Soooo interesting! Before I left the church we were involved with a Reformed Presbyterian church that had neatly solved the sin problem. So they taught. If you’ve heard of Westminster Seminary near Philadelphia PA that was where a lot of their male (of course) pastors were taught. Basically it’s modern day Calvinism. I took courses there in a previous incarnation and it’s a very intellectual place. All about nailing down The Truth. The idea was this, as one of those pastors liked to say: “Cheer up! You’re far worse than you think you are, but God loves you far more than you ever imagined to be possible.” When I was in that community, I would have argued with the premise of your sad story and lamented that you as a little boy were never taught what the Bible “actually” teaches—that our behavior is NEVER enough to make us ok in God’s sight, that it never will be—but that knowing this deep in your heart creates an avenue for God’s amazing love to flow in…if you will receive it. Back when I was in that world I would have said. ‘Trying to be good isn’t the point! Sounds like works-based religion, how sad!!”
The Reformed approach sounds good on paper, and there probably are folks who find this understanding of scripture deeply nourishing and loving. But it kind of leaves out like a billion souls who weren’t privileged to hear the Gospel and who never will be. Not to mention gay and trans people. The Reformed approach was, if we love them enough some of them will be drawn to Christ (i.e. repent their ‘Sinful lifestyle.’) and get all happy and hetero. Or, even better, they will struggle madly against their sinful proclivities all their lives and glorify God all the more. Hmmm…Where’s the Grace in that?
The problem was this just doesn’t work for a lot of people. It’s taken me a while to begin to see that I am (gasp!) essentially Good. I’m no longer what I once considered a Christian but that’s a story for another day.
The hard truth is that my children were spiritually and emotionally harmed in a school that was affiliated with the RP church. Many of the teachers were the opposite of models of grace, being hard and rigid (though a few were good.) And no matter how hard I tried to convince my young daughter that she actually WAS accepted by God, she was convinced she was going to hell. The problem is that this “grace gospel” invites looping mind games—Did I REALLY repent? Do I REALLY believe? There’s a lot more I could say but…I like your “sin as woundedness” paradigm.
