Walking Worthy: Believing In Sin
Columnist Mona Charen revealed in a recent column that more than 90 percent of Americans believe in God, 43 percent say they attend religious services at least once a week, and 58 percent report that religion is very important in their lives (Jewish World Review, 29 March 2000). The one thing they do not believe in is sin.
That old-time religion of frontier days, which emphasized themes like sin, redemption and judgment, has been gradually replaced by a self-esteem, self-help program of moral relativism and secular therapy.
Charen cites a few examples. Well-known preacher and head of Focus on the Family, James Dobson, still counsels young people against fornication, but his first line of deterrence is the risk of venereal disease, not displeasing a vigilant God. Dobson also advises teens that their formative years should be consumed with the pursuit of healthy self-esteem. A preacher years ago advised, "Remember now your creator in the days of your youth, Before the difficult days come And the years draw near when you say, ‘I have no pleasure in them’" (Ecclesiastes 12:1). The shift is subtle, but pervasive and fatal. There is a purity about the pursuit of God that is lost when spirituality is more defined by that loose phrase, "self-esteem."
Sin, of course, is viewed by American society as the greatest enemy of self-esteem, for failure makes people feel bad. Hence, the megachurch movement eschews it as a theme and focuses on what they call edification instead. Through the Old Testament prophets and New Testament writers, however, God made plain that true spiritual edification must be preceded by the demolition of wrong ideas. Jeremiah was sent with a divine mandate "To root out and to pull down, To destroy and to throw down, to build and to plant" (1:10). Paul wrote to three different churches about the burial of the old man of sin and the regeneration of the new man of faith (Romans 6:6, Ephesians 4:22, Colossians 3:9). The lot of the human heart is condemned and some clearing must occur before new construction may begin. Sin is the debris that penitence and conviction will remove.

