That was the topic of our afternoon breakout session. LeRon Shults and Kara Powell were the facillitators of this discussion.
If we start by PRIMARILY seeing sin as substance - ie, something that needs to be cleaned or fixed - then we miss the larger issue of sin as relationship killer.
Now this was not exactly revolutionary - I mean for years we’ve talk this way in the student culture. Sin destroys relationship. In fact, sin in it’s essence is rejecting one relationship (with God) in preference for another (yourself, others). It destroys your relationship with God, parents, peers and yada, yada, yada.
Evangelistically we speak this way - there is a relationship you need but don’t have. You can have it. You can choose it. It will bring healing to every other relationship that you are in.
So where is the contraversy, right? Well, for those who hold and ‘only’ hold to “penal substitution” theory of atonement - it can cause some unrest.
I’ll blog more about this later…we’ll see what kind of response this generates.
