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Since January, people always come up / email / send messenger pigeon to me saying, "can you believe Allen became Catholic." And I always say, "for those of us who know Allen, it really wasn't that much of a surprise." And I can attest that since becoming Catholic, not much has changed.1One thing that has changed: Allen has increased his use of the phrase the "seven deadly sins" exactly2 834%.
The seven deadly sins make for a great movie3 but awful theology. The ranking of sin itself is determinental to a true understanding of grace and redemption.
The Catholic church has taught for years there are two categories of sins: venial and mortal. Venial being your light everyday sin that must be easy for God to forgive.4 Mortal, or deadly, being the stuff God must have to work at to forgive you.5
But it isn't just the Catholics. We all do it. Please rank with your best Protestant Theology from most to least likely to be shamed.
- Worked everyday of the week
- Looked at pornography
- Thought of myself better than the homeless man
- Lied to a friend about plans
- Cheated on a spouse
- Used the words God Damn It
- Disrespected a parent on national radio
- Downloaded MP3s illegally
- Used Ecstasy recreationally
My guess is you would rank it: 5-9-2-7-4-6-3-8-1
If I came to you and said, "hey, I was just really busy this last week. Boss really riding me. Worked every single day of the week." Would you even think there was anything wrong with that?
The point. We all rank sin. But does God?
The way I read it, there is no goody-two-shoes in the Bible.8
Paul, killed thousands.
Peter, denied his relationship to Jesus when Jesus needed him the most.
David, slept with Bathsheba, tried to cover it up, murdered her husband.
Abraham prostituted his wife for safety.
Name one person in the Bible who actually lives up to a sanctified life.
Heck, even sweet Ruth seduced Boaz on the threshing floor.
Do any of these sound like your pastor? Better yet, let's say your pastor did any of this, do you think he would keep his leadership position?
The modern Church has missed out on being apart of the story of redemption and grace for thousands of years. And it is all due to the fact we have an erroneous, sanitized view of redemption and it starts with the ranking of sin.
Posts: 
Sorry but you in correctly described
the churches teaching on Mortal sin.
"Mortal, or deadly, being the stuff God must have to work at to forgive you." Go to
"http://www.usccb.org/catechism/text/
pt3sect1chpt1art8.htm" for the answers.
Allen please fact check your guy.
Dave
Allen doesn't fact check me (evident in my horrendous spelling and grammar), nor does he limit what I can and cannot write about. Half the time he doesn't even know what I am writing about.
I knew it was coming. But I did not realize that you thought Catholicism was any better than Protestantism. Interesting...
However, just for fun, what do you think about I Cor 6:18-20, that talks about sins against your body as being different then other sins?
Also, Adam just brought up the point that in actuality, it’s not that we judge some sins too harshly, but more that we don’t judge some sins harshly enough.
As I look through the entire context of that verse, I don't see a ranking here. I see an emphasis being made to stress that Paul's theology that allowed for the Jews to eat pork and "other unclean" food does not get to apply to sexuality. Remember Paul argued that it wasn't really a sin to eat "unclean" food, just a spiritual preference.
Sexual immorality was a sin and therefore he is saying that sexual sin goes beyond just a spiritual preference.
I'll give Adam bonus points at least for being consistent. But again I ask, who was the great moral example of the Bible? Do we not seem to fundamentally miss the point that we are part of a redemptive story and therefore should humble ourselves to the thought that we are no better than David, or Abraham, or Ruth, or Peter?
The person that was speaking was talking about David and being a "man after God's own heart". He said, say you graph out David's sin and growth on a graph, does the graph keep going up? Despite the downfalls and mess ups in his life does the line keep recovering and heading up? Here's the valley where he did this wrong and here's the valley where he ran from this person and so on, but then he said if we lay a ruler on the graph, his "heart trend" keeps being a heart trend towards the Lord... thus the Lord says about a man with all sorts of issues that would get him kicked out of the church today, that indeed he was a "Man after God's heart" because it's what he kept going back to.
I just hope I can be that wise about handling sin when it comes to people in my life.
I think viewing all "sins" as equal is a bad moral system, no matter your theology. It means raping a woman is no worse than sleeping with your girlfriend (or, in your case Andy, sleeping with your special girl friend) or that getting angry with that incompetent zit-faced cashier at Publix is the same as unloading a 10 gauge into his chest.
Obviously there is something very wrong with that picture.
You wish!
Seriously though, what would be wrong with such a mutually enjoyable setup?
Who would the sin be against? Your friend? But no, she is as willing and enthusiastic participant as you are? God?
What logical reason would he have not to? It does not make any sense to treat every transgression equally.
Even if that story is historical (we know little about a historical David, for more information read the excellent David and Solomon by Israel Finkelstein and Neil-Asher Silberman) what is the point? That God would not have dealt with David any differently had he not sent Uriah to his death (and only incurred the lesser sin of adultery)? But you haven't shown that god had anything to do with it. More than any sort of divine intervention this story corroborates Mel Brooks' line that "it's good to be the king". :)
And Boaz praised her virtue for it. :)
I really don't see how this list strengthens your case. If anything it shows that clear ranking of wrongdoings is essential to any meaningful moral system. Otherwise every notion of morality or ethics itself is made mockery of.
But to step out of law/society and enter into theology, I can't say that I see the theological basis for the case of gravity of sin.
The audacity of grace and redemption is a hard one for many of us to swallow; both for those who have done wrong to us and for ourselves as well.
But it is precisely that audacity that redeemed David, Abraham, and Paul (assuming they were true historical people ;) )
But LC, I'll give it to you that you make a very good point.
Point taken on humor, it's harder to
pick up on blogs. Unfortunately, as you
well know, your humor turns into anti-
catholic evidence for some. I just wanted
to set the record straight.
I am not Catholic, but I have no beeft with Catholicism and I definitley would hold that Catholics are just as Christian as Protestants.
Sure, there are some theological errors I think Catholicism teaches. But I also think that about Protestantism as well.
Whenever mortal, sinful humans are involved in the process, there are bound to be some mistakes.