Remember Your Baptism
October 9, 2022
Texts: (For full texts, go to the end of this manuscript)
2 Kings 5:1-15
Luke 17:11-19
Here is the Zoom link to Jay’s teaching: https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/kS8HYqzEdZfIUp4rhRKE0vXUndaBfOJioGRVl9XOwfSmxZp8UOJnXTEnOFbunHez.mwMLvYxGeB4j9uxi?startTime=1665326569000
I find that it’s not popular in progressive Christian spaces to speak about sin. It’s a word that comes with a lot of baggage. Sin is a word that is used to shame, oppress, and judge. I think for example of the way “sin” is deployed against queer and trans people to twist pleasure into guilt and bodies into shame. I think of how sin has been used to induce guilt — petrifying, crushing guilt. I think of how sin is used to foster self-hatred and justify authoritarian disciplinary measures to create submissive subjects.
But I’m not ready to throw “Sin” out yet, because if we give up on the concept of sin, I fear we might lose an important religious framework for naming the evils and violence that plague our work. In the Western church, Sin is often understood in legal terms: breaking a law, committing a crime, wrongdoing in need of punishment. In this framework, salvation means to be saved from impending punishment or from the consequences of one’s actions. However, the Eastern churches (in general) have a very different concept of Sin.