Sin? What sin? I don't see any sin!

This topic is directly related to my first two posts. I just finished this article by Jennifer Riley, a Christian Post Reporter called, “Study: Behaviors Americans Consider 'Sinful'”. This study questioned more than 1000 American adults to find out whether they believed 30 different behaviors to be a sin.

The article starts, “Out the list of 30 behaviors, adultery was most often described as a sinful behavior by American respondents (81 percent).

Following adultery was racism (74 percent); using “hard” drugs such as cocaine, heroine, meth, LSD, etc. (65 percent); not saying anything if a cashier gives you too much change (63 percent); abortion (56 percent); and homosexual activity or sex (52 percent) rounded out the top five behaviors most often considered sinful by Americans.”¹

Well, this was not what I expected at all. I figured that most people would still consider certain actions a sin even if they were not active church goers. When I have sinned in my life I never stopped believing in sin, well maybe I tried to justify it. This is just strange, but in relation to my first two blogs (1 & 2) about the secularization of our society and lack of biblical knowledge, it makes perfect sense.

The article goes on to state, “Political conservatives (94 percent) believe there is such a thing as sin. The number remains high among moderates (89 percent) but then drops to 77 percent among political liberals.” ¹. Which seems about right because this article I read about the shrinking Christian right says, “80% of Democrats are church-goers”.²

Okay, so roughly out of the 1000 or more people surveyed, 94 percent of Republicans believe there is such thing as sin and only 77 of the Democrats believe in sin? - No comment.

Moving along to what I find as just plain scary….

“Among Christian traditions, Protestants are more likely than Roman Catholics to include most of the 30 different behaviors as sin. The biggest differences included gambling (50 percent of Protestants compared to 15 percent of Catholics); failing to tithe 10 percent or more of one’s income (32 percent to 9 percent); getting drunk (63 percent to 28 percent); gossip (70 percent to 45 percent); and homosexual activity or sex (72 percent to 42 percent).”¹

Okay, some of the subjects listed above are directly stated in the Bible as wrong and they are not sure it is a sin? What? What Bible are they reading and what church are they attending? I can see secular society not knowing(maybe), but people claiming to be Christians?

This just dumbfounds me. Is it just because they are being asked and they are scared if they admit something is a sin it makes it real? People, People, People….God knows what your sin is…you admitting it does nothing, well maybe it would help you stop doing it or at least be aware of it. That helped me quite a bit. Once I took a good hard look at my actions and myself and was truly honest, I was able to open my heart and receive Gods forgiving Grace. I still struggle, I still have hard times with certain things, we all do. We can't begin to think certain things are not a sin just because we don't want to hurt someones feelings or because its too hard to admit to ourselves that we are doing wrong in Gods eyes.

Thanks for reading and God bless.

1-http://www.theologicalstudies.citymax.com/page/page/1573625.htm

2-http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/suncommentary/la-oew-perlstein11mar11,1,7857771.story

It's 3am, do you know where your Bible is?

This past Sunday at my Church, Pastor Mark Miller was talking about the current statistics regarding adult’s lack of knowledge of the bible. He stated how the generations of 30 – 50 somethings know less about the bible than at any other time in history. He also mentioned that the children of these people knew even less than their parents. So this prompted me to do a little research myself and I found this article by Michael J. Vlach, Ph.D. This was shocking information and I won't add a bunch of facts from it here, but read it. It simply talks about data from surveys that shows that American main stream is completely ignorant of the Bible. When I relate this with my first posting about the secularization of society it makes total sense.

Now, I can only make sense of this by relating to my own experiences with my faith. Keep in mind that I am NOT an expert in theology, psychology, sociology or really any “-ologys”, wait, is webdevelopmentology a word…? I digress; I have studied most of them in college and do understand some basic truths about people having been a person for some time now. I have not always lived as a Christian, though I always considered myself one. I was raised Catholic (FYI, I am no longer Catholic, I now wave my Protestant flag), was an Alter Boy, I was in youth group, Sunday school and all of that. So I pretty much knew the basics of the Christian faith (or so I thought).

Fast forward to my late teens early twenties. I was in a fraternity in College and was trying my best to be as non productive as I could, and at THAT I was successful. I had a Bible and occasionally read it when I was feeling the need or guilt for redemption, but I tried not to read too much or go to church too often. I mean who wants to have their faults and sin pointed out to them right? It was like I was thinking “God, I know you are there and you are the best and you know I love you but, you know, ummm I’M JUST HAVING TOO MUCH FUN! I’ll act like this for a while, and I’ll get back to you. Come on, you know I’m a good person, right?”

I find it embarrassing and very hard to look back on this period in my life, but you grow in the valleys of life and can’t get up unless you have fallen. Now as a 31(almost 32, shhhh) year old married father of 3, looking back I am just so disappointed in that young man that I was. By the grace of God and a lot of patience from my wife, I have somewhat stayed on course and the Lord steered me through those troubled times. Although I might not be “brand new”, I believe I am at least returnable to the Lord now, Amen?

If it is not obvious, I am not a total bible thumper and I don’t condemn people who don’t go to church. It’s not my job to judge others as I still fall short of the grace and glory of God. Life is hard and I know people get caught up in things, and you do things that are not only unhealthy physically and mentally, but morally also. You then try and convince yourselves nothing is wrong with your actions, saying “It's not that bad”, or “it’s not really hurting anyone”. I have been there brothers and sisters, believe me, it is hurting you and those around you.

Well, enough of my carrying on, I just wanted to share a bit of my story and views as someone who has been broken and found his way back to Jesus and is taking advantage of the wealth of knowledge the Lord has given us in the Bible. I read and study it in some way every day now and it is better than any self help book.

Ephesians 1:7 (NIV)
“In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace”

I’d like to get some dialog going about why we as a people(All people not just Christians, we are all Gods children) reading and studying the Bible less or not adhering to the basic principles of the bible. Is it because people find it somehow not applicable to today or is it kind of how I was in college, not really wanting to hear the truth because of how it makes you feel? Does anyone have any other ideas?