he best theologians know that a classically high doctrine of sin is not only profoundly descriptive of human nature and the world we inhabit, it is also a necessary starting point from which to develop a high doctrine of grace. Nevertheless it is rather common to hear people in the church suggest that we can have one without the other: “I’d rather focus on God’s love than sin.” But how do we most powerfully know God’s love as Christians? Through God’s dealing with human sin.

I have written elsewhere of the dangers in losing our distinctive vocabulary as Christians. When our nerve fails us in using the unique words of the gospel, we risk losing the gospel itself. Few Christian words are as essential to grasp and yet more unpopular in many church circles today than “sin.” I was delighted to read a recent editorial by Anglican priest and scholar George Sumner who serves as Principal of Wycliffe College at the University of Toronto. In that school’s newsletter, Sumner writes of his plans to teach a new advanced degree offering entitled, “The Sin Seminar.” Good naturedly, he promises the course “will be more boring than it sounds.” But the subject is important as he writes:

The revival in theology in recent generations has focused on subjects such as the Trinity or the church, but not on the doctrine of sin (in part because we have tried to get away from starting, in our self-fascination, with ourselves). But it seems to me that any language is hard to speak if certain chapters of the grammar are torn out. That is what has happened in the modern era to this doctrine- it has become hard for people to hear it as anything other than low self-esteem or downright meanness. Try, if you are an Anglican cleric, to reinstate that prayer that reads “we are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under Thy table,” and see how far you get.

This matters, since without conceptual clarity about how the Christian faith understands the word, we no longer can make it clear what the gospel is an answer to. And yet, we need to make that case in a way that does not set out first to make people feel dreadful so as then to make them feel better…

To read the entirety of Sumner’s reflection on Christian engagement with this vital doctrine, click here: http://wycliffecollege.ca/documents/09%20Vol%2025%20Iss%2001.pdf