Questions before Answers?
A post below considers how to evangelize in the age of technology. In this post here, I would like to consider a somewhat different topic. Communicating the truth of Christianity, in my view, depends not first upon convincing people that it has the right answer, but rather upon convincing them that it is asking the right question.
Christianity’s central question is “How can I/we escape the bonds of sin and death?” Jesus Christ, the way, the truth, the life, offers the answer to this question. The Christian idea of “salvation” is wrapped up in the answer to this question.
As Archbishop Joseph Di Noia rightly observed in his book The Diversity of Religions: A Christian Perspective, other major world religions do not have the same question. The central issue for Buddhism is how to limit and ultimately escape suffering. One website I consulted, in fact, describes the Four Noble Truths as “a contingency plan for dealing with the suffering humanity faces –suffering of a physical kind or a mental nature.” Christianity, in contrast, does not give suffering such a central place in its framework–suffering is not something to be directly avoided or minimized–in fact, there is a long spiritual tradition of encouraging those in physical or mental pain to join their suffering to that of the crucified Christ.
I suspect that one of the challenges that Christianity faces in evangelizing today is to convince people that it has the right questions. Do people see sin as their basic, existential problem? Do people in the West long for eternal life? Or do they think the problem of suffering is more pressing?
Thanks, Cathy, for raising the critical issues. You have come a long way from Ropes & Grey. As someone coming from a long stint at Sullivan & Cromwell and Cadwalader, I may be especially aware of your wonderful transition. Anyway, Jesus was human and feared pain, as his request to let “this cup pass” attests. But his selfless and hopeful surrender on Calvary to God the Father’s plan set the example for all Christians. Another important question is how did we move from the loving and humble Jesus as the “answer”, to such a harsh and punitive hierarchical church, I am not sure you will find the answer in my Providence College classmate, Joseph di Noia’s writings. He sold his independent academic patrimony for a career with Ratzinger and his current cult ideology, so his writings must be consulted with special care.
At mass this weekend, Father told the congregation ‘Half of you haven’t been to confession in twenty years” and warned them about not having the “wedding garment.
Almost everyone joyfully sang, shared peace and went to Communion.
Should the question be grounded in Matthew 25?
In another thread I noted Valerie Schulkz’s article in the new America where she talks abou tlistening to young people as they tick off all the problems they have with the Church today.
It’s not that they are concerned about avoiding suffering.
To evangelize iMO we need to demonstrate the message of Jesus who paul tells us emptied himself even to the point of death.
I think that message is not being heard by many at least from the altars or from on high in our church.
Blaming many who don’t want to listen isn’t just phrasing the issue properly but framing an answer that fits.
Cathy: Do we need that “or” in your last question? Might a good number not have all three questions?
Bob, the “avoidance of suffering” is the minimization of other people’s suffering too. Valerie Schultz’s article is very interesting to me–and is connected to this question, I think. As I read it, I think the problem is that some of these young people think the church is contributing to suffering–and injustice. The cultic aspects of Catholicism, associated with finding personal salvation and eternal life (e.g.., your confession sermon) aren’t the most pressing for them.
Joe, I think there may be a tension here that I’m not willing to resolve too easily. So I’m not willing to eliminate the “or” quite yet.
So far as I can tell, the prevailing intellectual climate, at least in the U. S., has little space for any serious conception of sin. People have problems that they have to cope with, but these problems are not construed as sins. They may be violations of civil law or of sensible ways of dealing with health or money or whatever, but they are not “sins.” The review in yesterday’s NY Times of Steven Pinker’s new book by Peter Singer gives one version of the prevailing climate. Other, less sophisticated versions show up in columnists, commentators, etc.
This issue of sin strikes me as crucial for Christian pedagogy. How else can we make sense of things like Paul/s Letter to the Romans? But how do we persuade others that they should pay attention to this “countercultural” conception is far from obvious to me.
I once read that JPII said we make our own hells. This observation seems to tie in with Bernard Dauenhauer’s reference to “violations of civil law or of sensible ways of dealing with health or money or whatever”.
Within this framework, sin is simply behaving stupidly, i.e., in ways that a sound morality would counsel us to avoid doing. If a healthy moral system is ultimately predicated on our Catholic/Christian religious heritage, it is based on the teachings of Jesus, Son of God, our Creator who knows what’s best for us in living a healthy human life.
People are tired of rules. Bishops preached the rules — but broke many of them for the supposed good of the institution. Government preaches the rules — but lets Wall Street profit from their violation. And in each one of these scenarios, the rest of us get screwed, and the scofflaws go free — and to better temporal situations in life, no less!
Sin = Stupidity
St. Thomas has something to say I this issue:
Sixth Article: Whether pain has the nature of evil more than fault has?
“On the contrary, a wise workman chooses a less evil in order to prevent a greater, as the surgeon cuts off a limb to save whole body. But divine wisdom inflicts pain to prevent fault. Therefore fault is a greater evil than pain.”
Considering the fact that modern relativism denies the very idea of “fault” (or the divine wisdom, for that matter) the only secular, “neutral” approach is the elimination of pain at all cost – even if they ignores the relation of pain, fault and salvation.
Modern sentimentality and good intentions ignore fault (sin) and eliminates pain– it ignores the reality of human nature and, in the long run, creates far greater trouble/pain/sin than it alleviated.
Or as Flannery O’Connor would say: the modern wants salvation as much as the religious, yet they simply ignore (or are ignorant of) the price of salvation.
“Something for nothing” is our motto today.
Christian theology sometimes divides the question of salvation into matters of justification and sanctification, with the former having something of a binary character, and the latter something of a developmental or growth character. It strikes me that questions related to the former are less interesting to many people today, whereas those related to the latter remain of deep concern. We are less interested in negotiating some new status before God (saved vs. not saved), as we are in asking how might we better become like God, how better to love as God loves. This latter question always results in answers that must be tentative for sanctification is an ongoing process that admits of both success and failure.
When my students ask me if I am saved, I answer, “Beats me.”
Joe: “This latter question always results in answers that must be tentative for sanctification is an ongoing process that admits of both success and failure.”
This question of “pain and fault” is not a static one – it is not a immovable “binary” but is the very ongoing process that you attribute to sanctification.
It is only static if we ignore one of the components: if we ignore fault and focus only on pain we do not change, or vice-versa.
Cathy,
thanks for recognizing that the thrust of my post below was not Mr. Jobs, but rather what is our hope and does technology satisfy it.
On that score, do not the questions you rightly privilege concern not merely what our predicament is and how to escape it, but what can we hope for and what is the basis of that hope?
In short, the question: “de beata vita.”
People still fear death as life goes on (and on, in some cases) but they don’t experience it as the awesome, sometimes equalizing, force of nature it used to be until quite recently. In this, our experience in the Western world may be somewhat different, but an awful lot of disease and disruption has been effectively placated. Steve Jobs is himself an example. If he had a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer in 2004, to be alive in 2011 suggests that medical intervention was not just available, but timely and extremely successful. Most people with that diagnosis are dead within a year. He lived for 7. So maybe Jobs’ speech can be summed up as : “Natural death exists for a good reason and you have all the time you need. What are you going to do with it?”
Not that Christianity doesn’t have an answer to that question, but it is a different question — one that might require the answer to focus more on the role of creativity and justice among the living rather than to sin and salvation.
“I suspect that one of the challenges that Christianity faces in evangelizing today is to convince people that it has the right questions. Do people see sin as their basic, existential problem? Do people in the West long for eternal life? Or do they think the problem of suffering is more pressing?”
An interesting approach to self-examination and one’s attitude to the Christian life. Certainly these brought me up short.
I can see where such questions would be useful in RCIA, in which the first question in the local parish was and still is: “Were you ever divorced?”
Cathy, Really, really important post. I think it highlights a crucial problem that is poorly addressed from two angles. On the one hand, some who lament the loss of a “sense of sin” seem to believe that this is directly equated to moral relativism and the inability to follow norms. On the other hand, others seem to shy away from addressing the notion of sin as something pervasive – as Robert Barron puts it in The Strangest Way, a “mysterious limp,” a fundamental sense that the universe is off-kilter – which cuts deeply into all of us. This latter is sometimes dismissed as “Augustianian pessimism.”
I think the problem has a great deal to do with the inability to evangelize a sense of eschatological glory, the kind of corporate hope laid out in Spe Salvi and in de Lubac’s Catholicism, and to recognize that we are called to live in the light of that glory, however partially, in the here and now. Lumen Gentium’s idea that the Church is meant to be a sacrament, an effective sign, of salvation to the world means that it must somehow witness to the fact that we are called to much more than just rule-following. Barron’s book nicely puts sin second – after centering on Christ’s love – using the analogy of a salt-caked windshield: one only sees how opaque and darkened it is when the sun shines directly on it. The overemphasis on moral norms creates the unfortunate effect of making it seem like we can divide the world (and the Church!) into the righteous and sinners, based on whether you are following the rules or not. While the law is crucial for sin, breaking the law is not sin – law just names sin for us. Sin is ultimately the disruption of harmonious relationship between God and us, and among us.
Christ’s love – shown in both his harsh commands and his stunning compassion and willingness to suffer – is the visible expression of what we might actually be as humans called to communion with God and with all others. Once I see that, I have a sense of how far I and the world are from that hope. But is this what people truly hope and long for?
Jean,
by way of contrast: the first question Jesus poses in the Gospel of John is: “What are you seeking?”
At least 1 in 10 Americans (and this was in 2008) are being prescribed psychotropics.
That is a huge percentage of the population. Consider how many people have EVER been prescribed anti-depressants or anti-anxieties and the number is likely higher.
Now, with the economic downturn and so many other stressors, people are suffering and addressing that suffering through all kinds of means.
Interestingly, meditation has been showed to reduce depressive symptoms by 50 %. I think that the Church (read us) needs to retrieve its contemplative and meditative tradition of the medieval period and talk or better yet practice it far more. it takes a lot of discipline and a community dedicated to the practice to help.
From what I can see suffering is more pressing. Sin is known by another word today – “dysfunction” as in we live in a dysfunctional society – we used to say we live in a sinful world. There is a connection but the vocabulary to describe it has shifted.
We all have patterns of dysfunction or addiction which is the other term for sin.
As far as eternal life, I like Anthony Demello’s line that so many people wonder about life after death, I wonder about life BEFORE death. Too true!!!.
“I can see where such questions would be useful in RCIA, in which the first question in the local parish was and still is: “Were you ever divorced?””
This statement is typically of the cynicism on this blog and one certainly not representative of most parish outreach or RICA programs and the people that run them…
Perhaps the church is not the problem – perhaps it is the secular trends of the culture (separation of grace from nature or pain from salvation) that so many want to illogically defend?
I think that most people who are looking for religion don’t *know* that’s what they’re looking for. In fact, non-believing Westerners these days are a often prejudiced against religion so much that they run away from it. Further, sin is not much of a contemporary category — sins have turned into “mistaks”.
But we all ask, ‘how can I be happy?’ and at least older people ask, ‘can I somehow escape my apparently inevitable death somehow?’
To get non-believers to focus on the answers to those questions they need a new image of the Church. That’s where good example comes in. But many people don’t know any very good Christians, so they are not likely to take the Church seriously. But I’m convinced that even with good example, people will stay away in droves as long as the Vatican keeps refusing to allow even *talking* about the hot button issues. This is more and more a secular society, and secularists
are taught to take pride in questioning what they have been taught. See Steve Jobs’ comment about dogma and leading somebody else’s life.
So what to do? I’m sure there are different approaches for different people. But changing their view of dogma somehow is a main one. Only when they see that dogma is for making them happy will they begin to show interest in it.
Jerry,
“He sold his independent academic patrimony for a career with Ratzinger”.
In all your reading of the Gospels, have you come across anything about judging others?
Thanks,
A
This is an important issue. (It goes back to the early centuries, actually.) That is, should Christianity focus on societal issues or eternal ones? Gregory the Great (Pope Gregory I) forged the shift to societal concerns for the Catholic Church, but this was mainly because the Roman society was crumbling and in need of support during his tenure. (So he helped fill that void). It seems like Christians in the west are less focused on eternal need, and more immediate needs when it comes to serving others. Obviously both are legitimate needs, but the eternal need, left unattended, obviously has great consequences. I’m not sure where the post on using technology to evangelism is exactly found, but that is a topic I have been exploring in great depth. For people interested in exploring it, I have some blog posts here: http://www.thekingdommessenger.com
“He sold his independent academic patrimony for a career with Ratzinger and his current cult ideology”.
You guys will never evangelize anyone with these kind of snide remarks.
The main question for me isn’t “How can I/we escape the bonds of sin and death?” I guess my question is more “How can I find the love I’m missing?” There’s some difference between concentrating on sin/atonement/salvation (fear, slef-loathing, and a patented solution), and the incarnation and how we can share the joy or the risen Jesus (The Incarnation: Why God Wanted to Become Human, Ken Overberg SJ). I do think personal suffering and the suffering of others is a bad thing and should be avoided and done away with if possible. When Jesus encountered the sufferings of others, he didn’t tell them to suck it up or to be glad of the opportunity to grow spiritually, he did what he could to end the suffering. As David Bentley Hart once wrote “Christ came to save us from suffering and death”.
Brett: I confess to not understanding your reply to my comments.
Further, sin is not much of a contemporary category — sins have turned into “mistakes”.
Sin is often not a helpful concept in my view. Certain things are sins “because God says so,” or because “the Bible says so,” or because they are against “natural law.” It seems to me that the least convincing argument against doing something (let’s say using artificial birth control) is to say, “It’s a sin.”
I just did a search of the Gospels and got (if the search engine is correct and you accept the order Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) the first reference to sin:
I think it is not common nowadays to think of people sinning against anyone but God. A sin is breaking one of God’s rules, so how can anyone sin against me?
The word sin appears four time sin Matthew, only once in Mark, only once in Luke, and 15 times in John.
Of course, the word sin would be helpful if it were shorthand for something—that is, it would be helpful if there were a crystal clear idea of what sin was that everyone was referring to when using the word sin. But it seems to me the word sin is often wielded as a weapon, and very often by people who say things like, “I’m not telling you my opinion. I’m telling you God’s opinion.” Such people should not be allowed to carry weapons.
As David Bentley Hart once wrote “Christ came to save us from suffering and death”.
And yet . . .
Jus ny thought – post VIi there has been a continuing top down emphasis more on theology of the cross and a sense of sin. As with Jobs and secularism, we tend to see more wrong through that kind of frame instead of valuing the good and trying to bring the best of ot.
It’s a view I don’t buy into -much like the view in moral theology that I think needs to be more virtue centered and less manual centered.
The question is given all the stuff we deal wit hdaiuly how do I try to act Christlike or as he would ask me That’s a real burden.
David,
Yes, maybe that says more about intention and attitude than about how things presently are? I meant that I don’t think Jesus came here to suffer and die or that he endorses suffering for others, but the opposite … I was thinking of that “long spiritual tradition of encouraging those in physical or mental pain to join their suffering to that of the crucified Christ” mentioned above.
“This statement is typically of the cynicism on this blog and one certainly not representative of most parish outreach or RICA programs and the people that run them…”
It is true I do not know about “most parish outreach or RCIA programs or the people that run them,” but I do know a lot of other converts in neighboring dioceses, many far more successful Catholics and far less cynical than me who joke, “… and despite RCIA, I became a Catholic.”
In any case, I would not insult the good people on this blog by assuming I am typical.
“Jean, By way of contrast: the first question Jesus poses in the Gospel of John is: ‘What are you seeking?’”
I’m not sure what point to glean from this except that whenever anyone compares the Church Ladies to Jesus Christ, the Church Ladies are going to come out the worse.
I think this a wonderful post posing very thought provoking questions. In a world that is so focused on the “now”, how do we get it to think about the seriousness of “escaping the bonds of sin and death. It’s much easier to get people to focus on the harm in suffering and injustice, and want to work to alleviate it in the present. They can very easily apply the teachings of Jesus to this work, This is part of the “now.” I think to translate this into a “sin and death and reward” concept is much more difficult. A good beginning is to define sin so that it realative. I always looked at sin as a conscious turning away from God or Jesus, but when we create so many sins the concept tends to get trivialized. Even this concept has to be made relative to their life now. The next problem is getting people to think of future happiness in future life, suffering for future happiness. The previous generations that came here already had a concept that they would suffer and struggle to build a better life for their children and granchildren. This concept of future happiness was part of them. I think this generation, and I include myself, works hard and thinks of retirement to build a future happiness for ourselves here and now. I think we’ve lost something of concept of future happiness in another life. We think more about these things as we get older, and closer to death, but it’s very hard to make this a conscious concept in every day life. I wish I had the words and ability to express this better.
Jean,
When I was in RCIA class, my divorce was a constant topic for the leaders of the class – they kept asking me to sign up for an annulment – so it’s not just you :)
Luke Timothy Johnson’s essay “Powers and Principalities,” (Commonweal Oct. 07, 2011) is especially germane to this thread. But wow, is it “countercultural?” How do we get people, especially young educated people to think along with Johnson. Thinking along with him does not mean agreeing with him. It means working to see what he’s driving at. Sin is not only what I do. It’s also what weighs upon my possibilities. Without a robust sense of sin, then what robust conception of redemption or forgiveness can there be? But again, I regret that I have no good idea about how to communicate all this to young people today, Catholic or otherwise.
Just a thought. Isn’t the problem of suffering itself bound up with sin? When I sin (just take judging another person for a mild example) don’t I at that very moment begin to suffer and sicken and weaken and rot? Isn’t that the basic, existential problem? And isn’t what Jesus offers the wonderfully implacable fact that He nevertheless dies to seize my attention and to direct it to how worthwhile he thinks I am?
“Sin is not only what I do. It’s also what weighs upon my possibilities. Without a robust sense of sin, then what robust conception of redemption or forgiveness can there be? But again, I regret that I have no good idea about how to communicate all this to young people today, Catholic or otherwise.”
Bernard –
I agree. I would add that most sins weigh upon *other people’s* possibilities. I would also emphasize that it is our own, chosen acts that make us *be* guilty, and not just *feel* guilty, and they make us responsible for restoring to those we have sinned against whatever of theirs that we have destroyed. (Yes, sin is destruction in most cases.) Further, this is sin just on a natural level — sin again people. Sin, insofar as it falls short of what we owe God, is even worse. Yes, He always forgives, but we aren’t always ready to repent.
Sin, guilt, repent, atone. One doesn’t hear these words often these days, and then mostly from Protestant fundamentalists. Sometimes I think that one of the reasons fundamentalists are so unpopular is because they believe in and seriously talk about these things, and that makes us very uncomfortable.
While I think all of this is true, I don’t think the way to go about evangelizing is to start with considerations of sin and guilt. It turns people off, and virtue is generally much more important.
Yes, the Johnson article is wise, if unwelcome.
I wonder if “salvation inflation” isn’t part of the issue. With the loss of the old religious divides (hell, you can’t even slag off Mormons anymore!) and intermarriage and all those other cominglings, people find it hard to believe in hell (and don’t, so much) and easier to believe in Heaven. We tend to feel that all will be okay in the next world as long as we’re reasonably okay in this world. Rob Bell ruffled some institutional feathers by channeling Balthasar’s musings on an empty hell, but he’s gone to Hollywood to write a series based on his life, so he may be more popular with the hoi polloi. (Bell, not Balthasar.)
Many things are at work, but I also wonder if a loss of the religious sense of true forgiveness of sin, as much as a sense of sin, is at play. We don’t really feel we can be forgiven, so we are lost if we don’t find someway to minimize the consequences of sin, and our guilt.
There is also the problem of trying to promote belief that is not defined by fear — sinners in the hands of an angry God — or by our lesser angels: I’m going to heaven, you’re going to hell. We’re right, you’re wrong. Tribalism and scapegoating and defining oneself against the Other have historically been the great motivators to “belief,” such as it is.
B16 has talked about (re)proposing Christinaity as a postive option, something to embrace, but is that motivator enough? Does it all just go happy-clappy and no one shows up on Sunday morning or transforms their lives the rest of the week?
One more thing about guilt and restitution –
The vast majority of poor Americans are fundamentalists. We tend to think that is so because the fundamentalist theologies is usually not very sophistocated, and the poor people aren’t either, so they find each other.
But I suspect that one of the reasons that the poor are fundamentalists is because they believe in sin, guilt, etc., *because* they have so often been seriously sinned *against*. They are much more inclined to welcome the notion of judgment and restitution — i.e., justice. And I agree with them, there is no charity without justice.
Perhaps I should add that it was no accident that MLK, JR. was a Baptist minister.
Wait… I don’t want to derail this very interesting discussion, but as a quick aside I’d just like to ask what support there is for the claim that “the vast majority of poor Americans are fundamentalists.” I’m not even saying that that is not an accurate claim, because I honestly don’t know–I would just like to see its basis.
Does anybody join a religion out of fear? Is that all religion is – an escape from the “wages of sin”? It seems to me, as the main character commented in Inception :), that positive emotion trumps negative emotion every time … the gospels are the good news, after all …. if you want people to become Christians, show them why it’s wonderful.
Crystal, yes, I think there is a preoccupation among the folks who run RCIA to become preoccupied with “processing” people in time for the Easter Vigil than asking the questions Cathleen has posed.
I hope it is not too cynical to suggest that many of us who have sought the Church are already Christians and hope that it will help us to live a life of love and service in a manner consistent with Christ’s teachings. If there were more soul-searching and questioning going on rather than presentation of information and answers, converts-in-training might seek annulments, baptism of the kids, regularization of their common law relationships, info about NFP, etc. etc. on their own.
This might, of course, take longer, but it might “take” better.
I realize Cathleen’s questions have broader implicationss re evangelization than just RCIA, and just re Catholics. So I apologize if I seem to narrow the topic too much. However, as a product of Catholic evangelization, I like to think I am not completely out in left field in commenting on this thread.
“This issue of sin strikes me as crucial for Christian pedagogy. How else can we make sense of things like Paul/s Letter to the Romans?”
I think Bernard is absolutely right about the importance of sin, but I also don’t think that most “people see sin as their basic, existential problem,” as Prof. Kaveny queries in her post that opened this thread. I see sin as the willful separation from God, and “[s]in creates a proclivity to sin” because it “tends to reproduce itself and reinforce itself.” (Catechism, # 1865). For myself, I’m not too concerned about the grave sins, i.e., the mortal sins, not because I’m not capable of committing them but because there seem to be bright lines that act as warning signals as to what they are. I’m more concerned with the so-called venial sins, the sins that can easily become day-to-day accretions that I fail to slough off through regular receipt of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. C.S. Lewis’s trenchant advice in “The Screwtape Letters,” funneled through a senior devil to his neophyte nephew devil, is often on my mind as a reminder of the habitual nature of sin:
“You will say that these are very small sins; and doubtless, like all young tempters, you are anxious to be able to report spectacular wickedness. But do remember, the only thing that matters is the extent to which you separate the man from the Enemy. It does not mattter how small the sins are provided their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing. Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick. Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one–the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.”
Yep, it’s that gentle slope that worries me most.
I’m not sure that Modern Man believes in either sin or eternal life or expects to avoid or understand pain. On the other hand, a compelling and easily comprehensible Unified Theory of Existence could easily sell a few billion copies.
I’m not too concerned about the grave sins, i.e., the mortal sins, not because I’m not capable of committing them but because there seem to be bright lines that act as warning signals as to what they are.
__________
Of course, one needs to be perceptive enough to see those bright lines or care enough not to ignore them, or not simply move the lines, if those lines really are all that bright.
We should remember they are not called “mortal” sins because they are grave, rather, they are mortal sins because they lead to the grave — “mortal,” from the Latin for “death.” And what we might think to be a fairly innocuous sin might be quite death-causing.
For example, the greatest mortal sin that the world has ever known consisted of eating a piece of fruit. Not a really big deal, one would think. But that seemingly “minor” sin is what ushered in death for the entire human race.
Not because eating fruit is so serious, but because, in eating it, the man and the woman wanted to be gods themselves, they wanted to put themselves before God and showed that they had no want nor need of Him who is the One True God. And in separating themselves from the One who is God, they necessarily separated themselves from the One who is Life itself, as well as Love itself and Truth itself.
What we think might be not all that bad might, in fact, carry some quite serious consequences. That sin by the man and woman was the Original Sin not only because it was the first, but because it is ultimately the origin or foundation of every other sin that we commit personally. Every day, in a multitude of situations, we are placed back before the Tree and are confronted with the choice to eat the Fruit or not, the choice of putting ourselves before Love and Truth, often without realizing that that is where we are.
Few people do evil knowing or believing it to be evil. Rather, they call what is bad good, and what is good bad, often with the best of intentions. The temptation is great to choose our own truth, to move that “bright line,” and be gods ourselves and decree what is good and what is moral, so as to justify what it is that we want to do.
As such, we cannot always discern what is mortal sin and what is mere “venial” sin. We are poor judges, especially since our judgment is impaired by those very sins. That is why, although one is “required” to confess only mortal sins, since we are so fallible in making that determination, and, given the conflict of interest, we cannot be a judge in our own case in any event, the better practice is to not try to pigeonhole them at all and instead confess and be contrite for all your sins and let Jesus, the Judge, decide what is serious and what is not serious.
Abe,
I confess that I was thinking of the poor people in my experience — largely poor black and white Southerners. I don’t think, for instance, that I’ve ever met a black Lutheran or a poor white Episcopalian. Plus the stereotypical image of poor people’s churches are not your well-built ones with sophisticated preachers, but poor looking ones with unsophisticated preachers. I suspect that there are large numbers of poor people who don’t belong to any church.
I searched for some demographics but couldn’t find any. Sorry.
Crystal –
I don’t think any of us has said that people are likely to join a church out of fear. (I specifically said that it’s better to talk about virtue because sin-talk turns people off, as least as the beginning of a dialogue.)
It’s true that positive emotions override negative ones, but that doesn’t lessen the fact of sin and the need for repentance, etc.
Do you think there is such a thing as charity/love without justice of some sort?
And, not to quibble or anything, I don’t know that it matters much in the ultimate discussion, but I would dispute that “Christianity’s central question is ‘“How can I/we escape the bonds of sin and death?’”
Rather, I would submit that the central question of Christianity is that posed by Jesus Himself, “Who do you say that I am?”, which would necessarily encompass the related question of the Resurrection.
Meanwhile, the central questions of human existence are “Why do we exist? What is the meaning of life?”
But these are all related questions.
“Few people do evil knowing or believing it to be evil”
Bender –
According to what I was taught, that is sheer heresy. I was taught that we must know that what we are choosing (or at least *think* that we are choosing) is evil. You can’t commit sin accidentally. If I thought God was as you paint Him, I couldn’t even call him “God”, much less believe in His revelation.
Yes, when we sin we always are aiming at some good — but what we’re aiming at is *also* evil. Things are often mixed-bags. For instance, if you kill your wife for her inheritance, the inheritance is a good thing, at least materially, but the killing destroys her life. The sin is in the *knowing* choice of the evil.
Ann,
“Do you think there is such a thing as charity/love without justice of some sort?”
Yes, I think so, if I understand what you mean. I would like to believe that love doesn’t demand justice, a reckoning, a balanced balance sheet. I have been trying all my life to figure out what is good and how to be good, in part because I’ve been afraid that if there is a hell, I’ll end up there. But lately, I’ve realized I’m never going to make it – I’ll never be good enough for heaven. So I’m hoping that God forgives everyone, fixes everyone, loves everyone enough that it won’t matter to him how good they are at being good. This is the prodigal son’s father, Hans Urs von Balthasar’s God. That’s how I’ve felt about my cats – the closest I’ve come to having children – and if I can love like that, I hope God will be even more unconditional in his love.
Ann — let us take an example. The example of the “epitome of evil” himself.
Did Herr Hitler believe himself to be doing evil? No. In his twisted mind, he thought that what he did was a moral imperitive.
Or consider the scourge of our modern age, that which is euphemistically called “Choice.” Most who support the killing of children in the womb — an objectively evil act — would dispute that it is an evil act. They would have you believe that it is a moral “good.” Standing again before the Tree, they believe that they can chose their own morality.
As Isaiah said, “woe to those who call evil good, and good evil, who change darkness to light, and light into darkness, who change bitter to sweet, and sweet into bitter.” (5:20)
Going back, though, to what are the right questions, and what is the right answer —
The broader purpose of dialogue is to discover the truth. What is the origin and destiny of mankind? What are good and evil? What awaits us at the end of our earthly existence? Only by addressing these deeper questions can we build a solid basis for the peace and security of the human family, for “wherever and whenever men and women are enlightened by the splendor of truth, they naturally set out on the path of peace.”
We are living in an age when these questions are too often marginalized. Yet they can never be erased from the human heart. Throughout history, men and women have striven to articulate their restlessness with this passing world. . . . Spiritual leaders have a special duty, and we might say competence, to place the deeper questions at the forefront of human consciousness, to reawaken mankind to the mystery of human existence, and to make space in a frenetic world for reflection and prayer.
Confronted with these deeper questions concerning the origin and destiny of mankind, Christianity proposes Jesus of Nazareth. He, we believe, is the eternal Logos who became flesh in order to reconcile man to God and reveal the underlying reason of all things.
–Pope Benedict, Meeting with Religious Leaders, April 17, 2008
“As David Bentley Hart once wrote “Christ came to save us from suffering and death”.”
It’s also true that the crowds who came to hear Jesus preach (at least as the NT record presents it) didn’t hear this message primarily. It seems to me that a fundamental presupposition of what they experienced in Jesus’ teaching was that their lives were important, the choices they made and the way they lived was important, and they should start living as if they believed that the way they lived mattered. Jesus stopped the whole parade that was headed to Jerusalem for the events of Holy Week (about which he had been telling them the whole trip down from Caesarea Philippi) to bring a blind beggar over and ask him “what do you want me to do for you?” I think this kind of compassionate attention can still work as evangelism, even if the Bartimaeus before us isn’t primarily worried about sin as his existential problem.
Bob Nunz,
You wrote the following -
“The word sin appears four times in Matthew, only once in Mark, only once in Luke, and 15 times in John.”
Yes, you used a faulty search engine. In the first three chapters of Mark alone, we encounter the word sin as follows -
John (the) Baptist appeared in the desert proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
People of the whole Judean countryside and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the Jordan River as they acknowledged their sins.
When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Child, your sins are forgiven.”
Now some of the scribes were sitting there asking themselves,
“Why does this man speak that way? 5 He is blaspheming. Who but God alone can forgive sins?”
Jesus immediately knew in his mind what they were thinking to themselves, so he said, “Why are you thinking such things in your hearts?
Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise, pick up your mat and walk’?
But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority to forgive sins on earth”–
While he was at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners sat with Jesus and his disciples; for there were many who followed him.
Some scribes who were Pharisees saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors and said to his disciples, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
Jesus heard this and said to them (that), “Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do. I did not come to call the righteous but sinners.”
“Amen, I say to you, all sins and all blasphemies that people utter will be forgiven them.
But whoever blasphemes against the holy Spirit will never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an everlasting sin.”
I hesitate to include the last two verses as they tend to scare people. But the sin against the Holy Spirit requires a complete, final and willful rejection of the Lord’s love and salvation. Thus, it is almost impossible to commit.
A note: I just read in the latest First Things a review of the James Kugel book, “In the Valley of the Shadow: On the Foundations of Religious Belief.”
I’d read reviews of it elsewhere — it is about Kugel engaging the reasons for belief and religion as he faced a diagnosis of terminal cancer — and this First Things review makes me eager to read it. The review is subscriber-only, but the book is just 250 pages.
Mr. Gibbons, where are you quoting me from?????
While I’m at it though, I thought Cathy’s point was good in asking how we evangelize in the modern world.
I don’t buy the premise that the question devolves about sin/suffering and death .except that the Gospel we are to proclaim is Good News (basis of evangelization) says they are overcome if we beleive in and emulate the Savior.
I agree with Andy that the younger folks don’t come with the same perspective as our parents; that of itself makes neither or other the one way to look at things.
What is critical is that they hear the good news of salvation.
IMO that good news is far more proclaimed by many good people who are the real leaders by their ministry and example(I especially appreciate our religious women, who with no thanks, got a “visitation”) and may share a very different view than the “new evangelists” propogated by beauracrats who make rules and canons in their encapsulated chancery worlds, supported by viewers of the Church as hierachy.
Again IMO faith is inspired by and deepened in the finding and practice of self giving in love -not command/control – and , in reflecting on the end
“In the end there are three, faith, hope and love and the greatest of these……”
Yes, you used a faulty search engine. In the first three chapters of Mark alone, we encounter the word sin as follows -
Frank Gibbons,
I did the search, and the fault was mine. I searched for the single word “sin,” which caused plurals to be overlooked.
Apologies!
I suggest what evangelizes people is that they are attracted to people who already have the Faith and manifest it in their stance/life.
My mentor priest was called the bringer back of come backers. He also had a ministry to the priests who left. Fulton Sheen, Francis, John xxiii, attracted people to the Good News who saw the Way residing in them.
Bob Nunz,
I had the wrong guy. Sorry!
I don’t have any comparative statistics, but certainly there are many people who are looking for a way of dealing with their own sense of sinfulness, with their need to be forgiven and accepted, and one of the great comforts ihe Gospel brings is the assurance of this possibility. Some verses from the First Epistle of John come to mind: “If we say that we are without sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. But if we acknowledge our sins, he who is just can be trusted to forgive our sins and cleanse us from every wrong” (1:8-9). “This is our way of knowing that we are committed to the truth and are at peace before him, no matter what our consciences may charge us with; for God is greater than our hearts and all is known to him” (3:19-20).
There cannot be many NT books that do not speak of Christ’s great work as effecting the reconciliation of sinners with God. I do not see how Christianity can do without the notion of sin without being radically transformed from what it was as it emerged out of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.
That there is a great problem, certainly, in that so many people have a mainly extrinsic notion of sin as violations of external commandments often considered as more or less arbitrarily imposed on them. But there are more accurate and more telling notions of sin, in which it is not hard to find one’s own experience. One could begin by asking oneself whether one has ever done something one knew one shouldn’t do, or not done something one knew one should do, where the “shoulds” express inwardly experienced oughts.
I am amused when some priests seek everywhere for a word other than sin when introducing the penitential rite at the beginning of Mass.
Wasn’t it Dr. Menninger who wrote a book entitled Whatever Happened to Sin? in which he complained that the notion of sin had been psychologized and sociologized away. There are things, I seem to remember his saying, for which it would be pathological not to feel guilty.
The questions are indeed important, but I don’t think sin is the primeval issue some Christians make it. When we talk about a “sense of sin,” we’re really talking about a sense of guilt, and the contention that the guilty need somebody to forgive them. Presumably a sense of overwhelming guilt leads one to God. But most people would have to be fairly neurotic to feel that much guilt, especially if they don’t believe in God in the first place. To expect so is putting the horse before the cart. Paul himself said, without the Law, there would be no guilt. When the OT speaks of the bonds of sin, the issue is death, not guilt. Acording to Genesis, death came about because of Adam’s sin. And death is the fact of life all thinking people ponder. If we’re all snuffed out at death, what do our lives really mean? What more can we hope for? Is it possible to live beyond the grave? Answer that in the affirmative, and you have news people today (yesterday and tomorrow) want to hear.
Ms. Bailey: Your comment about feeling much guilt as a sign of neurosis rather exemplifies Menninger’s contention: guilt has been psychologized into neurosis. A once had to counsel a woman who bore a child not sired by her husband, and I don’t think it was neurosis that led her to seek God’s forgiveness and the assurance that she could return to the eucharistic table.
“I would like to believe that love doesn’t demand justice, a reckoning, a balanced balance sheet.”
Crystal –
Sorry, I don’t seem to have made myself clear. I don’t think that there is no such thing as forgiveness. Of course there is. But forgiveness is needed *because* there is injustice, i.e., sin.
I think that forgiveness is an act of charity — a giving that is not owed, that is gratuitous. But that still doesn’t prevent the need for repentence and restitution if the wronged party insists on it.
Suppose, for instance, brother A steals brother B’s inheritance, and B’s children are left destitute. Doesn’t A have an obligation to restore the inheritance to his brother? Would it make sense to forgive such a person who didn’t make things right again? Yes, of course, we can even forgive a debt if we so choose, but does it make sense to forgive the debt when the sinner isn’t even sorry?
As to not being good enough for Heaven, I think that none of us are. But that doesn’t mean we should go to Hell. I don’t see your reasoning there.
I think guilt can emanate from upbringing, circumstances, personality problems. Don’t we all know good people who “carry the weight of the world” for nothing they themselves have done but feel in some amorphous way they must atone?
I like to think that priests try to discern this neurotic guilt from the guilt that results from truly sinful acts–and I do believe there is sin, and that it is largely the cause of suffering and the impediment to eternal life with God. So, for me, sin is the most pressing question.
And, while I believe that God is merciful and may forgive many of our sins when we ask, it seems to me that if our salvation cannot be ascertained with certainty, neither can our forgiveness. My skepticism about the sacrament of Confession as a restorative to a state of grace, I confess, is a major stumbling block to my being a good Catholic.
Moreover, I find the list of sins in the CCC so extensive, detailed, and overwhelming, that I don’t know how it can do anything but breed intense scrupulosity in anybody who tries to take these things seriously.
“Did Herr Hitler believe himself to be doing evil? No. In his twisted mind, he thought that what he did was a moral imperitive.”
Bender –
We have no way of knowing what Hitler believed himself to be doing. We can never be sure of other people’s motives. In the case of crazy ones, as he appeared to be, the question becomes: can a crazy person choose what she/he thinks is evil? I don’t see why not. Craziness is not the same thing as being either good or evil, it is a matter of not seeing the world as it is and so dealing with it in outlandish ways.
And we can’t be sure of the goodness of other people’s motives either, if it comes to that, though we certainly have a lot of evidence when they are willing to suffer for the sake of others or deny their own wants so that other might have. (Haven’t you ever been deceived by a hypocrite whose actions are contradictory?)
“I think guilt can emanate from upbringing, circumstances, personality problems. Don’t we all know good people who “carry the weight of the world” for nothing they themselves have done but feel in some amorphous way they must atone?”
JEan –
Agreed — feeling guilty and *being* guilty are two different things. (I did know a psychoanalyst who insisted that feeling guilty and being are the same thing, but he wasn’t typical of the psychiatrists I’ve known. However, maybe they’ve changed these days. I suspect that some therapists wouldn’t have much of a practice if they assumed that there is such a thing as sin.)
I also agree that confusion of guilt feelings and with guilt leads to terrible scrupulosity in many people — especially when they take that list of sins seriously.
But that doesn’t make the list useless. Not that everyone is guilty of all of the sins on the list. (That would seem to be impossible.) But recollecting possible sins does have way of nudging us to recall what we probably want to forget :-)
“When we talk about a “sense of sin,” we’re really talking about a sense of guilt, and the contention that the guilty need somebody to forgive them”
*Feeling* guilty shouldn’t be confused with *being* guilty. It is those in the latter condition for whom Christianity has some Good News.
“*Feeling* guilty shouldn’t be confused with *being* guilty. It is those in the latter condition for whom Christianity has some Good News.”
That’s a good distinction. I have also been told that *feeling* forgiven after Confession ought not be confused with *being* forgiven.
Finding a good confessor these days is essential … and difficult. Many priests seem reluctant. Catholic confession seems very rote and confusing.
“I have also been told that *feeling* forgiven after Confession ought not be confused with *being* forgiven.”
Jean – that’s quite true. Sin, among its other evil effects, exacts an emotional toll, such that we really do feel guilty. Our emotions are often, but not always, trustworthy barometers of what is going on. It may take a mentally and emotionally healthy person a while for her emotions to become realigned with the reality of forgiveness. The feelings of guilt continue to linger (or even fester). And of course, most of don’t reach that ideal of mental/emotional health.
I also agree with your point about finding a good confessor. Cradle Catholics like me were trained to show up on Saturday, wait in line, and take whoever you’re given on the other side of the screen. It’s okay, in my experience, when you find someone you like, to make an appointment to see that person.
It would take some really solid information to convince me that any good therapist would attempt to alleviate authentic guilt for having done something clearly wrong by treating it as a “neurosis”—a word that has not been used in psychiatry for over thirty years.
Also, if someone has done something seriously wrong, with lasting consequences, I don’t see why going to confession should alleviate the guilt.
A few years ago, there was a story about a woman who—quite by accident, I truly believe—forgot she had left her baby in the back seat of the car when she arrived at work. As I remember, it was a hot day, and the baby died. How one gets over something like that, I don’t know. Who wouldn’t feel guilt? But it is not a sin. Even if you assume (as I would not, or not necessarily) that the woman subconsciously wanted to get rid of the baby, I still don’t see how it could be considered a sin. I think a person would know rationally that they had not done something deliberately wrong, but I don’t see how that would help any.
I remember a terrible story about a young woman who was a nurse, and her teenage brother asked her for some medical information, which she gave him, with no suspicion that anything was wrong. He used the information to commit suicide. This is another case where a person did not do anything wrong, but who would not feel terrible guilt in such a situation?
Cradle Catholics like me were trained to show up on Saturday, wait in line, and take whoever you’re given on the other side of the screen.
Jim,
Are you sure you are a Catholic? The way it was actually done was that you got to know, through personal experience and through the grapevine, which priest was going to yell at you and which was going to yawn and give a penance of five Hail Marys. Then you waited in line, and if it turned out you were going to get the wrong priest—there were usually three hearing confessions at my parish—you just stepped aside and let the person in line behind you take your turn. I believe this strategy was outlined in the Tips and Tricks appendix to the penultimate draft of the Catechism,but Cardinal Ratzinger made them take it out.
At the risk of being repetitive, I think the thread has devolved to a lot on “guilt” and sin, whereas the question of evangelizing seems to have disappeared.
MOV is that we presuppose the problem to the considerations here and make ouselves more remote from those we’re trying to reach.
Ask yourself this question. If you had some friends who were Christian but not Catholic, would you want to attempt to convert them to Catholicism? And if so, what would be your approach?
Suppose you have friends who are Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, Jews, and Sikhs. Would you want to convert them to Catholicism?
So whom are we talking about evangelizing? “Others,” non-religious, and atheists?
I am in agreement with Bob Nunz. A lot of this thread revolves around trying to persuade people that their concerns are related to their sense of sinfulness or guilt. I just don’t see that, and I would add that in my view affirmative tolerance for injustice is a sin, such that notions of sin and salvation are not mutually exclusive with concerns over justice.
Could it not be the case that they are unpersuaded by the solution, as Cathy says, because we refuse to open up our belief in sin, forgiveness, and redemption in a way that acknowledges that they may have insight into the sinfulness of their (mostly) elders — sins the elders don’t like to admit they carry within them? Now that would be scary, wouldn’t it, knowing that we don’t just get to throw solutions at them to take or leave according to a set in stone definition of sin?
I’m depraved because I’m deprived.
http://www.westsidestory.com/site/level2/lyrics/krupke.html
West Side Story
All those young people just make excuses; Patrick sounds like Officer Krupke, so..Gee Officer Patrick ……
“The question of evangelizing seems to have disappeared.”
Ok. Back to the original topic: Cathleen presents two different questions being asked by people today:
‘How to limit and ultimately escape suffering?’
‘How can we escape the bonds of sin and death?’
I’d like to propose a third question, to which some contemporary popular writers, such as Kathleen Norris and Matthew Kelly, propose a Christian-rooted answer:
‘How can I find meaning in my life?’
The scriptures are full of the mercies of the Lord. Sins being washed away. God remembering not our iniquities. The Father meeting the son before he even got close to his home. The Lord is my shepherd. The mercies of the Lord endure forever. People flock to the self help books and to false prophets….not knowing that the peace that surpasses all understanding is attainable. Celebrating the Eucharist is seen as an obligation not the banquet and foretaste of heaven that it is.Where sin abounded, grace super abounds.
Matthew 25:36ff. talks of surprises at the final tally. But, as the song goes, we hope to be in that number.
There is a strong message of the Good News, Gospel, of Jesus. We may have to stop idolizing and promoting clerics who, too often, dampen and cheapen the message.
I realize Cathleen was not inviting us to ANSWER the questions, but to discuss evangelizing by asking questions and inviting people “on the journey” rather than standing up on the hill and throwing down info-factoids out of the Bible like peanuts.
But then everybody started to answer the questions, so I did, too, but I wasn’t trying to persuade everybody that they should start thinking about sin as The Big Question.
Sorry, sorry, sorry.
Jean –
Maybe sin IS the big question for some people, but they are not getting sensible answers from their churches, especially no6 from the fire and brimstone fundamentalist ones, and the Catholics who cannot accept certain teachings of the official RCC.
Why Can’t the question be “Who is my neighbor.” Or “How do I gain eternal life?” The sin might be because Cain killed Abel rather than blaming poor Eve for corrupting Adam. Maybe Adam had to be told that he was naked. But nobody had to tell Abel that he was bloodied. Or Cain that he was a murderer.
Or here comes Jesus saying that we are his friends if we obey God’s commandments. Clergymen have succeeded in making themselves the issue. Atheists and other critics have gladly made them the issue. Clearly clerics are complicating the issue.
Then there is the pithy words of Jesus: “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.”
Seems like nobody believes this. The 1 percent might be hated but everyone wants to be them and cater to them. Most will invite them into their houses rather than the lowly Jesus.
Maybe I am piling stuff on. But how do we ask the questions without asking the central ones?
Before I leave how to evangelize, my copy of NCR came last night with along article on the CU new evangelization gathering -with extensive quotes on how wonderful from Topping,whose First Things piece tru,peted that the bishops should give nothing.
In the same issue was a nice piece frpm Fr. Buckley on the shortcomings of the Dolan letter on Sr. Johnson and how episcopal thologian relationship ought to procede.
My view is that :
in the current divide, the new evangeliztion is the same old dolled up and is not what we need to reach our young (and drifting old) today!
John Garvey’s essay in the latest Commonweal is pertinent to this thread. He argues that the spring of religious belief is not what many interpreters think it is: “What we are dealing with here is not so much a fear of death as it is a love of, and longing for, a deeper, wider living: a life more profound than we are capable of knowing in our present state, but one that such experiences have nonetheless pointed us toward.” In support of this, for Christians, he then cites 1 Cor 13:12; Col 3:4; and 1 Jn 3:2.
David N, if ever you manage to get your hands on a Tips and Trick manuscript, please, please ensure that it is published!
This is an important thread. I hope it is just the beginning. The questions have to be refined and retooled until we can form some consensus. Certainly in Catholic Academia, on all sides of the divide, there is a lack of focus. More confusion than light. We do not need Ex Corde. But we do need more prophets.
JAK –
Sometimes I think that before the churches — any of them — can re-evangelize the West that the drifters and non-believers will have to *unlearn* what they’ve been taught in the general culture about individualism, scientism and hedonism. They’re told regularly by the intellectuals that matter is all there is, there is no God and no soul, that only rubes think like that.
Without a real challenge, a real shake-up of the dominant intellectual traditions, I don’t think the churches have a chance of even attracting the attention of the average person. Their minds are not only closed, they are prejudiced against the religious teachers, especially when they’re sponsored by “organized religion”.
Yes, they’ll accept “spirituality”, but what does that MEAN?
I don’t know if anyone is still reading this thread, but I continue to think about the questions that Cathleen has posed, as I find them intriguing.
This occurred to me: if Christianity and Buddhism answer different questions, then perhaps Christianity and Buddhism aren’t trying to ‘occupy the same space’. As the economists would put it, perhaps they are more complements than substitutes. I don’t know that one could actually be a Christian and a Buddhist simultaneously (I know almost nothing about Buddhism, so I couldn’t comment on it one way or the other, but suspect it’s not possible to be both), but maybe dialogue would be fruitful?