In my last post, I tried to rethink the idea of God’s holiness in a way that makes better sense of the biblical narrative’s descriptions of His persistent, gracious presence with sinful humanity. To give a short summary, I think the metaphor of God’s being “separate” or “far from” sin (spatial terms) often gets taken literally, with unfortunate consequences for how we imagine the church’s mission in the world. In this post, I want to explore this idea more concretely, sharing some personal experiences.
For a long time now, I have tried to be aware of how my purchases contribute to unfair labor practices and other structural evils. I believed – simplistically, I now realize – that participating in sinful structures, like the ones which encourage the exploitation of workers to increase profit margins, is sin. Ignorance is no excuse, I thought; we are responsible to be aware and proactive.
A major influence on my convictions was, in fact, a story about Aydun. I read an account of a pastor in an underground church in Aydun, who, upon being arrested, was sentenced to several years in prison. During his prison term, he was forced to work without pay at a factory on the prison grounds which manufactured Christmas lights sold in America. The irony of celebrating Christmas with lights manufactured by someone imprisoned and enslaved for following Christ made me sick. Though I still think complicity with structural evil is sin, I have realized nuance is needed.
Upon arriving in Aydun, I have found that avoiding participation in structural evil is impossible here. It is impossible to know who is making what I buy and under what conditions. For all I know, everything I buy is potentially made under conditions like the Christmas lights in the story above. Unlike in America, where it is now a consumer trend and good business to be socially and enviromentally conscious, there are no options. Even if I was to try to avoid compromise, I cannot go without eating.
There is simply no way around it. To live in Aydun means to participate and, in however small a way, to contribute to the structural evils at work here. This fact has made me realize it’s impossible to completely avoid participating in structural evil even in America; the problem is just more obvious in Aydun.
To the best of my knowledge, I have three options. First, I can just not care and refuse to think about it. Perhaps I could rationalize that if its unavoidable (or even just really hard) it must not be sin, so I should just live with it and keep going my merry way. Second, I can still try to find a way to avoid complicity in the structural evils. Perhaps I just need to look harder here to find options. If holiness is taken literally as separation, then maybe I need to leave, to go somewhere which would not compromise my holiness, which would present less dilemmas.
Third, I can strive for distinctness from sin while still being present and so complicit in a sinful world. I hesitate putting it like this, it sounds too messy for the label “holy.” But I think that is because it is a derived holiness, it is not a holiness I have or earn. In short, I’m stuck. I can avoid personal sin, but there’s no separating from the sinful world, no way to avoid complicity in the structural evils all around me. The only path to holiness is continual repentance.
Like Jeremiah, the only way to both follow God and remain in a sinful world is to lament the evil in this world, an evil that is my evil due to my complicity, however unavoidable. To both follow God and remain here requires God’s forgiveness. I cannot boldly ask for God’s forgiveness unless I acknowledge my need, unless God reveals to me the sin which surrounds me which He has already conquered in Christ. Sin, personal and structural, should make us sick, but it should also drive us to Christ, where our holiness is found. True repentance (to keep it from looking to much like the first option) should entail taking whatever small steps before us to avoid complicity and, perhaps more importantly, working for the kind of changes that make avoiding complicity possible.
(I’m kind of shooting from the hip here. I’m not sure I have all the dots quite connected yet. If I’m overlooking something, I’d love a correction or two.)