Saturday, August 22, 2015

Welcome to Humanity

News: The super Christian Duggar Family is still in the news. Josh, the one who has been outed as a child molester of his sister when he was younger, has now been outed as having an affair and being addicted to pornography. He has admitted to this latest sinfulness and said of himself that he is "the biggest hypocrite ever."

Well, welcome to the club, Josh. The club of being human.

Which of course includes the innate ability to be a sinner and do things we don't want to do- on a regular, if not daily- basis.

This human ability earlier reared its ugly head when he acted as if he was "holier that thou." Call it self-righteousness or grandiosity or even narcissism, you still have the failing of human sinfulness. When one sets oneself up as a judge and jury of others because one is better than others- more perfect, less sinful, etc.- the sinfulness has already started.

I am sure I have said before that one of the most important quotes I retain from my Seminary days was the one from the Hebrew Bible professor. He was liberal and progressive, but he got our attention when he said early in the course that

the longer you are in ministry the more you will be convinced that original sin is the only provable Biblical doctrine.
Yep.

I know I have seen that- as much  in myself as in others. The self-righteousness of any ideological approach to faith is ripe with that possibility.

Let's get over it. Let's be real and honest about who we are- sinners.

Fortunately, we are not sinners in the hands of an angry God.

But more on that another day.

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