Sin Against Creation

Not long ago our son Isaac, a 25-year-old McGill student engaged me in an email conversation about sin. It isn't usually on our chat agenda, but why not. He feels that sin still needs to be an important, although not over-emphasized aspect of our Christian theology. I agreed and spoke about the brokeness of our lives as individuals and of the brokeness of creation.

Yesterday sin made the news in a big way as the Vatican came up with some new, or at least new-to-them sins. The traditional Seven Deadly Sins are Pride, Sloth, Coveting, Lust, Anger...hm, Sleepy, Dopey. Okay I'm trying to do this from memory and I didn't make it! The two I missed are Gluttony and Envy. I envy those who can rhyme off all seven.

The new list of seven includes excessive wealth and polluting the environment. These two certainly address the brokeness of creation which needs to be mended. And often they go hand in hand. Our Western lifestyles may seem normal to us, but they must be viewed as wealth beyond measure to those who are amongst the world's poor. Actually covetousness, envy, gluttony all contribute to the abuse and misuse of the natural world. Maybe those "old" sins were quite serviceable after all.
Here are all seven of the sins named by the Vatican.

Environmental pollution
Genetic manipulation
Accumulating excessive wealth
Inflicting poverty
Drug trafficking and consumption
Morally debatable experiments
Violation of fundamental rights of human nature