On Pluralism & Sin

While Christianity teaches that God created man in His image, people often try to do the opposite. For example, the ancient Greek gods were little more than supernatural humans. Fast forward to the age of pluralism: I'm OK, you're OK, we're all OK. OK? While sins against other people are, out of necessity, widely recognized, the concept of a sin against God is vanishing from our collective religious cognition. I would venture to say that the majority of Christian preachers in America who speak out against homosexuality (and they are dwindling in number) will try to address it as socially destructive. It is no longer sufficient to say that it is a sin against God. After all, you and I are nice: we wouldn't object to someone doing something that didn't affect us, so why would God? We wouldn't ever think of punishing someone eternally for disobeying us, would we? Therefore, it follows by projection that there's no such thing as eternal damnation.

One expects to find such reasoning among secular people. However, it is becoming more popular among the religious as well. There are entire faith movements, such as those run by Joel Osteen, that focus almost entirely on the feel-good factor. The phenomenon is not limited to Christians: secular Muslims, and the so-called Goofy Sufis, who focus entirely on spirituality while ignoring the Law, are guilty of this as well. Scripture speaks for itself: sin against God exists. It's really a matter of sincerity before the Divine: is Scripture to be read according to our preconceived notions of how we'd run the world if we were in charge, or is it time that we realized we aren't in charge and figured out what is expected of us? The stakes are high: redemption is based on atonement and no one would ask the forgiveness of someone who has no rights over them. The first step, therefore, is to recognize God's rights over one.

The flimsy defense used by those who want to ignore the Law is that it's what's in the heart that matters. What kind of a heart claims purity but does not recognize the rights of God?