IN THIS ENTRY, a reader commented on the Christian expression, “we are all sinners.” She wrote:

Non-Christians get their hackles up when they hear this, because the word “sin” is loaded. People don’t understand what is really meant: that we are sinners not because we sin, but we sin because we are sinners. We are imperfect. This needs to be explained better. If I had not by chance heard this on a Christian TV programme, I would still protest the statement that “all people are sinners.” No one wants to think he or she goes around deliberately doing evil day in and day out.

In response, the commenter Bill Wilson wrote:

I agree … that the word “sin” carries a great deal of meaning, and that almost no one goes around thinking about and trying to do evil all day. But I think that this is, in the end, a difference in semantics. Once the emotional impact of the word “sin” is gotten over, so to speak, the essential meaning remains the same.

A very soft way to say this is that we are indeed all imperfect, and that God will, if we give him a chance, make us all perfect. But I guess I would ask about the motives of anyone who wishes to soften the idea of our imperfection. The harshness of contrast is not between how the average person goes about his daily life and how a person who has become a Christian will go about his daily life. The starkness of the contrast lies in a comparison between a person’s heart (my heart, your heart, anyone’s heart) and the perfect goodness and holiness of God. The wretchedness of man is not an emotional concept designed to bring about pointless self-immolation, but rather a concept which is part of a proper understanding of God, and how we truly relate to him in our natural state. Once the natural state of man is understood, and the holiness of God is set side-by-side with it, simply stating the “the heart of man is sin” is indeed itself a very softened version of the truth. So further softening, rather than bring light and truth, only clouds the issue, and excludes the goodness of God from the conversation.

This is why I think that it is imperative for Christians to speak plainly and openly, from our point of view, about matters of truth. Trying to put things in terms that are inherently more easily understood to the secular world, rather than clarify, only obscures further. No one is ever convinced of the truth of Christianity logically (or very rarely), but many people find that terms such as sin, holiness, lostness, perdition make sense to them in their natural state, when they are being most honest with themselves. If these things do not resonate with a person, then the preparation of their heart is still within the realm of the Holy Spirit, and softening the discussion, telling them that they are imperfect (rather than sinful) only does them a disservice in the end. The job of the Christian is only to tell the truth, not to be diplomats, ever softening of weakening the truth of the Gospel. Of course this does not mean that there is not room for tact, or manners.

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