Reclaiming the antithesis of sin
Since I am writing on Friday the reader will not be surprised that I have downloaded and listened to the most recent podcast of On Being hosted by Krista Tippett. Her conversation of October 20, 2016 recorded at Washington University in St. Louis was with David Brooks, columnist for the New York times and author of The Social Animal and The Road to Character and E. J. Dionne, columnist for The Washington Post, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, professor at Georgetown University and author of Souled Out: Reclaiming Faith in Politics after the Religious Right and Why the Right Went Wrong. The title they gave to this conversation was Sinfulness, hopefulness, and the Possibility of Politics. (I strongly urge the reader of this blog to read and savor the entire conversation between these three articulate seeking souls.)
As any aware person in the United States and indeed much of the world knows, in just a couple of week voters in the United States will elect a new president. There has been and continues to be a lot of discussion about the negative level of discourse during this very long election campaign which has led to many discussions about the state of the body politic and, in fact, the political process in the United States. Not surprisingly with such thoughtful individuals as Dr. Brooks, Mr. Dionne, and Mrs. Tippett the subject of sin would emerge. Depending on one’s framework for the search for meaning and, thus, the search for how humans can or should interact with each other and the universe in general, one might or might not use the word sin. Certainly in past election campaigns in the United States the concept of sin was usually based in the framework of particular religious doctrines. In my experience, it was often used to describe how badly humans are likely to behave unless reined in by some internal and external force. Thus, the very mention of the word might be enough to cause one to cower in shameful awareness of all the ways in which one has fallen short of being the person one aspires to be. It was and is ironic that this term often results in one attempting to avoid a connection with oneself, with others or the rest of the universe(s) as well as the God of one’s understanding. Yet, when I think of the concept of sin I think of a disconnection of the core of who we are, from others and from any concept of a higher being. Sin then describes a condition which is isolating and not conducive to any healthy organization of people – political or social. I suppose that sin now becomes an apt term to describe the condition of the political body in the United States. The passionately negative state of the campaign has driven the body politic further and further apart. Thus, the current state of the body politic could be described as one in a state of sin(disconnection) and sinful.
In the conversation between Dr. Brooks, Mr. Dionne and Ms. Tippets, Dr. Brooks states:
” But then how do you talk about it?
You really can’t talk about “original sin.” People will just push you away. And so I go to Augustine’s concept of “disordered loves” which is we all love a lot of things, and we all know some loves are higher than others. Our love of truth should be higher than our love of money, but because of some screw-up in our nature, we get our loves out of order all the time. So if a friend blabs to you a secret and you tell it at a dinner party, you’re putting your love of popularity above your love of friendship, and that’s a sin. And I think, in this world, which doesn’t like to peer darkly into brokenness, it’s easier to swallow the concept of two positive things that are out of order. And that’s a way you can introduce the concept of sin.”
It seems that the term “disordered loves” or what the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr calls inherited corruption with pride being the base corruption leads to what I am calling a disassociation or a disconnection with ourselves. It is understandable that all spiritual teachings stress honesty with and acceptance of self as a necessary act or condition for spiritual enlightenment. Dishonesty results in disconnection. The current rhetoric and behavior of the political candidates seems to be designed to tear asunder rather than bring together. Thus, we could, even in the current secular atmosphere, describe the current political process as sinful- as that which is designed to separate and to, thus, prevent a working together to order our combined resources to take care of each other.
Whether in the precise and eloquent words of Dr. Brooks and Mr. Dionne or the passionate plea of the evangelical preacher we must indeed free ourselves from the temptations of sin – of blaming and disconnecting – and focus on our shared need to build community which is the antithesis of sin. While we may no longer need the paradoxes inherent in most if not all organized religions, we do desperately need and deserve an organized way of regularly gathering for the express purpose of exposing the needs and wounds of all the members of the body politic in order to adopt guidelines and perhaps even a few rules that will allow us to live together harmoniously and to share the resources of food, shelter, medicine and other resources.
Not all of us are able to meet in such lofty and auspicious settings as Washington or Georgetown University. Not all of us will feel comfortable within the often narrow framework of mainstream religious meetings or the rarified halls of such institutions as the Unitarian church. We will need to continue to experiment with gathering venues for reclaiming (or claiming) vibrant, passionate, inclusive spaces in which we, the small units of the body politic, decide how to join together rather than tear asunder.
Written October 21, 2016
Since I am writing on Friday the reader will not be surprised that I have downloaded and listened to the most recent podcast of On Being hosted by Krista Tippett. Her conversation of October 20, 2016 recorded at Washington University in St. Louis was with David Brooks, columnist for the New York times and author of The Social Animal and The Road to Character and E. J. Dionne, columnist for The Washington Post, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, professor at Georgetown University and author of Souled Out: Reclaiming Faith in Politics after the Religious Right and Why the Right Went Wrong. The title they gave to this conversation was Sinfulness, hopefulness, and the Possibility of Politics. (I strongly urge the reader of this blog to read and savor the entire conversation between these three articulate seeking souls.)
As any aware person in the United States and indeed much of the world knows, in just a couple of week voters in the United States will elect a new president. There has been and continues to be a lot of discussion about the negative level of discourse during this very long election campaign which has led to many discussions about the state of the body politic and, in fact, the political process in the United States. Not surprisingly with such thoughtful individuals as Dr. Brooks, Mr. Dionne, and Mrs. Tippett the subject of sin would emerge. Depending on one’s framework for the search for meaning and, thus, the search for how humans can or should interact with each other and the universe in general, one might or might not use the word sin. Certainly in past election campaigns in the United States the concept of sin was usually based in the framework of particular religious doctrines. In my experience, it was often used to describe how badly humans are likely to behave unless reined in by some internal and external force. Thus, the very mention of the word might be enough to cause one to cower in shameful awareness of all the ways in which one has fallen short of being the person one aspires to be. It was and is ironic that this term often results in one attempting to avoid a connection with oneself, with others or the rest of the universe(s) as well as the God of one’s understanding. Yet, when I think of the concept of sin I think of a disconnection of the core of who we are, from others and from any concept of a higher being. Sin then describes a condition which is isolating and not conducive to any healthy organization of people – political or social. I suppose that sin now becomes an apt term to describe the condition of the political body in the United States. The passionately negative state of the campaign has driven the body politic further and further apart. Thus, the current state of the body politic could be described as one in a state of sin(disconnection) and sinful.
In the conversation between Dr. Brooks, Mr. Dionne and Ms. Tippets, Dr. Brooks states:
” But then how do you talk about it?
You really can’t talk about “original sin.” People will just push you away. And so I go to Augustine’s concept of “disordered loves” which is we all love a lot of things, and we all know some loves are higher than others. Our love of truth should be higher than our love of money, but because of some screw-up in our nature, we get our loves out of order all the time. So if a friend blabs to you a secret and you tell it at a dinner party, you’re putting your love of popularity above your love of friendship, and that’s a sin. And I think, in this world, which doesn’t like to peer darkly into brokenness, it’s easier to swallow the concept of two positive things that are out of order. And that’s a way you can introduce the concept of sin.”
It seems that the term “disordered loves” or what the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr calls inherited corruption with pride being the base corruption leads to what I am calling a disassociation or a disconnection with ourselves. It is understandable that all spiritual teachings stress honesty with and acceptance of self as a necessary act or condition for spiritual enlightenment. Dishonesty results in disconnection. The current rhetoric and behavior of the political candidates seems to be designed to tear asunder rather than bring together. Thus, we could, even in the current secular atmosphere, describe the current political process as sinful- as that which is designed to separate and to, thus, prevent a working together to order our combined resources to take care of each other.
Whether in the precise and eloquent words of Dr. Brooks and Mr. Dionne or the passionate plea of the evangelical preacher we must indeed free ourselves from the temptations of sin – of blaming and disconnecting – and focus on our shared need to build community which is the antithesis of sin. While we may no longer need the paradoxes inherent in most if not all organized religions, we do desperately need and deserve an organized way of regularly gathering for the express purpose of exposing the needs and wounds of all the members of the body politic in order to adopt guidelines and perhaps even a few rules that will allow us to live together harmoniously and to share the resources of food, shelter, medicine and other resources.
Not all of us are able to meet in such lofty and auspicious settings as Washington or Georgetown University. Not all of us will feel comfortable within the often narrow framework of mainstream religious meetings or the rarified halls of such institutions as the Unitarian church. We will need to continue to experiment with gathering venues for reclaiming (or claiming) vibrant, passionate, inclusive spaces in which we, the small units of the body politic, decide how to join together rather than tear asunder.
Written October 21, 2016
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