Culture Creep

By Tom Siebert

The culture of addiction has crept into the Church on little cat feet. And like all felines, this culture cat owns the place. We Christians routinely refer to the sins of gluttony as a “food issue,” fornication as a “purity problem,” and drunkenness as a “disease.” And when we return to these besetting sins, we call it “a relapse,” rather than the way the Bible graphically puts it: “As a dog returns to his own vomit, so fools repeat their folly” (Proverbs 26:11). I am not denying the brain chemistry or body pathology of these self-damaging behaviors. But if I want to be cleansed in the priceless, precious blood of Jesus, I must call a sin a sin.