Faith

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Welcome to Rome

When I read the Passage Rom 1:18-32 for the first time, I was quite astonished by the harsh words and the particular clarity of the text. Don´t we have an all-good and all-forgiving God, who was willing to sacrifice his own son in a horrible way to save our souls? If I read the passage in Romans again and again, I get a different vision of God, of a punishing and not a forgiving God. Aside from murder, homosexuality and injustice Paul names some rather “common” but punishable sins as well: envy, pride or boasting. And, as much as I may struggle to avoid such sins, I seem to be unable to achieve this goal. Who has never felt envy, boasted about something he has done or – and here things get really tricky – felt a sense of inappropriate pride?

Are all of those sins equal anyway? Paul does not seem to make any distinctions between murder and envy as he uses them in the same sentence. While we as humans see a big difference between certain sins – everybody will agree that murder is far worse than envy – the question comes to mind whether God sees any difference as well? Is it important to God which sins someone committed if he deeply regrets them and asks for forgiveness – or, more importantly, if he does not?

Of course, Paul is not on a mission to condemn every sinner – thereby condemning every human being and teach us that God hates us for our sins. After all, he is the picture perfect example of how someone can find his way to God despite having sinned in his life.

If I read the passage more thoroughly, one thing becomes more and more clear to me: Paul writes about sins and God's wrath at the sinners, but he does not write about every sin or sin itself but about a certain kind of sin and a certain group of sinners: people who can feel the existence of God in their hearts but still refuse to believe in Him.

This seems to be totally illogical: someone who knows God and yet does not believe in Him – is that not totally impossible? Are there any people that fit this description? Paul tells us they are people who are professing themselves to be wise but are foolish instead. People who worship the creation but not the creator and who equate God with the creation, with animals, nature and mortal men.

Sometimes, when I read a passage in the Bible, I feel that what I read affects me directly and personally, just as if the author would have said to me: “You are meant by this as well”. In this case, my feeling is entirely different. This passage does not apply to me as an individual, but it applies to all of us – to our modern society.

Our society is full of illogical people, exactly the kind of people that Paul describes. We live in an era, in which technology allows us to see the beauty and infinity of the creation in all it's magnificence – and we can see it in ways, that were closed to every generation before ours. You do not need to do more than to walk into the nearest book store or log on to the Internet and you are able to see the beauty of a sunrise in the Negev Desert, the splendour of the Niagara Falls, the depths of space or the miraculous growth of a baby in it's mother's body. A century ago, it was impossible for anyone to see and know all these things. Today the beauty of the creation, that, according to Paul, clearly proves that there has to be a creator, can be enjoyed by everybody like never before.

Interestingly, the number of people who oppose faith or refuse to acknowledge even the possibility of a creator, is extraordinary high and growing. To believe in God, to look into the Bible for orientation in daily life is almost regarded as a sin in our modern society, that is so egocentric and focused on material fulfilment.

Not only are people turning their backs on religion, they think of themselves as “modern” and enlightened – just as Paul describes it. A lot of people think, that science has liberated them of the necessity to even think about any form of higher power. The creation – so they say – can be explained without God, by chance only, starting with the Big Bang and ending with the Theory of Evolution. Science should instead be able to open our eyes for God more than any work of art or any word of men because science teaches us that there is no effect without cause (which raises questions about the seemingly causeless Big Bang) and that natural systems tend to deteriorate into utter chaos, if they are left alone long enough (which, in turn, should raise questions about the evolution). Most of the people who always invoke science to mock religion and to justify their atheism have probably never even thought about that. In fact, I doubt that they are even interested in science at all – if scientists are not working on a way to make their lives more easy or enjoyable, they tend to ignore their lectures and warnings just as they ignore anything that comes from the realm of the church. A lot of real scientists are deeply religious, some have even found their faith through work. Werner Heisenberg, the famous German scientist and Nobel Prize winner once said that “the first sip from the cup of science can turn somone into an atheist but on the bottom of the cup, God is waiting”. People who invoke science without even trying to understand it are, indeed, behaving foolishly while claiming to be wise – just as Paul described it.

But if the people do not worship God, what else do they worship? Paul tells us: they worship the nature, animals and especially mere mortal men, just like we are doing it today. Out society worships human beings on a daily basis – but interestingly not values like intelligence, morality or kindness but rather the most mortal human features imaginable: beauty (even artificial beauty) and material wealth and fame. Compared to any other values a human being might have, beauty and wealth do not survive us and are the most corruptible – and these mortal and most corruptible values are worshipped by society above all others. It almost seems like Paul has written that passage especially for us, for our culture, our society and our generation.

What is God's punishment for those people who have turned their backs on him? The most interesting information in this passage in Romans is – that there is none. God does not seed a flood or diseases to punish mankind – he does it much more subtle by just lifting his veil of protection and cover and giving people up to their lusts and affections – everyone can do exactly what he wants to do.....what a supreme display of heavenly tolerance. If that mindset does not remind You of the state of modern society, just look at the list of sins Paul wrote down so long ago: unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity.....

One sin, however, stands out in Romans. Paul does not just list it with the others but dedicates several sentences to it – to homosexuality, which, for him is the ultimate sign that someone has left the path of faith and turned his back on Him.

What can be said about our epoch, our society, regarding homosexuality? Well, if you take a look at human history, you will discover that we live in the first society since the birth of societies, that does not only openly approves of homosexuality, but even celebrates same-sex marriages, gay pride parades and the like – not even Paul could have imagined that!

We live in a society, where crosses in school are declared illegal, jet same-sex marriages are totally legal. I live in a country where the end of religious classes in schools is discussed in the capitol city, all the while the mayor of Berlin openly celebrates his own homosexuality, obviously not only approving of homosexuality itself but also having pleasure in convincing others to do the same – just as Paul describes it.

Let's take a look at the eerie parallels. Paul describes a society in which:

(a) a lot of people have turned their backs on God and faith, regardless of the fact that

(b) the creation makes the existence of a creator visible to everyone.

(c) People however choose to not worship Him but to worship nature instead, including men

(d) and while claiming to be wise, they are acting like fools.

This leads to God turning His back on them and

(e) giving them over to their lusts and affections, including envy, wickedness, murder, deceit

(f) and especially homosexuality

We, in comparison, live in a society in which:

(a) a great number of people has turned their backs on God and faith, regardless of the fact that

(b) the beauty of the creation can be seen by anybody in ways unimaginable a century ago

(c) People however choose to not worship Him but instead misuse science as an excuse to worship themselves and the creation around them

(d)while claiming to be modern, enlightened and wise although they are foolish instead.

This leads us to a society that

(e) almost idealizes immorality, glorifies violence and wrong behaviour

(f) especially homosexuality, which is admired and almost has a protected status.

If we follow Paul here, God's wrath has already hit the modern society hard, if it is indeed expressed not by plagues and floods but by giving people over to their sins and desires. Or, as Augustinus said: “The punishment for sin is sin itself”.

One thing seems clear to me: This text, despite being almost 2000 years old, refers to the exact situation that we live in today. We live in this epoch. We live in this society. And – as painfully as that idea may be – we are the first who can claim this. Of course, every society and every era has had its share of sins and sinners – but never before has a society idealized sinful behaviour and glorified wrongful action like ours.

Now, what does that mean for our future...?

People have the strange habit of starting to work on their behaviour the very day they wake up in the gutter – and not one day earlier. Just like the young man, who is addicted to drugs and knows it, but does not fight it until the day where his whole life crashes down around him, maybe our society will come to its senses only after it has embraced sin long enough to realize that things are not getting any better but can only get worse.

Fortunately, we can look into scripture to get our hopes up a little bit. The worst sinners were often the first to embrace the gospel, so maybe the image of the unforgiving God pouring his wrath on our society is wrong in the end. After all, would God always protect people from any trouble, no matter what they do, how many sinners would ever find to Him? By giving people over to their sins, he also gives them a second chance to learn the error of their ways the hard way – and hopefully come to their senses before collectively waking up in the gutter.



Christian Reinboth
[email protected]

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