified us, and “justified” meant “just as if I’d never sinned.”

Typical of the day; perhaps of the human condition. Everyone is looking for a “get out of jail free” card.

So I can sin all I want, because I’m a Christian? What is purgatory all about? Why does the priest assign a penance after confession?

This was clearly the common modern “happy happy joy joy” Christianity. Self-centred materialism cloaking itself in the mantle of Christianity. As seems to have taken over all the churches. 

To this form of “feel good” religion, the problem is not sin. No, it is feeling guilty. 

It follows that we must not condemn sin in another. That might damage their self-esteem.

Someone asked, “what if I still feel unresolved anger towards someone?” And the response was not spiritual advice; it was to see a therapist. 

Therapy exists as a replacement for religion. Therapy refuses to recognize sin or morality.

Defining “sin,” the group leader cited Iron Man and Captain America as his text. Iron Man was about satisfying his desires. Captain America was about duty. And the proper path was to reconcile the two, and achieve both.

So you sin if you do your duty, and forget your own desires. You do what is right so long as it is in accord with what you want to do.

The issue of sex outside of marriage inevitably came up. It was important, no doubt, to raise it in order to dispel any sense of false guilt. One participant noted that it was unselfish, as it harmed no one.

General assent.

Another participant chimed in that marriage existed to protect women, it was a civil contrast, really. And adultery was considered perfectly okay until Christianity stepped in.

The chilling thing is that neither of these assertions take the slightest thought for the welfare of children. By the nature of the sex act, they are liable to be involved. Modern man clearly has contempt for children.

Not that casual sex has no other victims. It reduces the partner to a means, not an end. The essence of immorality, as Kant pointed out.

It is also worth noting, as I did at the meeting, that adultery was punishable by death in many non-Christian societies.

The group leader explained that sin was simply “missing the mark,” like an arrow missing its target.

I have heard this as a Muslim concept of sin. But it is not the Christian concept. The Catholic concept of grave (mortal) sin requires a willful turning away from what we know we should do. We must be conscious of the gravity of the matter, fully in control  of our actions, and do it anyway.

CCC para 1857 “For a sin to be mortal, three conditions must together be met: ‘Mortal sin is sin whose object is grave matter and which is also committed with full knowledge and deliberate consent.’"

It is not missing the mark. It is firing in the opposite direction.

And it certainly beggars the conscience to maintain that Hitler or Mengele were perfectly decent, well-intentioned fellows, but just made an oopsie.

This is an effort to excuse sin.

Tied to this, the group leader of course stressed the need to forgive; representing this as Christ’s way. 

He, and the group, deliberately ignored Jesus’s requirement that the guilty party admit guilt. So that the imperative was, in fact, to endorse sin.

“If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.”

Jesus did not even accept an apology and admission of guilt, if he felt it was not sincere: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.”

The cruelty here is unspeakable: telling someone who has been grievously wronged that they are in the wrong for not forgiving, rather than commiserating with them. It traps them in a cycle of abuse. Picture someone punching you in the face repeatedly, each time demanding you forgive him, then punching you again.

It is perfect pharisaism. Every religion will be infested with pharisaism, a desperate attempt to invert its message, by evildoers.