I was talking to a co-worker yesterday when she mentioned that “All sin is the same to God.” I flinched, she had picked a pet peeve of mine. The argument that God sees all sin the same, be it a white lie or cold blooded murder, always seemed wrong to me, even as a child. What kind of a God would send a man to hell for complementing an ugly haircut and forgive a murder? And how could this same God accept a simple prayer as proof of repentance? It all seemed so silly then, but nobody thought my questions funny at the time. They accepted God’s cruel and arbitrary rule with a simple faith that I did not possess. It was one of the first things I can remember that set me apart from the believers. There would be many more to follow. I wanted God to be fair, and he was anything but.
I asked my co-worked about a social lie. I describe a social lie I had told a few minutes before when I visited another co-worker at her cubicle. I complemented her haircut. It was a lie. The haircut made her look fat and butch. I don’t think it was style she was shooting for. But who am I to tell her otherwise? I smiled and gave her a complement. I asked my Christian friend, did my lie place my eternal soul in jeopardy? She repeated her simple statement, “All sin is the same to God, unless you repent you will go to hell.”
I told her that if a parent imitates God in their relationships with their children, they children were likely to run away. Anybody with common sense sees the injustice of the relationship.
She replied with, “I have faith”. I smiled at that. I knew she had faith. But I also know her to be a self-righteous office busybody who sins with the best of us. She is your typical sin/repent/sin again Christian. The world is full of them.
I told her that I think of myself as someone who tries to be good, but that when I fail, the only person I owe an apology to is the one I hurt. When I tell a social lie, nobody is hurt. She replied with, “You hurt God.” And then she told me I was going to hell. Um… I’m already there, mind if I have a pretzel?