As I start to think through the different topics I am wanting to bring up on this blog i started to realize that so many of the topics have to do with "things being bad and our attempts to try to fix them" I believe in order for us to be able to honestly look at the state of things, we first must confess our weaknesses, inadiquiencys, and our sins. Everytime that I try to clear things up with God the only things that I confess are the things that I do, my sins. I think about how "I, Ben Dudley" have caused problems, gone against God's desire and didn't love my neighbor first etc. Something that never comes to mind when I go to confess my sin is the sins that I commit in my community. I have been reading some articles about the idea of "communial sin" and it really has me thinking. What is communial sin? I do know this...in an article I read from Sojourners, written by Dale W. Brown, he says that it is easy for us to think of individual sins and name those because we are able to find abunch that we don't do and point at others who do these sins and it makes us feel better about ourselves. But communial sins are ones that we do as communities and so in order to confess these sins it takes a realization that we are guilty of these sins and admitting that we play apart and we can't point the finger at others and feel good...because they are our sins.
This concept is kinda new to me, maybe some of you have thought about this more extensively than I and can share some insight. I would like to throw out a few communial sins that I feel like we need to ask God to forgive. If you connect with any of these please share your thoughts. If there are others that you know of that I didn't share, please share those. If you see something that I write that you don't see as a communial sin, please share you thoughts on these as well.
-Father forgive us for what we have done to the environment that you left us to care for...
-Father forgive us for exploiting the poor to gain more wealth
-Father forgive us for using the Bible as a weapon to "prove" points
-Father forgive us for the sins we commit as a nation in this time of war
-Father forgive us for not caring for "the least of these"
-Father forgive us for not having unity amongst the body of Believers
-Father forgive us for standing by and allowing the AIDS epidemic get out of control
Again, this is just a start...i may add some more in the comment section but I would love for you guys to share some as well.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
7 comments:
WOW...I had actually never thought of that Ben, and now here I am typing as I think, so this may make no sense at all...here it goes...
I think that as a community, human beings have messed sooo many things up, caused things that could have been avoided, etc...and communities at every level have done this, the family, the school, the business, the city, the nation, the entire world population.
Now, there would be no community without individual people, and the way we act as an individual, is the determining factor that shapes society (community).
Now that you point it out, I think confessing our "communal sins" is a great way to accept that we as an individual are at fault for what is going on in our communities, and maybe accepting this will lead us to reconstruction.
But I think, that in order for communal reconstruction to occur, we must begin at the individual level...not comparing ourselves to others, saying "well I don't do this, but he/she does", but accepting, and recognizing our weaknesses, and taking a course of action to reconstruct, will not only lead to individual REconstruction, but will also have an impact on communal REconstruction....
maybe?....could this be the path things would follow, individual DEconstruction, individual REconstruction, communal DEconstruction, communal REconstruction. As soon as we, as individuals realize what we are doing wrong, and start to change it (REconstruction)…communal DEconstruction begins…
I think that when we confess, we should continue to recognize our weaknesses, but also confess those sins that our community is a part of.
i hear what you are saying Paola about how the sin comes from within each of us individually and that might be the place to start...but i wonder if maybe it is just the opposite. I wonder if we should start with the communial sin because those are the ones we commit together. there is no escaping them. there is no, well that is your sin and this is my sin deal...but i quess the point isn't to argue over which to confess first, i think the point is to realize that both are sin and we need to seek God's forgiveness from both. I believe that sometimes when we start to do things as a group that we don't do individually, we will end up trying to do them on an individual level (does that make any since)?
OK! Yeah i totally see your point! And yesterday I actually thought a lot about flipping the concept, and what if dealing with communal sin first, deals to the DEconstruction of the self, so I guess maybe contradicitng what I said at first, REconstruction of community, leads to DEconstruction of the self....I really think it works either way...
And yeah, I see how the power of community can have an effect on the individual level!!
We do have to confess both types of sins together, because we are guilty of both!...And possibly the acceptance of communal sin, will give us some sort of individual sense of responsibility!!
Growing up in church I was always taught that there is a difference between asking forgiveness for sin and actually repenting of a sin.
The difficulty of communal sin, and why it is probably much more dangerous than individual sin, is the complexity of asking for forgiveness and repenting. How would a community of people ask for forgiveness unless a WHOLE LOT of the members of that community actually felt remorse for the sin. Because if it's just a few people asking forgiveness, is the sin really being dealt with.
And also, what would repentence of communal sin look like. Like for the sin of not taking care of the environment, how would a community Repent, or turn from the sin. Like, well, let me see, just to pull a random example out of thin air that is meant to stir up the waters a little: We know that one of the major pollutants in our air, and a massive consumption of oil, is caused by the great amount of SUV's present in our country today. For a community to repent, or turn away, from the sin of not taking care of the environment, would it take every member of that couumity trading in their gas guzzling SUV for more fuel efficient vehicles? :) :)
Craig you feather ruffler you...i think that what you are saying is dead on. I do think that repentence is neccessary on a communial level. I don't think that means you don't first start with confession. I also don't think that you lose hope that because it takes the entire community to change that it can't happen. Back to your example of SUV's and the environment. While we do know that suv's use more gas than cars, in comparison to how many people they can transport, it often times balances out. If a family of 6 has an SUV they can get some place with one suv but if they had a car it would take 2 cars to get there...so they are actually using less gas. The fact is that suv's seem to be an easy target because we are in such a weird place in relation to our dependance on oil with other countries. I do believe that car companies are trying hard to make alternatives to gas-powered cars. Part of the reason they are trying to develope them so fast is because they are selling so fast. YOu can't get a hybrid. They sell before they get to the dealer. We looked at them when we made our last car purchase. THe technology and the price factor just wasn't quite there...but it will be and so there is hope. But that doesn't mean you don't raise the question like you did and should keep raising. There are so many other ways we can help make a difference. And when dealing with "communial sins" and people groups as a whole...sometimes you have to start small. Let them try recycling or carpooling (just as important and another way to solve the suv problem) so that they can start to see the difference these things make then maybe they can see things on a larger scale and be willing to make more drastic changes.
Good stuff Ben. Within my community we've talked a lot lately about "systematic sin." I think the protestant emphasis on individual conversion or salvation has blinded us to communial sins. I think naming those sins is a great starting point. There are no easy answers, but I think we're on the right track.
right on Adam, and how are you? long time no talk
Post a Comment