Sin

[Jim Zeirke]

Why is sin so rarely talked about in church anymore?  Yesterday I spoke at a gathering of Christians.  While discussing the subject of humility and humbling ourselves before God I got into the subject of sin and how we Christians need to confess our sins.  The speaker after me politely disagreed with my take and said that God's love and grace covers our sins.  Hey, I'm teachable.  However, I did point out that the New Testament from Acts all the way to the end discusses sin among Christians.

This is another example of something that rather sticks in my craw:  You rarely hear sin discussed in churches any more.  It i becoming what Michael Patton calls "a closet doctrine". I attend a lot of churches in my travels. With the exception of some of the fundamentalist churches it is rare for me to sit in a church and hear the subject of sin addressed.  I've asked pastors and elders why that is and often I get "the open sewer look" and they say that they'd rather focus on God's love.  One elder told me that he specifically doesn't talk about sin when sharing the Gospel with a nonbeliever because he doesn't want to come off as judgemental. 

Aren't those folks who shy away from discussing sin both in the church and outside of it simply being timid?  Whatever happened to hard hitting sermons that convict us of our sins?  I'm not saying that evey sermon has to be a pounding of the congregation, but for Pete's sake why shy away from it completely?  In Christian bookstores you hardly see any books that cover the subject, either.

It seems that evangelical Christianity is getting more and more watered

[1stjohn]

would abusing people be sin, if you knew Gods law?