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
No comments:
Post a Comment