{"id":20409,"date":"2014-01-05T11:19:45","date_gmt":"2014-01-05T16:19:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/?p=20409"},"modified":"2014-01-05T11:19:45","modified_gmt":"2014-01-05T16:19:45","slug":"what-is-sin-virtual-sunday-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2014\/01\/what-is-sin-virtual-sunday-school.html","title":{"rendered":"What is Sin? (Virtual Sunday School)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Last Sunday in my Sunday school class, we reached the part of the Lord\u2019s Prayer that asks for forgiveness of sins\/debts\/trespasses. Among the topics which came up, and to which we would have returned today if all church events had not been cancelled due to the severe winter weather, were the question of what \u201csin\u201d should mean for Christians today, and whether we ought to obey commandments for which we cannot understand the rationale.<\/p>\n

\"\"Despite what you will sometimes hear, it is not the case that liberal<\/a> and progressive<\/a> Christians<\/a> have no concept of sin or no concern with morality. Far from it. We just do not accept arbitrary commands and presume that they are divinely revealed. We see within the Bible that even the Bible\u2019s authors regularly challenge, add to, subtract from, and reinterpret laws and commands. Why should we consider it \u201cunbiblical\u201d to do the same? And so we seek a better reason than \u201cit says so in the Bible\u201d for what we emphasize and what we prohibit, since we honestly acknowledge that the Bible says many contradictory things, and that simply following what the Bible says in certain passages has led time and time again to conservative Christians being on the wrong side of history \u2013 from trying to exclude uncircumcised Gentiles in Paul\u2019s time, to defending slavery more recently, to name just a couple of examples.<\/p>\n

I suggested last week in my class that it would be a good exercise to find a commandment in the Bible that you instinctively consider not to be applicable to yourself or to our time. Then see if you can figure out whether you have an actual rationale for that decision.<\/p>\n

Since weather prevents my class from meeting today, I am sharing this here, inviting both those who normally attend my Sunday school class, and all those who read this blog, to participate in discussing this topic. I hope this gives you something useful to do during this blizzard.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve shared some of my own\u00a0thoughts<\/a> as a liberal Christian<\/a> here on the blog<\/a> before, about how principles ought to take priority over passages<\/a>. But even the principles can sometimes be adopted without a clear rationale. And so those too ought to be discussed when considering this topic.<\/p>\n

To end on a humorous note, I thought I\u2019d share an idea I had, even though I didn\u2019t follow through on it. I had the idea in Sunday school class last week to make a cartoon<\/a> which shows some people being challenged as to why they had come onto church property despite a \u201cNo Trespassing\u201d sign, and the people responding that they had assumed the sign indicated which version of the Lord\u2019s Prayer is used at the church! \ud83d\ude42 I\u2019m not much of a cartoonist, but if someone finds the idea worth turning into a cartoon and makes it, please let me know so that I can share it on the blog!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last Sunday in my Sunday school class, we reached the part of the Lord\u2019s Prayer that asks for forgiveness of sins\/debts\/trespasses. Among the topics which came up, and to which we would have returned today if all church events had not been cancelled due to the severe winter weather, were the question of what \u201csin\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":20412,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,34],"tags":[2311,2530,3536,6708,11329,12052,12829,12882],"class_list":["post-20409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gospel-of-luke","category-gospel-of-matthew","tag-crooked-creek-baptist-church","tag-debt","tag-forgiveness","tag-lords-prayer","tag-sin","tag-sunday-school","tag-transgression","tag-tresspasses"],"yoast_head":"\nWhat is Sin? 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