Are you broke?

Recently, my sister was reading the forum board at a Christian college. Someone posted the question, "Why don’t we talk about sin in chapel?" Someone else posted back, "We do, but now we call ‘sin’ ‘brokenness.’ The word was changed back in 1979–you can check the chapel records."

Quick background information: This college always talks about the effects of sin (AIDS, poverty, racism, etc.) but often avoids talking about the cause of sin. So the question "Why don’t we talk about sin?" was really saying, "This world is subject to so many problems...let’s talk about them over coffee."

The answer to the question, though rather sarcastic, brought up a really good point. People today don’t want to talk about sin; they want to talk about brokenness. When you say the world is full of sin, what you’re really saying is that the world is full of sinners and you’re one of them. That’s not very nice; it hurts our self-esteem. But when you say the world is full of brokenness, then you become the victim of sin. We feel bad for you. We’re sorry that you’re suffering because of all the world’s problems.

Doesn’t that sound a little contrary to the Gospel? The Bible says that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). We aren’t innocent victims of sin–we’re sinners. Sin is a result of the Fall. After the Fall, there will be brokenness because there is sin. As Christians, we do need to go out in the world and care for the needy (James 1:27). However, we can’t fix what’s broken; only God can. Only God can take away sin, and until the root cause of sin is gone, there’s going to be brokenness. What we really need to talk about is the Gospel. People can see that there’s brokenness in the world; tell them the cause of the brokenness. Give them hope; Someone willingly took our sin upon Himself and gave us the promise of eternal life without sin if we remain faithful to Him during our time on earth. The world is full of sin, and we can’t escape what’s out there. But through God’s grace, what’s in each of our hearts can be fixed.