“Recovery” from Sin in the Church
This claim depends, in part, on how one understands addiction itself. Gerald May makes a case for the universality of addiction.
“I
am not being flippant when I say that all of us suffer from addiction. Nor am I reducing the meaning of
addiction. I mean in all truth that the
psychological, neurological, and spiritual dynamics of full-fledged addiction
are actively at work within every human being.
The same processes that are responsible for addiction to alcohol and
narcotics are also responsible for addiction to ideas, work, relationships,
moods, fantasies, and an endless variety of other things. We are all addicts in every sense of the
word. Addiction is at once an inherent
part of our nature and an antagonist of our nature.” (Addiction and Grace, 3-4)
All
of us in all our ways experience the reality of addictive dynamics to some
degree, according to May. This certainly
accords with the Christian understanding of the universality of sin in our
lives. In fact, the reformed theological
tradition calls this universal effect of sin in our lives as “total depravity.” This ugly sounding phrase is often
misunderstood and rejected. But it
expresses a profound truth about us.
Total depravity does not mean each of us are as bad as we could be. Obviously, we are not. But total depravity means that all of our
attitudes and actions, even our best, most altruistic, and selfless actions,
remained tinged and tainted by the prideful self-seeking that lies at the core
of the Christian understanding of sin.
Further,
Christian faith differentiates two aspects here. There are sins (in the plural) and sin
(in the singular). The plural are the
symptoms, the expressions of the hold the latter, sin (in the singular), has on
us. The former can and does take many
and various forms. The latter, sin as an
alien power that has us its death grip, is the core dynamic that leads us to
act in sinful ways. The work of Christ forgives
our sins AND frees us from the power of sin. This is the ground of our hope for growth and
maturity in our faith and life.
In
addition to the universality of addiction, May describes the dynamics of
addiction in a way powerfully congruent with how the Bible describes the power
of sin at work in us. Here’s May’s
description:
“Addiction
exists whenever persons are internally compelled to give energy to things which
are not their true desires. To define it
directly, addiction is a state of compulsion, obsession, or preoccupation that
enslaves a person’s will and desire.
Addiction sidetracks and eclipses the energy of our deepest, truest,
desire for love and goodness. We succumb
because the energy of our desire becomes attached, nailed to specific
behaviors, objects, or people.
Attachment, then, is the process that enslaves desire and creates the
state of addiction.” (14)
Now,
substitute the word “sin” for “addiction” and you can see that May’s
description is as apt for the former as the latter.
“(Sin)
exists whenever persons are internally compelled to give energy to things which
are not their true desires. To define it
directly, (sin) is a state of compulsion, obsession, or preoccupation that
enslaves a person’s will and desire. (Sin)
sidetracks and eclipses the energy of our deepest, truest, desire for love and
goodness. We succumb because the energy
of our desire becomes attached, nailed to specific behaviors, objects, or
people. Attachment, then, is the process
that enslaves desire and creates the state of (sin).”
In
James 1:14-15 we get a very similar description of the process of temptation
and sin. “Everyone is tempted by their own cravings; they are
lured away and enticed by them. Once those cravings conceive, they give birth to sin; and when
sin grows up, it gives birth to death.”
Note these similarities:
“internally compelled” “lured
and enticed”
“not their true desires” “cravings”
“sidetracks and eclipses. . . attached” “conceive . . . give birth”
“Attachment. . . enslaves desire. . . “gives birth to death” and creates the state of
addiction”
May would agree with Patrick McCormick who
claims that “human sinfulness is a kind of addiction” (Sin as Addiction, 147); as well as his further claim that the
dynamics of idolatry and addiction bear profound similarities. St. Paul would likely agree with both! Hear his words from Romans 7 as Clarence
Jordan renders them in his Cotton Patch
Version of Paul’s Epistles:
“Actually, then, it isn’t even I who commit
the act but the sinful habit to which I’m addicted.” (v.17)
“Way down deep inside of me I appreciate
God’s law, but I’m seeing a different ‘law’ at work in my personality – a law
which violently wars against my better judgment and takes me prisoner to the
sinful addictions of my personality.” (vv.22-23)
All this sets up my claim that the process of
recovery as established and refined by AA but now utilized for all kinds of
addictions and dysfunctions is worth considering as a process for growth for
Christians who are “recovering” from their addiction to sin. We might well reflect on its possibilities as
a “curriculum” for pastoral and educational purposes in the church (both individual
and corporate).
Let’s work through each of the Twelve Steps
and explore their potential for this purpose.
- We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
This
was Paul experience as well: “I’ve tried everything and nothing helps. I’m at the end of my rope.
Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn’t that the real question?”
(Rom.7:24, The Message)
This basic Christian confession we call repentance – a
recognition that we’re headed the wrong, can’t help ourselves, and must head
the opposite direction.
- Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
Paul
recognizes this and acclaims the gracious act of God in Jesus Christ as his
only hope: “The answer,
thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in
this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and
mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different.”
(Rom.7:25, The Message)
- Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
This
we would call faith – laying claim to the work of Christ for us, acknowledging
and pledging allegiance to him as the one in, with, through, and as, God
himself has come to our rescue.
- Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
In
James 5 we are counseled to “confess your sins to each other
and pray for each other so that you may be healed” (v.16). Throughout the New Testament we are exhorted
to be “reconciled” to one another. This
process entails an open and honest “moral inventory” that can be dealt with by
those we need to reconcile or be reconciled with.
In his book on community, Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer reflects on the importance of
James’ call to confession:
“Self-forgiveness
can never lead to the break with sin. This can only be accomplished by God’s
own judging and pardoning Word. Who can give us the assurance that we are not
dealing with ourselves but with the living God in the confession and the
forgiveness of our sins? God gives us this assurance through one another. The
other believer breaks the circle of self-deception. Those who confess their
sins in the presence of another Christian know that they are no longer alone
with themselves; they experience the presence of God in the reality of the
other. As long as I am by myself when I confess my sins, everything remains in
the dark; but when I come face to face with another Christian, the sin has to
be brought to light. But because the sin must come to light some time, it is
better that it happens today between me and another believer, rather than on
the last day in the bright light of the final judgment. It is grace that we can
confess our sins to one another. Such grace spares us the terrors of the
last judgment. The other Christian has been given to me so that I may be
assured even here and now of the reality of God in judgment and grace. As the
acknowledgment of my sins to another believer frees me from the grip of
self-deception, so, too, the promise of forgiveness becomes fully certain to me
only when it is spoken by another believer as God’s command and in God’s name.
Confession before one another is given to us by God so that we may be assured
of divine forgiveness.”
- Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
Bonhoeffer
continues: “But it is precisely for the
sake of this assurance that confession is about admitting concrete sins. People
usually justify themselves by making a general acknowledgment of sin. But I
experience the complete forlornness and corruption of human nature, insofar as
I ever experience it at all, when I see my own specific sins.”
- Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
- Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
In
C. S. Lewis’ Narnian story The Voyage of
the Dawn Treader we find a beautiful and biblically informed picture of
these truths. One of the children, Eustace,
has turned into a dragon in Narnia (a place where what one is on the inside
they become on the outside). Separated
from his companions and increasingly forlorn over his plight, Dragon Eustace
meets a great lion in a mountain who commands him to follow him to a garden
with a well atop the mountain. Eustace’s
arm hurt him because he had slipped a gold bracelet from the dragon’s lair on
his arm before he fell asleep there while he was still human. In his dragonish state the bracelet cut deeply
and painfully into his arm. But Eustace
could do nothing about it. The fresh water
well looked so inviting that Dragon Eustace wanted to get in so that he pain
might be soothed. The lion, Aslan (the
Christ figure in these stories), told Eustace he must undress before entering
the well. Eustace tries to scratch off
his skin to comply with Aslan’s command – but to no avail. Each time he scratched a layer off, another
appeared, and another, and another.
Finally, Aslan told Eustace he must allow him to undress him. Eustace tells what happened:
”I
was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now.
So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it. “The very first tear he
made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he
began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I’ve ever felt. The
only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the
stuff peel off. You know—if you’ve ever picked the scab of a sore place. It
hurts like billy-oh but it is such fun to see it coming away.” “I know exactly
what you mean,” said Edmund. “Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off—just
as I thought I’d done it myself the other three times, only they hadn’t
hurt—and there it was lying on the grass: only ever so much thicker, and
darker, and more knobbly-looking than the others had been. And there was I as
smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been.” (Lewis, C. S. (2008-10-29). The Voyage
of the Dawn Treader: The Chronicles of Narnia (pp. 108-109). Harper Collins,
Inc.. Kindle Edition.)
- Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
- Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
- Continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
Jesus
seems to make such a reconciling lifestyle a prerequisite to proper
worship. “Therefore, if
you bring your gift to the altar and there remember that your brother or sister
has something against you, leave
your gift at the altar and go. First make things right with your brother or
sister and then come back and offer your gift.” (Matthew 5:23-24)
- Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
This
is how Paul prayers for his churches.
“I pray that the God
of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, will give you a spirit of wisdom
and revelation that makes God known to you. I pray that the eyes of your heart will have enough light to
see what is the hope of God’s call, what is the richness of God’s glorious
inheritance among believers, and what is the overwhelming greatness of God’s power that is
working among us believers. This power is conferred by the energy of God’s
powerful strength. God’s
power was at work in Christ when God raised him from the dead and sat him at
God’s right side in the heavens, far above every ruler and authority and power and angelic
power, any power that might be named not only now but in the future.
God put everything under Christ’s feet
and made him head of everything in the church, which is his body. His body, the church, is the fullness of
Christ, who fills everything in every way.” (Eph.1:17-23)
As we join in his prayers for us we practice this
eleventh of the Twelve Steps.
- Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
This
last step rightly recognizes that grace given is grace to be shared. A renewed relationship with God and
transformed life is not a private matter to be treasured in our hearts our own
circle. No, such great grace and mercy
are God’s gift to the whole world. And
we who have received it are the ones who will share it with others.
While
the Twelve Steps is not in itself a “Christian” process, it is one that by and
large is easily adaptable and remarkably congruent with the growth of faith
among Christians.
The
Twelve Traditions of AA, what we might call the ecclesiology or polity of AA,
add texture and depth to this process that Christians can learn from. Let’s look at some of them.
Our
common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends upon AA unity.
(Tradition 1)
Unity
of the community and the community as context of growth is the first of these
traditions. This is the biblical view as
well. Individuals find both their
individuality (i.e, giftedness) and maturity (sharing gifts) in the context of
the community of faith.
For
our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority—a loving God as He may
express Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants;
they do not govern. (Tradition 2)
Again,
a quite biblical concept, a First Commandment affirmation. Members utilize their gifts in appropriate ways
(servanthood) but authority belongs to God.
The
only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking. (Tradition 3)
Similarly,
only faith is required for membership in the church.
Each
group has but one primary purpose—to carry its message to the alcoholic who
still suffers. (Tradition 5)
As
for AA, so also for the church: the
mission is the meaning of the community.
Alcoholics
Anonymous should remain forever non-professional, but our service centers may
employ special workers. (Tradition 8)
This,
I think, translates into the biblical posture that there is to be no
clergy-laity divide in the church.
Service in the church is gift-based.
All gifts are given by the Spirit as he wills to serve the community as
a whole. Different gifts are not
differently weighted in value nor distributed on a professional-lay basis.
AA,
as such, ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or
committees directly responsible to those they serve. (Tradition 9)
Form
ought to functional, specific to the local setting of each AA group. I believe this is also true for the
church. The form a community of faith
takes ought to serve the flexibility and effectiveness of their function in
their setting. There is no “set” or
prescribed form for a church.
The other
traditions relate directly to specific work of AA and its organizational needs
and are not translated to the church and its work.
Let’s pull the threads of this
reflection together. I have tried to
demonstrate that the Twelve Steps of AA form a viable process for growing in
faith and that many of the Twelve Traditions situate this growth in a missional
community that integrates and energizes both the inward and outward
journey. The Traditions are suggestive
of a church community that is non-professional, gift-based, egalitarian,
linear-shaped, and evangelistic. The Twelve
Steps call for a relational infrastructure in the church far more supple and profound
that found in most churches. Thus the
Twelve Steps/Traditions give us a tested workable process in a form of
community that is parabolic of the kind of community God’s people ought to
be. It is thus a useful way to help the
church better understand its own best self in form that most people have some awareness/experience
of. We ought receive this gift with gratitude.
Comments
Post a Comment