“To whitewash our deeds simply by maintaining our innocence is to defy God, who hears the cry of the guiltless.”
- Abraham Joshua Heschel (Toward a Just Society)
Notice how this phrasing does not suggest that the people he is speaking to are in fact guilty. Heschel goes on to point out that one of the most compelling things about the Jewish scriptures is the sheer number of times that it makes associations between doing nothing and having blood on our hands. He notes the failure of modern society to instill horror in the simple fact that death and suffering exists in this world, and that this simple fact speaks to our necessary responsibility.
Sadly, what we often find in the Church is an emphasis on responsibility that reduces the larger reality to me and my salvation. We reduce Sin and Death to human action and make responsibility a means of being saved. Such thinking, in my opinion, stands a long ways apart from what we find in the Biblical narrative. Worse yet, trying to reform such approaches and understanding within the Church is often met with resistance by way of two common responses. Either people believe we were all sinful and thus inherently deserving of death because of our actions, or people believe that we are not the sinners who are responsible for it, therefore it should not be blame that is placed on us. Both tend to end up in the same place- claims of innocence that turn our responsiblity to death and suffering in the world towards merit of the self and our salvation.
This is why the whole intentional and unintentional sin thing is simply not in line with the Biblical vision and narrative. Over and over again we read of Israel giving themselves over to pagan practices at the expense of what? The suffering that lies outside their gates. The reality of Sin and Death that rules the world they share and which defines their hope for God to bring such a reign to an end. This is what is being called out.
I’ve said this in the past, but we have two primary questions we can ask when we walk out our front doors in the morning. One is to see a world where Sin and Death reigns inspite of anything we have done, and for that to compel us towards both our hope and our responsibility. The other is to see ourselves and our own sinful state and for our observation of a world where Sin and Death reigns to point us back to our salvation.
The former is, I believe, closer in line with what we find in the Biblical narrative. While the latter has a place, but if it’s our starting point or our ending point then I do not believe it accurately reflects the Gospel.
The Stories of my Life 