Down the Bayou Theology

Wow!  Ol' Phil Robertson really started some hoopla with his comments to GQ magazine.  You can read about his interview with GQ HERE.  I doubt that Phil is surprised at the reactions or the consequences.  Phil is not a fool, and he's not a coward either.  I might wish that his remarks had been less crass, but for the most part Phil and I are simpatico - although I am not a fan of long, unkept beards, but that's another story.

Phil has got me to thinking about the reality of sin - all kinds of sin, not just sexual sins.  Sin is a reality in spite of the politically correct decree that it doesn't exist.  The law of gravity would exist even if the PC crowd railed against, and so it is with sin.

It's our sins that separate us from God.  It seems to me that there are two broad categories of sin.  There's the wilful, premeditated, planned-ahead-for sin.   And there's the accidental, "I honest to goodness did not mean to do that" kind of sin.

I think there are three ways that we can react to our own sinning, and here they are.

We can keep on sinning, as secretly as possible so we can pretend to be something in public that we know we're not in private.  This method is called hypocricy.  Hypocrisy is bad, and I don't mean to white wash it.  But if we practice hypocrisy because we would be ashamed to be found out, it's an indication that we have some standards although we're not living up to them.  

The second method is to boldly declare that our sin is not sin, it's simply a different way of living.  We can defend our position by declaring that anyone who doesn't agree with us is a bigot.  This method is called decadence.  Hypocrisy is bad, but decadence is worse, even if they did name a popular perfume "Decadence."   Decadence means we've shamelessly tossed the standards.

The third method is repentance.  We can admit we have sinned and throw ourselves on the mercy of God.  While we're about it, we can admit that we are frail, weak human beings and will continue to sin if we don't get some divine assistance.  And divine assistance is always available through faith in Our Lord Jesus Christ.  

Repentance may lead some people to a steady ascent to sainthood, but that hasn't been my experience.  For me repentance has meant that I'm slowly moving in the right direction, but sometimes it's three steps forward and two back.  But progress in the right direction, albeit slow, is infinitely better than progress in the wrong direction.  And I don't think there's any such thing as standing still.  We're always progressing in one direction or the other.

The most difficult of these three methods is repentance.  Good things never come easy, and repentance is good because it's the only one of these three methods that leads to happiness.