In 1973, psychiatrist Karl Menninger published a book with an intriguing title, “Whatever Became of Sin?” He made the point that sociology and psychology tend to avoid terms like “evil,” or “immorality,” and “wrongdoing.” Menninger laid out how the human manipulation of the theological notion of sin had become the legal idea of crime, then diving further from its true meaning when it was developed into the psychological category of sickness – “I’m not a sinner, I’m sick!”
Karl Menninger expressed in his book the continuing question when he wrote: “The very word ‘sin,’ which seems to have disappeared, was a proud word. It was once a strong word, an ominous and serious word. It described a central point in every civilized human being’s life plan and lifestyle. But the word went away. It has almost disappeared—the word, along with the notion. Why? Doesn’t anyone sin any more? Doesn’t anyone believe in sin? (p. 14)”
Even some pulpits of our American churches have gone to preaching a “sinless” gospel. Cathy Lynn Grossman wrote in an article in USA Today in April 2008, “Has the notion of sin been lost?” But she went on in her article to quote Michael Horton of Westminster Seminary, who is one who does not preach a “sinless” gospel. In quoting him she wrote, “He finds sad truth in an old newspaper headline he once saw: “‘To hell with sin when being good is enough.’ That’s the drift of American preaching today in a lot of churches. People know what sin is; they just don’t believe in it anymore. We mix up happiness and holiness, and God is no longer the reference point.””
“God is no longer the reference point.” In fact, God (and in the minds of some, “If God exists”) is not involved with man, and when we die, He’ll see the good I have done and will let me into His heaven. Sin no longer plays a role.
When we move God out of any relationship with mankind we do away with sin, for sin only exists when man breaks perfect relationship with God. Adam and Eve broke that perfect relationship with God, and in that instance sin first entered into the life of mankind. Of course, having a perfect relationship with God means that we human people cannot enjoy certain activities that has become a daily part of the human condition: unbridled sex, unbridled eating, unbridled drinking, drugs, smoking everything from tobacco to their grandmother’s cleaning fluid, hate, blame, power, revenge, and we could go on. “There is no God, or God doesn’t involve himself with us, so I can do what I want as long as it makes me happy.” “If I take it too far, I am not to blame, I’m just sick.”
Karl Menninger’s book documented the disappearance of the acknowledgement of sin from our American society. He presented a case that the historic concept of sin is now spoken of as crime and symptoms. In other words, there is no essence of human right and wrong, since no God defines right and wrong, and therefore no sin. Crime happens between human beings and symptoms occur because something external has influence the human person. There is no internal cause, so no basic personal accountability. Sin has been downgraded to external causes that can excuse the human person from any death judgment. And since we are not accountable to any God, society may choose any punishment for “sick” behavior so long as it does not impose too harsh a sentence.
Clearly, problems are revealed from this belief system. A murderer is not responsible for his act because of the child abuse he received when he was five years old. He is placed in some holding facility so that he may be retrained, and then released to never murder again. Yet in the news for the short two months of 2015 several men released from prison have again murdered others within hours of their release. “No, he is not guilty of sin, we just didn’t retrain him enough.” So, they admit there is a problem. But they never admit that the problem is sin.
In the first minutes in 2022 a man was shot in Houston, a woman was stabbed to death in Queens in New York City, and just a few hours later in Louisville, Kentucky, a man was found dead in a vehicle. Louisville suffered record-setting levels of violence in 2021, and during 2022, they are tracking each fatal incident to better understand the violence. Philadelphia sets all-time murder record in 2021, more than any other time in city’s recorded history, a record in 2021 of 559 murders committed, the most in its history since records began. It outstripped more populous cities that have also seen rates spike, like New York and Los Angeles. All these records in each of these cities are because of ‘Defund the Police’ movements. They operate on the premise that there is no sin and therefore no need of a strong police presence.
Most of us will admit that the murderer is guilty of sin, but we often stop short of acknowledging some of our own acts as being sin. We are going to explore the question, “Whatever Happened To Sin,” in our coming Blogs. There is a positive answer, so stay tuned.