From “Everything Good about God is True: Choosing Faith” by Bruce Reyes-Chow
That is what sin is: a separation from God. It’s a separation instigated not by God but by us, as humans – a separation we create through our intent or apathy. Yes, the word sin has been weaponized by many. Sin drags a huge set of social and theological baggage behind it – baggage that needs to be unpacked. Maybe some of us will never fully redeem or reclaim sin as a word in our vocabulary of faith. But we still have a responsibility to pursue a relationship with God and to seek God’s hopes and intentions. And that means holding ourselves accountable when we move further away from fulfilling those hopes and intentions rather than nearer.
Call it what you want – sin, brokenness, depravity, whatever – most of us can agree: humans can be terrible. We need only look at how we inflict pain upon one another and the earth. And while we may be tempted to gloss over sin because we want to get to the forgiveness part of the Christian story, we must reckon with sin if we want to be part of any healing – or own or the world’s.