Private sins vs. Public accountability

Hello sisters and brothers.

There has been some friendly debate from time to time on this and other threads, and I am glad to say that for the most part, most of us can respect and love each other as siblings in Christ even when we may not agree or see eye-to-eye on a particular issue. Discussions like this help me to understand others, and often bring me closer in love to those with whom I disagree; I know a lot of people don't like debate, but when it is kept friendly and loving, as it usually is in these boards, I like it a lot.

So this is in that vein, and I hope it sparks much good discussion, where we can all learn from each other.

It seems to me that there are differences of understanding and/or opinion regarding the thread title. On the one hand, the Old Testament Prophets were speaking to communities, not individuals; telling an entire city or sometimes the whole nation to repent. There are very few instances in the Old Testament where a prophet confronts an individual for his or her sin (Samuel confronting David), and just a handful in the New Testament (Jesus and the woman caught in adultery, who has no name). More often, it's the sin of the whole city which condemns it (Sodom and Gomorrah, Nineveh, Judah and Israel in the OT, Paul speaking to entire churches in the NT).

Many of us scoff and/or are quick to draw a distance when a church leader says something like, "The 9/11 attacks are God's punishment on the US for our sinfulness." But I wonder if there may not be some truth to that. Is it possible that our sinful behavior, as a nation, have indeed led to the Arab world's hatred of us, which is what caused those attacks?

There seems to be a lot of discussion in a lot of churches about specific sins. This particular sexual act or stealing that particular item. Some Christians seem to think it's important to declare specific sins, and to call each other accountable to these specific acts as individuals. In reading what Jesus said about sin, I'm not convinced that's quite the right way of looking at it. "Whenever you look at a woman with lust, you are committing adultery," he said.

In one way, paying taxes to a government that routinely murders innocent civilians in a war is no better than murder, so any American who has ever paid taxes or had taxes withheld from his or her wages has committed murder. On the other hand, NOT paying taxes means you are stealing from important social programs that help feed the poor, educate children, care for the sick: the most vulnerable people in society. So if you HAVEN"T paid taxes, you are a thief of the worst kind, robbing the poor. As they say, damned if you do, damned if you don't.

This is why I say that what we do as a community is so much more important than what we do as individuals. We already know that we are justified by faith through grace. If God were to judge us based on what we do, we are already damned. It is only through the cross of Christ Jesus, our Savior, that we have any salvation at all. So what ***I*** do cannot possibly matter to God. If it does matter, I'm damned. Therefore, I have to believe that it doesn't matter.

But it does matter... to my neighbor. What I do will never be the difference between heaven and hell for me, but it very well could be the difference between life and death for my neighbor.

It could be the difference between a full and empty stomach for someone.

It could be the difference between someone ending his life because he is not getting the medication he needs, or growing into the full Human Being God wants him to be.

It could be the difference between becoming a prostitute, because that's the only option a young girl feels she has, or getting an education and a career.

As a society, we have the ability to change lives, or we can close our hearts, and say it's all up to individual choices. I do not believe that God will judge any one of us based on how we vote or on what we personally believe, politically. But I do believe that the outcome of our society is directly related to how we treat the "least" of those among us. If you don't believe in God, you'd call it fate or karma.

If you do believe in God, I think you'd call it God's punishment on His people, for how we, as a society, treat others.

Agreed. This is seldom spoken of in most of christianity today, especially in the west, because the Bible is read with contemporary, individualistic eyeglasses.

This is true (yes, only Christ makes the positive difference between heaven and hell for a sinner) if understood in the context that what you do as a believer would earn you salvation or keep same. But it's not true for unbelievers, since they will be judged also according to their sins, which brings and keeps God's wrath upon them. And it's not true in the sense that someone merely can call themselves a christian and then live in whatever sins they please and still expect to go to heaven.

There's much to this! Definitely. And most christians worldwide fail here, as a community. However, in this matter we need to be safeguarded against so-called "social justice" perspectives or to mix this aspect with the struggle for democracy or similar. Politicizing the gospel in a wrong way will soon lead to going off base.

If we really understand the collective side of the biblical message, we would also (as I indicated above) understand that we cannot easily transfer an ancient (yet still valid) code of moral and values to a modern society based on secular principles. Else we will have an anachronistic hybrid that will spawn a lot of hypocrisy. Sadly, many denominations have done this.

Thank you. I value your input. There are a few times where I feel almost prophetic as I type / blog, and this was one of them. Sometimes it's just me mouthing off, but sometimes I feel it's more than that, and this topic is one of those later times. It takes talking it out, sharing it with my sisters and brothers in the Faith, and prayer, to flesh it out into "theology," so that I can share what I think God wants me to tell others. So thank you.

I am wondering if you can expound on this. Surely you don't believe that social justice is wrong. (I notice you put it in quotes, indicating that you're not talking about social justice per se, but some twisting, perhaps, of social justice?) I am guessing you're familiar with Liberation Theology, as it came up in the late 20th Century from Central and South America and spread to other parts of the world. Might that be where you're going with this thought?

What I'm saying is that God expects us, as a community, to help the poor. Not as individuals, but as a community. Now, what that community is (the government? the church? a neighborhood?) is certainly up for debate. What is clear is this: Jesus spent a lot more time talking about taking care of the poor than he did about sex. Shouldn't we be more concerned about the former than the later?

Rather than picking at the specks in each other's eyes, shouldn't we be making sure that every citizen, even the aliens among us, those who are not believers, are fed, clothed, well cared for, as the prophets warned? Yes, a lot of Christians are doing these things. But I've met too many Christians who spend hours complaining about the evils of masturbation, and yet have never once worked in a soup kitchen. It seems to me that this is not what Christianity is all about.

Is this social justice? Well, I think it is. Does that make it wrong? I don't think so.

As for the "struggle for democracy?" I have seen poor get trampled in a democracy, and yet I have seen Monarchies who did take care of the poor. Sure, I'd rather see a democracy, but that's a secondary goal. If you've got a dictatorship in which every man, woman, and child has their basic needs met and is able to contribute to their society so that others' needs are met, then the gospel is being lived. If you've got the perfect democracy but only rich white people have rights, it ain't godly.

These issues are deep and covers a whole multitude of fields. There are no simple answers to some of these questions, the risks of oversimplifications coming from all too easy would-be answers here are real. Add to that these issues being controversial in nature and would often bring quarrel and divisions when adressed to the christian community. The tensions here are not few. And maybe even at this level it can fuel at least "confounded language". Although I'd agree with most of your basic analysis, and some of your suggestions, there also seems to be some differences we have in thought. Anyway, I'll share this per your request.

Liberation theology, any kind of marxism or anything that resembles it (as well as genderism or thirdworldism) I believe are fundamentally wrong. However, that said, one should not think that christianity is about defending everything "american" or some neoliberal idea about "freedom". Both these combatting ideologies are relatively newcomers on the historical scene, christianity is far older and have endured many diverse political systems. We have plenty of examples of good economy among the christian community in history to learn from. A social perspective is of course not wrong, per se, genuine christendom must have it. But we have to have the right foundation and examples for it and these have to be biblical.

For me it's not a matter of debate what the christian community primarily is, it is of course the church. I'm not against the notion that nations can be christian, however most nations that would fall into the category are today by far secularized and many are even slowly turning to other religions. Certainly much of the christian church could do better in these fields than it does this hour. It's a shame and displeasing to God to the limit that in one and the same church we have "filthy rich" people sitting at the same table as "dirt poor" people, those being rich not sharing their wealth with their poor would-be siblings. As I see it, before we try to press our faith on people in the world, there's a lot to do at home first. I see some failure and hypocrisy going on when christians send their money to non-christian countries who opress christians, instead of helping their fellow christians their first. How can it be that western christians often care more for non-christians (muslims and jews) in the middle east than their christian brothers and sisters there who suffers hell most of the time? I don't get the equation.

Certainly a point there. Like I said in another post, the focus is often on anything sexual. In almost every american christian internet forum you will always find an overproportionately high amount of threads and posts dealing with sexual topics. While you would find almost no threads on topics such as greed or covetousness in the church. One can wonder why. However, the one does not take out the other, but the focus is not balanced. This is related to this thread. Sexuality would be highly individual, while distributing or subsidizing wealth is very much an opposite.

Maybe we see this differently. I don't believe that the church has any mission to end world poverty in itself. I believe such an idea actually can create more harm than it does good. Reasons? There are several. One is that the risk of hypocrisy is appearant (the needed differantiation between the Kingdom of God and the worldly kingdoms cannot be properly done). Also, the root of the problems with world poverty, famine and crisis are not necessarily the outcome of evil vices of white, rich, capitalist men. Much of it is simply the consequences of sin, and God's punishment for same, not the least for nations refusing the gospel and killing its emissionaries. If people do not repent then it will not help them anything whatever anyone send in aid. After all, the main focus of christians is to further the kingdom of God.

Well, again, I believe it's not the business of christianity to try create an ideal world. I think it's very dangerous when christians calls for some "strong leader" (of whichever color or bent they prefer) to "feed all" or make an end to our common problems. Surely, we can have societies that can do this, but it will be at the cost of christianity being corrupted or even eradicated. We know not a few recent examples of this. The most important aspect for christians must be that we have the possibility to preach all the word and counsel of God and have missions. As for racial issues, one has to be fair and fully consequential on this one. All too few are. Not only some chosen few minorities have rights. Racism is not all one way.

Tribesman, you have brought up some very good points, and I thank you for your respectful debate.

God bless.

As enticing as your conclusion may seem to believe, it is very far from the truth.

Everyone will be judged for what they do. Even more so what they do to others. No one will escape the judgement. God knows better, and you know better.

Every single idea a person has should be checked against the words of Jesus Christ, and the witness of the Holy Spirit.

Before anyone who has known the truth can justify something, they also know that the Holy Spirit has warned them against it. Even their consciences yelling at it.

It is one thing to be justified by your own ideas (which isn't justifiable), but quite another thing to be justified by the truth in Jesus Christ.

Everyone will be held accountable for what they do in private and in public. There will be no excuse.

May Jesus bless you.

Since the words of Jesus Christ say that we are judged not by whether we masturbate but by whether we feed the hungry, then what I posted is complete truth when checked against the words of Jesus Christ. Or do you claim to have some gospel other than what the Bible says? Paul did warn us about people who claimed to have some other Gospel.

You claim to have known that, because in your very next breath, you say:

But then your very own words betray you, because you say that, even though I quote Jesus Christ, what I say is not the Truth.

If I quote Jesus, and you disagree with what I am saying, then what side does that put you on?

Again, you attempt to justify something that the Lord has not. Lust is the same as adultery. Feeding the hungry won't do away with the lust in you. You can't do one deed to cover another.

So each person will be judged by what they do privately and publicly. Again, it is a conclusion you have made, not what the Holy Spirit has made.

May Jesus bless you.