Reflections: Corporate Sin and Redemption

As anyone who has ever glanced at the “What We’re Reading” bar knows, Rebecca and I have both been challenged and encouraged greatly through the writings of Anglican theologian N.T. Wright. Bishop Wright has recently come under fire for his highly complex and nuanced views on justification by faith, and the role of that phrase in Paul’s writing (none of which will be discussed here). Because his work has been so influential on us (I consider Surprised by Hope one of the most important books I have ever read), I have tried to understand the basic issue under consideration. I recently ran across a Boyce College panel discussion on “N.T. Wright and the Doctrine of Justification.”
During the debate, some of the Boyce panelists accused Wright of diminishing or reducing the doctrine of sin. Coming from the theological tradition that I do, I take this accusation quite seriously. To diminish our sinfulness is to diminish Christ’s work, as far as I’m concerned, and if indeed Wright does this I think he’s in dangerous water. So I began listening very carefully, and was deeply disconcerted by what I heard . . . from the Boyce panelists.

How does Wright diminish sin according to these good traditional folks? He does so by elevating the importance of cosmic sin and our individual sins as existing within this larger framework. “Wright takes the focus off of sin,” says one panelist, “focusing instead on these sort of corporate indiscretions.” Do you see what’s happening here? Wright doesn’t talk about sex, drugs, and rock and roll, which of course are “real sins.” What he talks about about systems of oppression, about injustice, about our participation in a system of violence, and about our disregard for the command to care for the Earth. And, well, if you focus on those indiscretions then of course people won’t hardly know what to repent of now will they?

This is a constant theme in current conservative Christian discussion. In discussing his signing of the Manhattan Declaration which declares the church’s stand against abortion, homosexuality, and stem cell research, Chuck Colson spoke directly to “younger evangelicals” who are concerned about things like “global poverty and the environment:” ““We argue that there is a hierarchy of issues. A lot of the younger evangelicals say they’re all alike. We’re hoping to educate them that these are the three most important issues.” Although Colson doesn’t say whether our role in global poverty or crimes against the environment are mere “indiscretions” or whether they are actually sin, he does clearly see them as being secondary to the “big sins” connected to sexual morality and abortion.

I understand what the Boyce guys are saying. It’s true that emphasizing our corporate responsibility to the world, and the ways that our “society” has done so much evil at home and around the world in and through us may leave people confused about how to respond. It’s easier to hear “Go and sin no more” if you’re sleeping with your girlfriend, maybe, than if you are, say, part of a society that is racist and oppresses the poor. There’s only one problem. Corporate and cosmic sin is at the heart of the Biblical story. When I read these things, about how Colson wants to educate me out of my concern for “global poverty,” I just want to say, “Sorry, Chuck, the Bible speaks more often and more strongly about poverty than it does about homosexuality or abortion.” It’s a numerical fact, as well as an issue of the very heart of the Biblical narrative. I want to say to those Boyce guys, “Sorry, folks. In Genesis 3 it doesn’t say you ate the apple and so you’re going to lust after women and drink too much. No, what it says is cursed is the ground because of you. Work will be difficult and pregnancy will be dangerous.”

The idea that sin is primarily individual is not just unbiblical, it’s an unnecessary either/or. If sin and the curse is indeed often corporate, we maintain the conviction that our individual sins are also a part. We do lust. We do get drunk. We do commit atrocities against the unborn. And we need forgiveness for it. But those sins are part of the cosmic story of a world, a system, a cosmos wrecked by sin and all of its effects. And when you ignore this absolutely Biblical theme, as Colson and the Boyce profs do in the examples above, you begin to act like the big picture sins, like systemic injustice and oppression . . . well, those are mere indiscretions . . . not really that important . . . not the work of the church . . . not part of Jesus’ redemption.

I think these issues explain so much of why our impact on politics and society at large has been such an abysmal failure. When people who have seen the rampant racism and classism that is such an enormous part of everyday American life, when people see Enron and Jim Crowe and banks run into the ground by believers and anti-poor policies voted in by believers, and then hear that Jesus is dealing with sin . . . by making sure you don’t sleep with your girlfriend . . . that is a type of “dealing with sin” that just doesn’t make sense. Or, to put it more strongly, when the world sees our staunch angry defense of the unborn alongside our callous indifference for the single mothers of the world, they see a hypocrisy that is simply unbearable. Maybe if we embraced the cosmic, maybe if we took our stand against the systems of sin and our role in them, the world would be more open to hearing our deeply important contributions to personal sexual ethics as well.

Because, at least in my experience, cosmic and corporate sin is a HUGE PART OF THE STORY! Kenya struggles with sexual ethics, but they also struggle with systemic injustice, and a corporate culture of bribery that keeps our friend Agnes in a constant state of suspense at the hands of “powerful Christians” who are oppressing the poor. The story of South African apartheid was one of individual racists, but it was also a story of greedy international predominately Christian nations that complied with that racism because it was self-serving to do so. Walking around the neighborhood I worked in back in Memphis, I saw rampant sexual misconduct . . . right alongside the systems of sin in which I and my family and my church have participated in that have given that same neighborhood lousy underfunded schools, an economic system that doesn’t work, housing that is undignified, and a legal system that discriminates against the poor and ethnic minorities. You can’t tell the story of what’s wrong without telling the story of corporate sin . . . which implicates us all.

Because corporate sins like injustice, oppression, etc, are at the heart of a Biblical view of sin (if you still disagree, just read the prophets), I think we see several huge losses in our life within the church when we diminish these corporate sins from our corporate repentance and consciousness. First, in total opposition to what the Boyce scholars think, a diminishment of corporate sin actually weakens our confessional life. If sin can be reduced to sex, drugs, and rock and roll, I can avoid that more easily than we sometimes pretend. Oh sure, Jesus talks about the heart, but it’s a whole lot easier to get self-righteous and confident when you rule out our corporate and systemic sinful involvement. But when we know that we are all part of the problem of the world, that my sin and yours make up a vast network of injustice that we can hardly even see, we are driven to our knees, not just in repentance, but in longing cries for Christ’s kingdom. And that, of course, is the second tremendous loss of a belief in corporate sin. If we diminish the role of systemic and corporate sin, we diminish the work of Jesus Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. Romans, that classic text on justification by faith, declares that the creation is groaning in anticipation for the Sons of God to be revealed! Jesus came to heal the whole thing! And when we forget all the ways we’ve contributed to evil systems, we lose sight of the myriad ways that Christ has healed those sins, the small mustard seeds of systemic change that his kingdom brings, and the ways in which participating with Christ in redeeming these systems of oppression and injustice is a huge part of the gospel!! Take away systemic and corporate sin, and there’s no sense that Christ is calling us to fight for justice and an end to poverty as an explicit part of his kingdom work!

We have said that we want this blog to be a place where you, the community of people who love and support us in our work, can join with us in all that God is teaching us and doing in our lives. More and more every day, I see just how important this concept is: that we are embedded in networks of sin and evil that go far deeper than we realize, and that therefore Christ’s saving work is all the more amazing and beautiful . . . because he is going all the way down to heal the world and the cosmos itself, and calling us to be a part of that work with him. It’s worse than we thought, but Christ is doing far more than we could ever ask or even imagine. And that is truly good news.

Peace,

Michael