Believing We Are Bad Doesn't Make Us Good, and Believing We Are Good Doesn't Make Us Bad.

"Sin and shame we come confessing..." was one of the lines of a hymn I grew up singing.  "Wayward, sinful still, are we," was another.

MY experience of the religious environment in which I was raised (which is common among many denominations, not just exclusive to my former one) was that it was good to be ever aware and watchful of one's sinful nature.

Indeed, in a recent newsletter lead article, the head pastor of one congregation said that, while being loving was all very nice, his job was to teach people about sin.

Really?
Really?

Is that what a pastor's job is?

Allow me to disagree.

In my experience, constant hyper-vigilance about sinfulness does not produce kind, engaged, compassionate people.

In my upbringing, one needed to be ever mindful of one's "tendency to evil of every kind."   It led to a lot of people calling themselves (and each other) selfish and/or worldly, a lot of fear, and a lot of judgmentalism.  It was a shaming culture.  It still is. 

I now grow weary in conversation with some of these folks, because of the constant statements like, "maybe I was being selfish but..." or, "It was probably selfish of me but...."

The thing is, I suspect that my own deeply rooted impulse to name my flaws out loud before anyone else can do so comes from this upbringing. (This is to prove that I am aware of my faults and thus avoid criticism; a habit, I must say, which is nothing but wearisome to my friends, and thankfully is mostly extinct).  But I still catch myself at it sometimes.  It is rather like verbal farting.  In the most recent occurrence, my negative self criticism sat in the air in an uncomfortable and awkward pause.  It was something along the lines of, "I'm fat and ugly but you are beautiful."  It just sat there.  I breathed, and then said, "I'm sorry.  I don't do that anymore.  I am beautiful too.  I am really beautiful."  And everyone sighed in relief.

It's embarrassing to admit, but there it is.  And I figure if I'm battling back from self-abuse, I'm probably not the only one. So there it is.

So, I assert firmly to those who are so afraid of sin:

Believing we are bad doesn't make us good, and believing we are good doesn't make us bad.

Let me say that again:
Believing we are bad doesn't make us good, and believing we are good doesn't make us bad.


Instead, being constantly afraid of our sinfulness seems to lead to both self-abuse and an intense desire to cover-up any embarrassing slip-ups. And I can absolutely vouch for the fact that in my case, being constantly afraid of my sinfulness created in me a laser-intense watchfulness of any and all possible signs of sinfulness in myself and others.  It didn't just point inward, it pointed out too, following the age-old wisdom of "What goes around comes around."  Or in Biblical words, I loved others as I loved myself---with constant harsh criticism, held very close to my chest because I also deeply needed to be approved of and loved.

I judged constantly.  Constantly, constantly, constantly.  I grew up surrounded by spoken "concern" about others or open critical commentary on others, and therefore lived in the fear of that criticism being aimed at me too.  So why not become preemptively self critical, eh?  It was purely an emotional coping mechanism in a terrified child.

The core focus was sin and fear of sin, and this created a life built around sin.  My relationship to sin was the foundation.  That is one crappy foundation!  It bred what you would expect, massive amounts of energy devoted to looking good, and a huge fear of looking bad---because the judgment (masked by niceness) was EVERYWHERE.

But it is a myth that if we somehow are all about sin, and hyper aware of it, we'll be safe from it.

"Sin," or human weakness, character defects, addictions, --- foibles great and small, are always with us, like germs or soil or bacteria.  It's no big deal.  It's NORMAL.  If we learn basic good spiritual hygiene, and good self-care, and how to get help when we need it (rather than covering it up and feeling ashamed) we should be just fine.  We have what we need, constantly, to navigate these grounds.  We constantly live with our imperfections. So what?  Only perfectionism is terrified by this reality.  It is simply a matter of fact, otherwise.

Isn't fear the problem here?

All I really know is this: believing that I was in constant danger of falling into terrible sin did not make me a wiser, more compassionate and loving person; while believing that I am essentially good-hearted and capable makes me far less self-absorbed, far more compassionate, and far more relaxed and kind.

I will vote for the second me any day.
Just my thoughts.
Alison