KEEPING SIN, THROWING OUT CONDEMNATION

Greta Van Susteren’s interview last week on FOX News with eighteen-year-old Bristol Palin about her very public pregnancy and unwed motherhood raised some conflicting thoughts in my mind. For example, while I questioned, on several levels, the wisdom of the Palins allowing their young daughter to be interviewed on national television, I also admired Bristol’s and the family’s courage in doing so. While I wish that Bristol had not gotten in this situation (or engaged in the behavior that caused it), I marveled and rejoiced to see such family support and solidarity in tough times. And when grandmother Sarah Palin brought baby Trip to Bristol on camera at the end of the interview, well, how could anyone but rejoice that such a precious new life has come into the world? Bristol is to be commended for taking responsibility and raising her child instead of aborting it.

Still, it was just a little disturbing to see how completely comfortable this Christian family seemed with their plight, one born out of what used to be known as sin. Of course, we cannot see into their hearts and private thoughts, and I’m not suggesting they should be self-flagellating over Bristol’s situation. They are living under God’s grace and moving on. Yet perhaps there might have been some expression of remorse.

Bristol stated that she was going public with her story because she wants to serve as a spokesperson against teenage pregnancy. Not teen sex, but teen pregnancy. She called abstinence “unrealistic.” Never in the interview did she ever suggest that what she did was wrong, only that it would have been easier to have waited until college and establishing a career were behind her.

I was discussing this with a friend who many years ago found herself in Bristol’s shoes. She told me that she never referred to her pregnancy as sin outside of her family, because she felt that somehow it made her child. . .less. Understandable. I had just seen Oliver Twist on television and was reminded, with a shudder, that we really aren’t that far away from the irrational and deplorable stigmatization and mistreatment of children who simply had the misfortune to be orphaned, much less born out of wedlock, that has marked society throughout all but fairly recent history.

The social statement made by the Palins, however, could not be starker in contrast to the old way. They are symbolic of a society that has moved beyond that, and thank God for it. I wonder, though, if in leaving behind the rejection and stigmatization of unwed mothers and their children, it was also necessary to leave behind the concept of sin.

Atheists and some liberals would say yes, and that secularization’s doing away with absolute standards of right and wrong is a sign of society’s great enlightenment. They would insist that designation of any act as sin or suggestion that one should feel a moment’s shame over any personal action is intolerant, judgmental, and hateful.

Perhaps we Christians are to blame for this. We know that God’s standards of sin as given to us in Scripture are good, not only because they are from God, but because they promote healthy families and lifestyles which in turn promote healthy and prosperous societies. We know that admitting when we have sinned and taking responsibility for our actions is good for both our souls and our communities. But maybe for too long we have divorced grace from sin and invested more energy in condemning the sinner along with the sin than we have in showing why God’s ways are good for us. We have unwittingly given fodder to the secularists and caused them to throw out the baby with the proverbial bathwater.

Some of the church is still stuck in the habit of condemning people, rather than challenging their actions. Other parts of the church have joined the secularists in throwing out any notion of sin. The former leaves the church dead in legalism and irrelevance, offering no hope to a lost world. The latter leaves us no clear alternative to the world’s system, adds to the disintegration of society, and dishonors God. It’s time for all of us find the balance in the example of Jesus, who never left sin unchallenged and called it by it’s true name, but always showed a better way, offering grace for healing and deliverance from sin to all who would receive it.

Whether or not the message has been a bit muddled, I choose to believe that this desire to show a better way is exactly what motivates the Palins to handle their daughter’s situation as they are. More power to them.

What do you think?