What is Sin?

11 Jan, 2025

What is Sin?

Part trois: What’s Sin Got to Do with It?

The main thing about the main thing, is to keep the main thing the main thing.

What’s the main thing?

Most christians, like Rev. Rick Warren, will say that LOVE is the main thing. However, as we have already seen in previous blogs, when we examine church mission statements, LOVE, (especially God’s love) takes a back seat to SIN, even in Pastor Warren’s church. So, with that fact in mind, let’s take a closer look at how important the concept of Sin is in church mission statements.

Got love?

Trinity Lutheran Church in Denver is a great example of the disproportionate amount of times love is mentioned when compared with how often sin is mentioned. In their 2,100-word mission statement, LOVE is mentioned only twice, (in the first paragraph) where they simply quote Mark 12:30-31.

“The Bible has two big commands that God gives us: to love Him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength and to love our neighbors as ourselves. Everything else boils down to those.”  (34 words)

(Quick point: If “everything else boils down” to those two verses, why does Trinity Lutheran feel the need for 2,066 more words? They actually tell us why, but we’ll address that later*.)

Notice that humans are commanded to love God and our neighbor, (whoever that might be). This is something that Rick Warren echoes in chapter 22 of his simple-minded book, The Purpose Driven Life. He says, “Remember it’s all about love – loving God and loving others”. There is no mention of God’s love for humanity anywhere in Trinity Lutheran’s mission statement, nor in chapter 22 of Warren’s book. I think for believers it would be important to include God’s love in the equation, don’t you? (And I don’t mean by simply quoting John 3:16). God’s love should be the main thing, but by neglecting to include, (or even mention) God’s love on one side of the equation, christians are left with an equation that is imbalanced.

 

What you end up with is an uneven justice scale with God’s love on the left and sin on the right.

Sin becomes the main thing.

Got sin?

Trinity Lutheran might have neglected to include God’s love in their mission statement, but they certainly didn’t neglect to mention SIN, which appears 21 times and death 17 times. (These two go hand in hand in christian doctrine.) The ratio of Sin to Love is nearly 10 to 1.

This might lead some to ask, “What exactly is sin?” That’s a good question and fortunately Trinity Lutheran has done us a favor by actually defining it.  They say, “By ‘sin’ we mean every word, thought, and deed against God’s Law.” 

A quick internet search for other definitions of sin, pretty much produced the same result.

  • Sin relates to breaking or violating God’s divine law.
  • Sin is any thought, word, desire, action, or omission of action, contrary to the law of God.
  • Sin is any rebellion against God.
  • Sin is a lack of faith in God
  • Sin consists of acts of rebellion against God and leads to our death.

If you take a close look at these definitions, you will notice that all of them, without exception, say that SIN is something that offends God. This confirms what secularists have been saying for years and what I personally have come to believe since letting go of christianity . Sin is a fabricated concept invented by religions. I’m not an expert in religious studies, but it seems to me that the concept of sin is especially prevalent in monotheistic, Abrahamic religions. Christianity in general and specifically Trinity Lutheran teaches that God’s rules/laws, which are given via the bible, must be obeyed. Any word, deed, thought, action, or inaction that violates God’s divine law is considered as rebellion against God and therefore, constitutes SIN.

SIN is not universal.

Christianity also teaches that “ALL have sinned and fallen short…” and that “the wages of sin is death”. However, secularists, like me, reject that idea. We realize that the concept of sin (i.e. offending a deity) is not universal, which means, it doesn’t apply to everyone. As, I’ve said before, SIN is an artificially fabricated concept invented by religions to control its participants. Many people across the globe, do not believe that the concept of offending a deity applies to them. Me included.

After letting go of christianity, it still took me awhile to wrap my head around this concept. Our status as wretched sinners was reinforced on a regular basis from the pulpit, and much like most church mission statements, our sinfulness was addressed more often than was God’s love. The first time I heard someone (on YouTube) say that SIN is an artificially fabricated concept invented by religions, a figurative light bulb turned on in my head. So, if you are just getting started on your journey of deconversion, let me give you a comparison that might explain the concept better.

I live in Denver, and during the NFL season almost the entire city embraces the boys in Blue and Orange. Devotion to the Denver Broncos borders on a religion in these parts. But that’s also the case in just about any city that has either a college or a professional football team. (If you’ve ever been to a high school football game in Texas, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.) On game day, the television news reminds Bronco fanatics to dress in Blue and Orange. If you want to show your team loyalty, it’s mandatory and not doing so could be considered a sin against the NFL gods and might get you 86ed from your local sports bar.

I no longer consider myself a Bronco fan, (it’s a long story) just like I no longer a consider myself a member of the Jesus Club (also a long story). Funny thing is when I openly admitted that I no longer support the Broncos, I got the same reaction from my sports friends as I did from my church friends when I confessed that I no longer supported christianity. There was a sense that I was committing a betrayal from both groups.

Anyway, the point I’m trying to make is that since I am no longer a Broncos fan, I am no longer obliged to wear blue and orange on game day. (I don’t even own anything blue and orange.) And likewise, since I am no longer a member of the Jesus club, I am no longer obliged to believe in any doctrine that says my behavior offends some deity. If christians want to live under the tyranny of having every word, deed, thought, action, or inaction constantly judged by some distant deity, then they have that right. But to me, it sounds a bit like living in North Korea and I choose not to live like that.

Rejecting the concept of Sin is not rejecting morality.

It’s important to understand what I’m saying, and more importantly, what I’m not saying. Christians often say that by rejecting the concept of sin, secularists and atheists, have no moral base and are just giving themselves a license to sin. They say that atheists feel no guilt, no remorse for wrongdoing and therefore must be amoral. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Renown secularist Phil Zuckerman says this,

“It is said over and over again by religious conservatives: without faith in God, society will fall apart. If we don’t worship God, pray to God, and place God at the central heart of our culture, things will get ugly. For if people turn away from God and stop being religious, then crime will go up, corruption will increase, perversion will percolate, decency will diminish, and all manifestations of misery and malfeasance will predominate. It is an interesting hypothesis. Perpetually-touted. And totally wrong.”

Atheist Dan Barker writes, “Notice that biblical wrongdoing or sin is connected not with real human suffering, (or minimizing harm) but with offending a deity.” 

Defining Secular Morality

Secular morality, often associated with non-religious or atheistic worldviews, derives its principles from human reason, ethics, and humanism rather than divine authority. It emphasizes a foundation in the here and now, centering on the well-being of individuals and society. One of its fundamental tenets is the separation of moral principles from religious beliefs, highlighting that ethics can exist independently of faith.” Freethinkers International 

Love is universal

The main objective of this blog is to question why christian churches focus more on SIN then on God’s Love. As we have seen, Sin is not universal. Love, on the other hand, is universal. It’s been said that “Love is the universal language that transcends countries, borders, barriers, and differences.” It doesn’t matter the color of your skin, or where you live. It doesn’t matter if you’re rich or poor, gay or straight. Theists of all different religions experience love. Atheists experience love as well. Conservatives and Liberals both experience love. So, why is LOVE so noticeably lacking in church mission statements? God only knows. (Pun intended.)  Perhaps I should be thankful. If christian churches talked more about God’s love and less about our wretched sinfulness, I’d have to find something else to write about.

After thought

According to Trinity Lutheran’s website, their mission statement is rather lengthy (2,100 words) because they are a confessional church. And what exactly does that mean? We’re in luck, because they are going to tell us.

*What is a Confessional Church?

“A confessional church is a church that clearly tells you what it believes and teaches and does. Many churches do not have a confession of faith, or if they do have a faith statement, it’s not very long or very clear. So, you never know what you’re going to get. At Trinity what you see is what you get. What we believe drives what we say and what we do, and you can see for yourself what we believe.”

Coming Next

We’ll explore the pros and cons of being a confessional church in the next blog. We find out pretty clearly who is and who is not welcome at their church. We’ll also take a deeper look into the beliefs of Lutheranism and the teachings of Martin Luther. Boy, is that an open can of worms. We will be exploring the controversial writings of Martin Luther, including his 50,000-word essay The Jews and Their Lies, where he writes, “Therefore be on your guard against the Jews, knowing that wherever they have their synagogues, nothing is found but a den of devils in which sheer self-glory, conceit, lies, blasphemy, and defaming of God and men are practiced most maliciously and veheming his eyes on them. We should toss out these lazy rogues by the seat of their pants and then eject them forever from this country. (Germany)

Prepare yourself, it’s gonna be a bumpy ride.

 

From Where I Stand

Dale Crum