Friends,
Someone once said, “The preacher should write his sermons
with the Bible in one hand and the daily paper in the other.” In other
words, my sermons should intersect with the current issues of the day.
I’m sure that is true of my newsletter articles as well!
So…let’s talk about ISIS. (Did that get your
attention?) A few days ago, in an effort to offer hope in the face of the
brutal horrors performed by ISIS, our president said, “Children are not born
knowing how to hate. They have to be taught that.” I think his
point was, if we can intercept these young people before they get connected to
hateful people, we can short-circuit movements like ISIS. I think this
was mostly a cultural comment, not a theological comment. I certainly
believe that children raised in a culture that rejects hate and chooses love and
kindness have a better chance of growing up to not be hateful.
But, theologically he’s wrong. Orthodox Christians for
thousands of years have believed in what we call “original sin.” That
means that, since sin entered the world in the Garden of Eden through Adam and
Eve, everyone born since then has been born with what John Wesley would call “a
bent toward sinning.” It sounds pleasing, but it is a seductive lie to
say that we are basically “good people.” Some folks are nicer than
others, some meaner, but the Bible is clear that we are all fallen and in need
of God’s forgiving grace. We have a fatal flaw called sinful hearts.
The Christian writer Katherine Anne Porter writes, “Love
must be learned, and learned again and again; there is no end to it. Hate
needs no instruction, but waits only to be provoked.”
Some of the greatest saints in Christian history, when asked
what they consider to be our greatest truths, have said, “The overwhelming
capacity for sin in my own heart.” They didn’t say that because humility
is fashionable. They said it because they believed it.
We should believe that too. Only then does the cross
stand tall on Calvary with its full power and the empty tomb revolutionize our
lives.
Hungering for Holiness
Pastor Scott
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