One consequence of the Church’s overemphasis on shame in communicating the doctrine of sin has been the development of the Progressive tradition’s doctrine of systemic sin. This doctrine says that an individual is not born sinful but rather that systems in our world are sinful. This doctrine allows believers to reconcile the evils and brokenness of the world without having to see themselves as part of the problem.
The issue is that this doctrine does not account for our active choice in original sin or our active choice in daily sin. Again, the revelation of our active sin should not necessarily invoke us to shame, but rather to a very understandable frustration with our flesh, which forces us to be in opposition to how we want to act:
I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. For I know that the good does not dwell within me, that is, in my flesh. For the desire to do the good lies close at hand, but not the ability. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it but sin that dwells within me.
Romans 7:15; 18-20 NRSVue
When we remove shame from the equation, I think we can all relate to doing things we later (or even in the moment) regret. We flip someone off when we’re driving, we talk poorly about our spouse, we lash out in anger at our kids, we get addicted to substances and find we can’t just easily quit. The doctrine of sin – that we inherently do things we don’t want or mean to – is not that controversial when we escape out of the hand of shame the Devil wants to trap us in.
However, one of the gifts of this Progressive theology has been a naming of systemic sin, that harder to articulate, abstract sinfulness inherent in creation and within our systems. Jesus recognized this kind of sin in a story we recognize and reflect on during Holy Monday:
Then Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who were selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. He said to them, “It is written,
‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’
but you are making it a den of robbers.”
Matthew 21:12-13 NRSVue
In this story, we see explicitly the vendors who are selling their wares, as well as the buyers and the money changers, people that might be easy for us to see as sinners. However, we also implicitly see the temple authorities, Jewish passersby, and government officials who allowed for the corruption of the temple without intervening. Our modern systems are similarly full of both explicit bad actors and also implicit passive permitters. How much evil do we allow simply because we’re not directly involved and it feels too hard to combat?
Holy Monday is a holy invitation to reflect not just our individual sin and failings, but also on the failing systems we participate in, allow, fund, and passively accept. During Holy Week, we can choose to recommit to a Christian worldview in which both individual and systemic sin are repented of and turned to good. As Cramer and Werntz write in their Field Guide to Christian Nonviolence, the church has a unique opportunity to flip the tables of oppression in our current context:
“Because the church is catholic – that is, a universal body that encompasses all differences and traverses all social divisions – the church is quite literally the body that holds together the divisions of creation in itself. The church is a kind of nesting doll within societies… A church formed by the peace of Christ fills the surrounding society with that peace by its very existence, which removes division across class, gender, and race.”
As redeemed people continually seeking redemption, we have a responsibility to participate in the cleansing of the world by exemplifying a Kingdom culture in clear opposition to the ways of the world.
One practical way you can participate in this counter-cultural movement of God is to identify one systemic sin of interest to you and donate, volunteer, or advocate on behalf of that cause. Pray for wisdom to select the cause and mode of advocacy that God wants you to pursue. God may even reveal to you a cause which does not currently have support. And, you may even find, God supplies you with a new mission with which to find new workers.
NOTES:
This post borrows wisdom from Cramer and Werntz’ Field Guide to Christian Nonviolence. We encourage you to check out this resource. Scripture quotations are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Bryce Van Vleet is the #1 selling author of Tired Pages and Before We All Die Let’s Have One Last Chat by the Fireside. He also hosts the podcast Death in Dakota, sells poetry art here, and masquerades as the spoken word artist Liihey. You can support him by clicking through blog posts or donating (scroll to the bottom of the page).
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