OverINDULGENT Christians

So what do we do? Keep on sinning so God can keep on forgiving? – Rom 6:1 (MSG)

Over 90% of Christians today are Catholics, half of them just aren’t aware of it. They may be Good Catholics (Roman Catholics), or they may be Bad Catholics (Protestants) but, historically speaking, are all Catholics nonetheless. And though this fact has been forgotten, or is taken for granted, we’re often reminded of our prior singleness through vestiges of similarities that remain today – in our liturgy, in our dogma... and in our thinking.

One of the core reasons why the Reformation (the movement that established Protestantism) started was the Catholic Church’s practice of the sale of “Indulgences”. An Indulgence was a form of remission, granted by the pope, for sins committed. The origins of this practice started when the Catholic Church – even though it acknowledges the sacrificial death of Christ for sin – still insisted that sins committed by members must be paid for by some form of Works such as fasting, floggings, pilgrimage, or charity.

Over time, it made it easier to pay for said sins by making the payment literal! Instead of self-punishment, you just simply buy the absolution. Hence the introduction of “Indulgences”. The sale of Indulgences became so full-blown a merchandising outfit that some parishes became major Indulgence purchase centres! And though the proceeds go to the Pope, the middle salesmen had their own cut and became extremely wealthy.

Of course, it was only a matter of time before people started buying Indulgences for sins they had not yet committed! And therein lay the gripe of the early reformers like John Wycliffe, John Hus and Martin Luther – a fight that brought about the Reformation and break from the Mother Church.

So, here we are today, four centuries later, children of that bitter ecclesiastical divorce, supposedly cut clean from the behaviour and creed of the “Bishop of Rome”; yet whenever the doctrine of comprehensive FORGIVENESS is taught, the next thing that Believers start thinking is, “You mean I can sin tomorrow?”. It’s the real-world rephrasing of Paul’s question to the Romans, (why does “Rome” keep cropping up in this discourse of ours?), “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?

The answer, of course, was “God forbid!” (Rom 6:1,2). To Paul, the question reveals a faulty understanding of the Gospel message. We’re not doing that ‘sin’ thing anymore; You were once darkness, but now are you light in the Lord: walk [therefore] as children of light;  (Eph 5:8).

AMEN.

More Blessings await you today; you’ll not miss them in Jesus’ Name.

GREG ELKAN