Are All Sins Equal?
- Keith Stanglin
- May 12
- 4 min read
Keith D. Stanglin
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Following is an excerpt from Keith Stanglin's article, "Are All Sins Equal?" See our previous post for the editor's note and table of contents.
Are All Sins Equal?
Keith D. Stanglin
Center for Christian Studies
Introduction
In an age that calls evil good and good evil, we should not be surprised that popular sentiment in Western society does not provide a reliable or stable measure of what should count as permissible or impermissible. Many are the evils that are considered good—and for many reasons. Some such evils could be sins that our society ignores because of their wide acceptance and prevalence (for example, greed or usury), or they could be sins that society celebrates in hopes of wider acceptance and prevalence (for example, abortion or homosexual practice). Because such sins have long been woven into the fabric of our late modern culture, they have influenced the church.
Most churches and Christian leaders cannot—or do not—come right out and expressly affirm the permissibility of what has long been regarded by the church as sinful. One strategy for getting to that point of acceptance—calling evil good—is simply to ignore behavior x, turning a blind eye as it is practiced by believers. In this case, the silence is tantamount to permission. Another related strategy is to defer the question of the moral assessment of x and, in the meantime, promise unconditional love to the doer of x. It is claimed that moral assessment is just too difficult or contested, and until an uncontested answer comes that satisfies all parties (which will likely never happen), then one must simply show love. The problem with this approach is that the moral assessment shapes what love requires. Love, even unconditional love, is the requirement of Christian morality; this core commitment is not up for debate. The question is, what does love require? If x is a good behavior, then love requires supporting that practice, encouraging or joining those doing it. If x is impermissible, however, then love requires not embracing or participating in the practice and, instead, seeking to help those practicing it to cease.
With both strategies, the necessary question about moral assessment—whether x is right or wrong—is bypassed. If the church does not engage the issue, then one can be sure that the culture, probably sooner rather than later, will dictate the terms and provide the dominant answer.
In addition to those strategies, another strategy for tolerating or relativizing sin, and thus introducing ambiguity about sin, faces the question about impermissibility a little more directly than do the other strategies. Rather than bypassing the question of moral assessment altogether, this approach claims that x, though a sin, is no worse than any other sin. All sins, it is said, are equal. For example, as this logic goes, Jesus said more against divorce than against homosexuality. Why, then, does the church allow divorce, gluttony, and other sins but not homosexuality?[1] For those who argue in this way, it is hard to know if they really intend to crack down on divorce and gluttony or instead to give a free pass to homosexuality.
To be fair, not everyone who makes this argument is seeking to relativize sin. Many are rightly concerned that the church can incline to focusing on “pet” sins or low-hanging fruit while ignoring sins that should be just as important to address. Whatever the intent, the belief that all sins are equal is strongly and widely held. This claim is encountered more on the popular level than in any scholarly or careful treatment. Yet, regardless of the advocate’s actual intent, the effect is to minimize certain sins that are increasingly unpopular to condemn. The purpose of this article is to address this question of whether all sins are equal and then to reflect on some practical implications of the answer.
What Is Sin?
Whether or not all sins are equal raises the question of definition. What exactly is sin? The Greek word most commonly rendered as “sin,” hamartia, could be translated as “fault” or “guilt.” It designates missing the target, literally or figuratively. In its original sense, then, the Greek word has a broad semantic range and can apply to any error. Some ancient Greek thinkers attempted to distinguish hamartia from other kinds of error, including atychema, adikema (unrighteousness), and kakia (evil, vice).[2] For example, Aristotle narrows the definition of hamartema in his attempt to distinguish it from other kinds of error; for him, hamartema/hamartia may be pardonable or unpardonable, depending on the causes.[3]
In the New Testament, and especially in Paul’s letters, sin is usually more than simply an error easily overlooked or a feature of human finitude and fallibility (as in, “to err is human”). According to Romans 3:23–24, to sin (hamartano) is directly connected with falling short of God’s glory, and it puts one in need of being made right by God’s free gift. As an offense against God, sin puts one in debt, so that buying back at a price is the solution, accomplished in Christ Jesus. Although using different words, Paul conveys the same message in Romans 6:23. Sin results in death, and only God can make the human wrong right. Again, there is a debt-payment metaphor, and the only solution is God’s free gift in Christ Jesus. The connection between sin and death is highlighted again in Romans 8:2, and the solution, again, is liberation in Christ Jesus. For Paul, sin means death, so, in order to live, one must die to sin (Rom 6:1–11). Law, sin, and death must be overcome by God through Jesus Christ (1 Cor 15:56–57).
In light of Paul’s statements, and in conjunction with the general tenor of Scripture as a whole, we may say that actual sin, in its most basic theological sense and as used in this article, is...
[1] E.g., Rachel Held Evans made similar points in “Everyone’s a Biblical Literalist until You Bring Up Gluttony,” HuffPost (Dec. 30, 2013), at
[2] See Liddell, Scott, and Jones, A Greek-English Lexicon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), 77; Frederick William Danker, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed. (BDAG) (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2000), 49–51.
[3] See Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics V.viii (1135a16–1136a9); VII.iv.1–4 (1147b20–1148a22).
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