In the tradition of the biblical seven abominations of God (Proverbs 6) and the Roman Catholic Church’s seven deadly sins, I am going to postulate on the seven deadliest sins of evangelicals because I am one and I am an expert. I am getting somewhat ahead of myself in that I haven’t thought of all seven yet, but I’m assuming it’s not going to be hard to come up with at least that many, and maybe there is something to that number. To this end, I invite any of you who have a good evangelical background as I do to add your own suggestions.
But here’s my first one, and if this is all we ever get to, it will be worth it. I’m going to call the first evangelical deadliest sin: INACTIVITY.
I truly think there is a subconscious effort among evangelicals to arrange spiritual and even biblical truths in such a way as to be impressed by them but not have them make any real demands on your life. It’s an unwritten rule of preaching not to say anything that would mess with the football game after the sermon. God forbid that we would actually have to do anything to change our lifestyle by following Jesus. The ideal evangelical sermon is one that wows everybody but asks nothing of anyone. God forbid that we should ever walk out of church and actually have to do something about what we just heard.
To this I would offer something that Jesus stated as a prerequisite to entering the kingdom of God. It was one simple word: REPENT.
Now the Encarta® World English Dictionary © 1999 Microsoft Corporation that came with my software defines repent as 1) to recognize the wrong in something you have done and be sorry about it, and 2) to feel regret about a sin or past actions and change your ways or habits.
I would suggest more people accept the first definition than the second, but the second is much closer to what Jesus meant when he said to repent. It means to change – to turn around and go another way.
Imagine how far an A.A. meeting would get if the only step was to feel sorry about what one’s disease is doing to oneself and one’s loved ones. How far would that get anybody? My ‘sorry’s to my wife are now pretty useless because of all the times I’ve been sorry and done nothing about changing the behavior that made me sorry in the first place.
The first step of A.A. may be to own up to one’s addiction and feel sorry about the damage done, but the other eleven are all about changing attitudes and behavior, declaring one’s inability to change without help, and being committed to a sponsor and the group to make sure you follow through with a change in behavior.
If it sounds like I am preaching to myself, it’s because I am. And unless you have arrived at your ultimate spiritual destination, I would venture that God has something he wants you to change right now. I’ll get to mine; you get to yours, but be willing to ask for help, because some of these behaviors are engrained pretty deeply and covered up by a thick skin of rationalization.
John Fischer The Catch 
Amen! Add ‘apathy’ to the list, too!
Great word, in so many ways:
– moral philosophers argue about which of the “Seven Deadly Sins” is first on the list, but generally it is either laziness or pride. Good job beginning to peel away the layers of what we call laziness, inactivity. We preachers feel the weekly pressure to entertain, which generally boils down to comfortable, affirming words rather than encouragement to actively follow Jesus.
Good word. Here’s another one: CONFORMITY. As in “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world…” (Romans 12:2).
“Conform” means to have your thinking shaped, or “schematicized.” But “world” here does not really mean the sinful world system. Paul uses the term “aion,” which suggests “the time in which you live.” He can just as easily be referring to conforming to wrong patterns of thinking in the church in the time in which you live.
Here’s my point. I think evangelicalism in our time is crippled by conformity. Passive conformity to church traditions, dogmas, and behaviors is the enemy of repentance. Paul’s solution: be transformed by the renewing of your mind. In other words, stop conforming, and let God’s Word change you. Sounds like repentance to me.
Excellent. I like the way you draw this out past the easy interpretation.
Self-centeredness. Am I the only one who struggles with this? I have been deeply convicted in the last few days of my own self-centeredness. The “right way” to do something, anything, always seems to be based on “my way” – the way I like it done. Anything less doesn’t seem to be good enough so I complain rather than express gratitude & commendation.
While I do take responsibility for my own attitude, I think I have had some “good” examples amongst contemporary church leaders. All kinds of decisions from style of worship to the finer points of doctrine or details about leadership structure often are simply a result of spiritualizing one’s own personal preferences, reflecting each person’s comfort zone.
I am at the “sorry” stage at the moment. I am chagrined to realize how self-centered I’ve become. Now the challenge is to find ways to break that habit, to repent & turn away from such selfishness. God help me!
All I can say is —- OUCH! Inactivity – that’s me. I pray that God would MOVE me.
I don’t thin k he will. I think we have to move out believing he is in what we do.
I tend to agree whole heartedly. However I would add that many of the ‘churched’ people (of which group I at one time belonged) tend to think if they just throw money at ‘it’ (whatever the it may be) – then they have done their fair share. I am very realistic, I know money is very necessary in so many things we try to do – but, isn’t just throwing some money at things just a sop to the concious? “There, I helped, I gave money. I don’t have to do anything else – I don’t have to dive in and get my hands dirty, I’ve done my part” It appears too many evangelicals live by this creed.
So true. This is a good one and not one I would have thought of.
Carol beat me to it. OUCH is the word I thought of first.
But John, it seems that you need some help with that speck in your eye. I’ll be glad to help you. Just as soon as I get this log out of mine.
No, no, no… I have the log; you have the speck!
…Excuse a non-evangelical Christian stepping in here..I realize it’s a dialogue of levity directly above here, but it sparked a worthwhile realization in me. At least in my walk with Jesus, i find myself falling into a kind of reverse hubris — oh, I have a bigger log in my eye than so-and-so! Or so-and-so! Etcetera.
My hunch? I don’t think He wants me to get into comparing the dimensions of my logs and specks and sins. I can trust they’re there, and grow more in meaningful change every day. At any rate, my Catch family once again guides me to new understanding of how to live the miracle of faith. Thank you much!
The way I take that is my sin to me is a log, yours, to me is a speck. Your sin to you is a log, my sin to you is a speck. I think it should always be this way. It’s all about perspective.
I used to attend a church that had a 7 ft tall cross erected in the aisle next to one of the pews near the middle of the church. It was a serious ‘obstruction’ to the view from many of the seats. People would complain that ‘the cross is in my way’. It was such a wonderful visual of how often we just want it out of our way so we can go on with our lives. Thank God though that his cross IS in our way to remind us of his call and his sacrifice.
Are you talking about the Presbyterian Church of Olde Greenwich, CT? If not, they have the same thing and I wrote a whole book about this. Look it up at Amazon: On A Hill (Too) Far Away.
Great column!!! It’s so easy to see what someone else should be doing but very uncomfortable to take a deep look at myself. I had to look at myself this morning…yes, OUCH.
Clay’s suggestion about conformity would be an interesting study. Yes, conformity has invaded many of our churches. I think the saddest thing is when I hear someone say that they no longer attend a certain church because the music is too loud, too quiet, too fast, too slow, and on and on, or, “It’s not like we had seventy years ago”. Since when do we need to be entertained or to get our own way, when we’re there to worship and to learn more about God?
On the worldly side, I no longer take anyone’s recommendation for a movie or any kind of entertainment because of the many times I have been shocked by what a lot of people deem acceptable. I’ve had to figure out ways to do my own research to find out content. “What would Jesus be entertained by” is a good measuring stick. A lot of Christians have been seduced by what society, in general, says is good. Lord, give us wisdom, please.
One of Evangelical’s 7 Deadly Sins: Failure to do the second half of the Great Commission (“make disciples”, “teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you”). Our seeker oriented mentality reels in the fish and leaves them to flounder on the beach. We have failed to take them deeper, so when the storms come they are left high and dry. This is not love.
Our pastor just presented a sermon yesterday on Repentence – problem for us SELF.
His acrostic – S Satan’s E Exact L Location Forever
We have chose to take care of self rather than to repent (change our ways) and be a follower of Jesus.
I guess we really needed to hear this message again!!!
Thanks for your insight. I passed it on to my pastor too!!
Marilyn
John, one of the most illuminating and life-changing words of wisdom I’ve received to date was from one of our mentors back in the 70s at PBC. He said, and I’m not certain of his exact words… most of us are taught that everything in this life is wrong or bad unless God says it’s okay, but the truth is, EVERYTHING in this life is good and acceptable unless God says no, or don’t do it! The scripture helps us see this and so does the Holy Spirit within us. There is so much freedom in that truth!
I (and I call myself an evangelical much like a recovering alcoholic continues to identify himself as an alcoholic) didn’t believe I could accurately “hear” from God so for years I blindly accepted out-of-context, misinterpreted scripture. This honestly confined me to a disabling cocoon of fear which made me crippled, inactive and hyper-critical of those who thought differently. Unfortunately, many find comfort and security in that cocoon!
Most of us, like Eustace in the “Voyage of the Dawn Treader” must have “Aslan” strip us of our “drag(c)on-ian” layers of deception… and it hurts!
What a good word, Dan. Thanks. This one will definitely be on our list!
Spot on, John!!
“For it is time for judgment to begin with the family of God; and if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who do not obey the gospel of God?”
I would call to mind a famous message from Juan Carlos Ortiz where he tells the story of preparing to give a message about “Love One Another.” He has a conversation with the Lord about his sermon from the previous week where the Lord basically asks him if anything came from his previous weeks’ message. Juan Carlos answers “No”. And how about the week before, the Lord asks. Again Juan Carlos answers, “No.” So the Lord asks “Why will this week be any different?”. So for his message that week Juan Carlos gets up and reads the scripture text from John 13 “Love One Another . . .” And he says, The message today is “Love One Another.” And he sat down. Well nothing much happened. The congregation thought maybe there was some special music or a media slide show or something so they just sat there. So in a few minutes he got up again and said “The message for today is – Love One Another.” And he sat down again. Again nothing much happened, but then slowly a man in the front row, who owned a construction company, got up and walked down to the end of his row to talk to a man who had lost his job a month before. He offered him a job. Then a woman near the back got up and walked to a young family where the mother and father both needed to work but had noone to watch their children, and she offered to sit with their kids. And pretty soon all over the church people were reaching out to others offering to help them with a specific problem. And the moral of the story is . . . .
Ah yes, that’s it.
I am weeping. This is such a beautiful description of “Love one another”. It’s like ” Get up off your rear and DO something!” Thank you Juan Carlos Ortiz. (and Kelvin)
As an analogy, God is IN the water with the fish, but is NOT the water. That is called Pantheism.
Carol Grant
I was using a fish’s total dependence on water as a metaphor for the statement that it is in God that “we live and move and have our being.” Paul asaid that of everyone, not just believers.
This is Elizabeth howland’s and I would just like to say that I am trying my hardest to start somewhere and I need somebody to give me a but literally give me a hand not a burning hands I need help I feel like I put in this something that I can’t get out of
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