Broaden Discourses about Sin

For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God. ~ Romans 3:23

Far too often, discourses about sin are too one-dimensional: they are almost always negative.  If you really understand sin fully as it is disclosed in the bible, you will recognize that you would not be here today if it was not for sin.  Because of the Original Sin committed by Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, it allowed them to be able to produce other human beings, which inevitably led to the human beings who produced you.  In no way am I trying to make sin sexy—it’s not!  What I’m arguing, however, is there are some meaningful and positive things about sin that are useful.

Sinful acts give us examples of what we should not be doing.  Knowing what not to do is very crucial to living a life committed to God.  Sin comes to give us understanding about what it is that God wants us not to do.  Sin helps to inform us about what is not like God and what it really means to be holy.  Many people try to act like they have always been saved. As the aforementioned epigraph illuminates, everyone was born a sinner, and many of those people pretending to be so holy are some of the greatest sinners.

Let’s get real about sin.  When we engage in comprehensive and serious discussions about sin, we can see sin as providing opportunities for us to find ways to prevent it.  Additionally, serious discourses about sin allow us to develop innovative ways and strategies for reaching sinners.  If we are always approaching sin from such indignant dispositions, then we will only continue to turn people away from accepting Jesus into their hearts.  True Christians are to win souls for Christ—not push people away from Christ.  When you are walking around like you are so high and mighty, don’t forget that you were once a sinner too, and had it not been for the grace of God you would still be a sinner—so don’t get it twisted.

At many churches, especially at many Black churches, it’s real popular to see who can speak the harshest about sin and sinners.  As Christians, we are supposed to dislike sin but not sinners.  It seems like many people have a difficult time separating their hate for sin from the people who are committing the sins.  In all things that we do, the bible informs us that we should do them with love.  The bible lets us know that it is love that saved us and it is that same love that will draw people to Christ.

One of the greatest opportunities for you to expand the discourses about sin is during Sunday School.  I encourage you to challenge members of your church during Sunday School about the complexities of sin that are often just overlooked as a result of the desire to appear so holy.  You can engage in thorough and intelligent conversations about some of the positive aspects of sin and still be saved—it’s called having intellectual discourses.  Let’s be more intelligent in our discourses about sin.

Deuces,

Tony                 

Black Megachurch Preachers Offer Unrealistic Approaches to Black Teenage Pregnancy

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. ~ Proverbs 22:6 

While it would be great to simply tell Black teenage girls to not engage in sexual intercourse and they do as they are told, this wishful thinking is only useful for penning fiction.  Although Black megachurch preachers offer some resources at their churches to help pregnant teenager girls and to educate teenage girls about avoiding of teenage pregnancy, the dominant message they hear on television and radio from megachurch preachers is that God is going to punish them for fornication.  You can preach all you want to about abstinence from the pulpit, but you must have a strong understanding of the postmodern world outside of the confines of the church to truly reach these teenage girls.  It’s fine to preach and teach about fornication, but that preaching and teaching must reflect a critical understanding of American popular culture, especially Black popular culture.

Black popular culture is so pervasive and unavoidable that Black preachers cannot simply shout condemnation from the pulpit without responsibly speaking about it and offering serious and practical ways for Black teenage girls to rise above the negative influences and dimensions of it. Black teenage girls are bombarded with sexual images on television.  When these young girls watch programming on Music Television (MTV), Black Entertainment Television (BET), and other cable stations, they see how sex and sexual images have become such normative dimensions of American culture and our national public discourse.  Black megachurch preachers can try to act like young teenage girls should simply resist sexual temptations by praying and focusing on God, but this is simply unrealistic when they are not comprehensively educated about the sexual images they view on television.

When one considers that many adults are being heavily influenced by the sex and sexual images that they see on television, this should signal to Black megachurch preachers that they need to engage in more thorough analyses of this reality and offer more comprehensive resources for these adults’ children.  If many adults are not able to handle the sex and sexual images they view on television, then it’s not difficult to understand that many teenage girls are going to be highly influenced by the sex and sexual images they see on television.  It would not hurt megachurch preachers that much to take out a little time from their preaching and teaching about prosperity to help parents to better teach and advise their children about how to deal with many of the vexing sexual images they witness on television.  These megachurch preachers have enough money to provide teenage girls with constant resources, assistance, and guidance with dealing with the sexual pressures that are commonplace in the postmodern epoch.

In no way should this piece be perceived as an unfair attack on megachurch preachers.  However, it should be viewed as a call to action for them.  The bible informs us that those who have much are required to do much.  This is the reason why this piece singles out megachurch preachers, although preachers at smaller churches should be doing all they can too to help teenage girls to avoid teenage pregnancy.

It is the hope of this article that you will begin to have serious discourses about this topic in your churches, communities, schools, homes, and etc.

Deuces,       

Tony