Sin and Salvation - Adult Discussion

During February our Sunday Adult Discussions of "What Does a Christian Believe?" have focused on Sin. As we move into Lent we will be discussing Salvation. If Sin is failing and hiding - pride, sensuality and self-deception – then Salvation is seeking and finding - the reign of God and eternal life.

In preparation for Adult Discussion on Sunday March 1, please review the following “Points for Reflection on Sin” to determine if there are any that you would like to discuss further before we move on to Salvation:

POINTS FOR REFLECTION ON SIN
Failing and Hiding

1. Modern discussions of sin have not been very useful. Sin-talk has been anti-world, anti-sex, anti-female, anti-pleasure, and opposed to equality and self-affirmation, just to mention a few of its drawbacks.

2. In classical Christian theology, sin takes two forms, pride and sensuality. Already our hackles are raised! We are all supportive of pride, and why should anyone think sensuality is a sin?

3. By "pride" the tradition meant excessive self-regard in relation to others, assuming for oneself more than that to which one is entitled. "Sensuality" meant the opposite failure, thinking of oneself less highly than one ought to think.

4. Viewed in terms of the two great commandments, sin is loving too much, or loving too little, any part of the interconnected web of life, from God to all of those whom God loves and in whom God is incarnate.

5. The more insightful Christian traditions ask, Why is our failure to love as we ought so persistent and pervasive? The answer it gives has to do with self-deception, hiding the truth from ourselves.

6. Sin is not simply the failure to love properly. It is that failure accompanied by the pretense that we have loved as we should. We hide our failure, even from ourselves!

7. The doctrine of "original sin'' is not a denial of human goodness, and it is not about sex. It is about the layers of evil—racism, sexism, consumerism, egotism, etc.—structured into our existence. We begin our lives in the midst of these.

8. Christian tradition "suspects" that we rather happily acquiesce to the evil structures in which we find ourselves. Our failings build into unjust and self-serving structures ... and we find them to be quite comfortable!



The focus of our discussions next Sunday will be on Salvation. What does Salvation mean to you? Does it mean going to Heaven? Why do you want to go to Heaven? What do you expect to experience in Heaven? What is your understanding of the “reign of God” and of “eternal life”. Please do not feel limited by the following “Points for Reflection on Salvation”, but consider them to be “jump off” points for our discussions.

POINTS FOR REFLECTION ON SALVATION
Seeking and finding


1. Religions say that however good life may be, still something fundamental is "out of joint." It may not too simplistic to say that religion is about God, God is about salvation, and salvation is about the most basic form of health.

2. If Christology is the clue to our concept of God, it is also the clue to the salvation that God makes possible. The God at home in the world saves the world through processes that are part and parcel of this world.

3. Two biblical metaphors are instructive for an understanding of salvation. One is the idea of the "reign of God" The other is the image of "eternal life."

4. The reign of God is fullness of health throughout the whole web of life. It is already breaking in upon us through the processes of nature, history, interpersonal relationships, and through our individual lives.

5. Eternal life is the quality of a life that is lived in the belief that our world and our individual lives have been "assumed" into the life of God. It is living in the incarnate
reality of God.

6. In a nonliteral but disturbing sense, there is hell as well as heaven. Heaven is the permanence of our every achievement on behalf of love in the everlasting life of God. Hell is the permanence in God's experience of our every failure to love.

7. Christian talk of the "reign of God" and "eternal life" is fragmentary, intuitive, metaphorical. These are guides to the vision of an "entire created order" being set free from sin and more open to the love of the incarnate God.