Too many have been taught horrible theology that sin levels.
Believers are supposed to have a God who will comfort them when they are betrayed or abused or abandoned.
But so much of our theology turns God into someone who doesn’t care about our hurts, and is even mad at us for feeling hurt.
Let’s say your spouse betrayed you or even abused you. And then let’s say that everyone around you sin levels, saying things like, “we are all equally sinners” and “God doesn’t judge so you shouldn’t either” and “your heart is just as bad as his is.”
Where are you supposed to go with your pain now? You can’t go to God, because the God you’ve been hearing about is just as mad at you as He is about what was done to you. In fact, He’s really mad you’re hurt still and think that your pain is anything special, because don’t you realize you’ve done something just as bad? And you can’t go to anyone in your church, because they’ll tell you just to forgive and stop judging.
That’s what happens when we sin level about affairs, saying “we’re all equally guilty” and “it could have been any of us” and “you shouldn’t judge.” You rip the only comfort that betrayed people have right out from under them.
Yes, Jesus cares about injustice. He cares about your pain. He spent His life trying to confront injustice, especially from the religious elites.
What I’ve seen over the last week, since news broke of Philip Yancey’s 8-year affair, has been an incredible amount of sin levelling, which ends up hurting women especially, who are the most likely to be the victims of betrayal and infidelity. I talked on Monday about the horrible takes on a broad scale, but I’d like today to address some of the faulty readings of Scripture that promote sin levelling and deny the severity of betrayal and pain.
Sin levelling is bad theology.
A lot of people have been taught really poor theology when it comes to sin–that we aren’t supposed to judge, and that we are to remember that we’re all equally bad.
This isn’t Scriptural, and I need to correct a lot of false theology I’ve seen in the comments section on social media.
1. What about “he who is without sin cast the first stone?”
Many (especially Tullian Tchividjian) have brought up the story of the woman caught in adultery, where Jesus says “he who is without sin cast the first stone.” This sounds like it’s telling us that we can never judge about sin. But let’s take a step back and look at what’s really going on in this story.
The point of that passage was Jesus standing up for justice and for a vulnerable woman. Religious leaders paraded the woman out, and not the man. Those accusing her were doing so with bad motives. And Jesus called them on it to protect the woman.
When we use that same passage to argue, “see, you’re not allowed to say that someone who cheats on their wife has done something bad, because we’re all equally bad,” we’re missing the whole point of what Jesus did!
2. “But doesn’t Jesus sin level in the Sermon on the Mount?”
Similarly, I’ve seen people use the Sermon on the Mount to argue that Jesus “sin levels”, or declares all sins equally bad. Because He said looking at a woman with lust is the same as committing adultery, then when someone commits adultery, we can’t call them out, because we’ve all done something just as bad. Again, Tullian Tchividjian, the disgraced grandson of Billy Graham who was kicked out of his denomination for clergy sex abuse and adultery, was parroting this, and many of his followers were too.
But why was Jesus saying this about adultery in the first place? It was to put the responsibility for lust and objectification purely at the feet of men, rather than blaming women. Again, it was to protect the vulnerable. Often the religious leaders would pride themselves in being so “holy” while they were simultaneously objectifying and dehumanizing others, and Jesus said that didn’t wash.
3. It’s sloppy theology to say that Jesus calls us never to judge sin
Those who say that Jesus considers all sins the same haven’t read the whole gospels! Think of how many times Jesus says that certain people, and certain sins, will be judged more harshly (eg. Matthew 10:15). Specifically, Jesus was especially angry at those who cause little, vulnerable ones to sin and do them harm (Matthew 18:6). Again–he’s standing up for the vulnerable against the powerful.
Even when Jesus tells us not to judge (Matthew 7:1-4), we often forget to read the following verses. In verse 5, he says that once you have removed your plank, you can see clearly to remove their speck. He follows this up immediately in verse 6 by telling us not to throw our pearls before swine. How do we know who is “swine” unless we are discerning and judge?
The epistle writers also talked about how we should use discernment and judgment within the church. Peter says that judgment begins with the house of God, and Paul tells us that we must judge those within the church (1 Corinthians 5:12), and that all leaders must be above reproach (1 Timothy 3:2).
What does judgment mean in these cases?
If we follow the example of Jesus, it’s protecting the vulnerable and holding the powerful to account. It’s fighting for justice.
What does this mean about how we approach things like infidelity? It means that we DO NOT tell women that they can’t judge, because they are equally guilty. It means that we DO NOT tell the vulnerable that they can’t expect their husbands to stay faithful, because at any minute any of us can do this.
No, it means that we hold people to the standards of Jesus, for the purpose of protecting the vulnerable.
Yes, there has been a problem with judgmentalism within the church
So often when people have “judged” inside the church, they have done so to solidify the power of the powerful and hurt those with less power, and exclude people. That, obviously, is wrong.
But true, righteous judgment is about doing what Jesus did when He protected that vulnerable woman who had been dragged out to be stoned.
It really bothers me when people use the past, when the evangelical church condemned women during purity culture, and our judgmentalism hurt the innocent, to argue now that women should just forgive and remember that we’re all equally bad when men today sin against women. The common thread in both these cases is that women got hurt. In both cases, those in power have twisted the idea of “judgment” to hurt women. It’s almost like it was never about theology, but always about making sure that men in power weren’t held to account, and women were made into the scapegoats.
We do the exact same thing to women now that we did then, we just use different theologies and different Bible passages to do it!
Download Our Marriage Survey
Join 40,00 others and let's change the evangelical conversation about sex
The real question is how do we balance grace and justice
Yes, Jesus forgives and accepts back those who are truly repentant. Absolutely.
But He also stands up for justice, and being reconciled to Christ doesn’t mean abandoning justice.
Jesus cares about the vulnerable and those who are hurting, and when our theologies of grace allow those who have hurt others to escape consequences, while putting burdens on those who have been hurt by making them feel alone and unheard, we’re doing something very, very wrong.
Those who are victims of infidelity deserve to hear, “what your spouse did was wrong. You shouldn’t have gone through that. That wasn’t normal. Most people never do this. It’s understandable why you’re so upset and betrayed. God sees it and God cares.”
They should not hear, “why are you so angry, because your heart is just as adulterous?” (something Tullian Tchividjian actually said). They should not hear, “you’re just as guilty, so you shouldn’t judge.” That reminds me of so many of the prophets in the Old Testament calling out the religious leaders for saying “peace, peace when there is no peace.”
If you’ve been betrayed, please know your pain matters to God.
Jesus is not angry at you because you can’t get over it. You’re not just as bad as your betrayer because you’re still hurt. Healing comes from knowing that God sees the full extent of your pain and understands it and fights for you. And your pain deserves to be recognized, because only then can healing really begin.
Please, people, let’s get our theology right. Stop sin levelling. Stop theology that benefits those who hurt and oppress others.
And start standing up for the vulnerable, and holding others to account.
What do you think? Have you seen the sin levelling? Have you seen it used to protect those in power? How do we combat this? Let’s talk in the comments!
There have been a few times when I shared in women’s Bible studies about my first abusive marriage which involved verbal abuse, controlling behavior, and sexual assault. Then some of these women said that I wasn’t perfect either. Ouch. That hurt and I hate to say that I’ve witnessed that women have sin levelled too. That’s why I’m not much into women’s Bible studies anymore.
Like why do people even say that? It’s such a ridiculous thing to say! And it just shows that people’s biggest fear is that anyone hold anyone else to account. It’s crazy.
I think there are two motives to sin leveling. One is the power dynamics you mentioned. That’s spot on. The other is grief and shame. As a culture we have not been taught how to stand up for and with people and we don’t know how to hold people accountable. We are a “sweep it under the rug” and an “if we ignore it the pain will go away” type culture. The “but for the grace of God” mentality makes it easier for people to grasp the reality that someone they respected or liked or loved could do something so terrible. I wonder if it’s a freeze or fawn type response.
I lived this when my husband confessed to decades long betrayal. Our friends were shocked and they do not want to talk about it. I think no one would have suspected him of being capable of such things, and our community simply doesn’t know how to process the betrayal to themselves let alone the betrayal to me. It’s easier to sweep it under the rug and move on than it is to do the hard work of grief and justice processing.
Yes, I think you’re on to something here! Rebecca said something similar in last week’s Friday roundup, that for many betrayed women it’s easier to think “that could have been me”, because then they don’t have to actually do anything about the fact that their husband betrayed them. They can just carry on without holding anyone to account or blowing up the relationship (without realizing he already blew it up).
What would happen if we all understood sin as being about harm to image bearers and the rest of Creation, not primarily about violations of more or less arbitrary rules?
“Sin is anything you think, say, or do that displeases God.” I can still hear my Sunday School teacher saying that! It sounds superficially holy, but now I see it’s narrow and immature. But a lot of people seem to find it convenient to never grow out of this view. For some, it lets them perform virtue and repentance without having to actually face the impact of their behavior, develop empathy for others, or address their own issues. As a “bonus,” if you believe any and all “sin”, regardless of impact, is worthy of ECT, you then can sin-level away, because you believe God does!
What if we never went down that road? What if we said, sin is about harm, God is grieved by it because it harms people, including those who perpetrate it? That God is always at work to repair and restore what sin breaks? That we, as God’s people are active participants in that work? What if we believed that the opposite of sin isn’t virtue but healing and wholeness?
Well said!
Well said! That’s definitely more the view of sin that I have. I don’t think God is just upset about sin for his own sake, but rather than sin is marring the world that He created, especially for us.
“As a “bonus,” if you believe any and all “sin”, regardless of impact, is worthy of ECT, you then can sin-level away, because you believe God does!”
If you have time to explain this a little more, could you explain what your alternative view to this is? (I’m assuming ECT=eternal conscious torment). If you don’t think that any and every sin separates us from God, and therefore in hell eternally, do you think Jesus is necessary for “normal” people who don’t commit sins like adultery or murder? Ie, could you live a moral life as a member of a religion that doesn’t acknowledge Jesus and still be okay in eternity? I don’t understand why Jesus’ death on the cross was needed if that’s the case.
I hope this doesn’t come across as argumentative, I have a lot of questions about this in my own mind and would appreciate hearing your thoughts.
Some of the Old Testament meanings of these concepts have been lost in evangelical culture.
“Sin” meant “falling short of an ideal” – NOT “intentional dishonoring the will of God”. It’s more like “oh, I could have done that better” so you’d learn from it and do better next time, not a permanent, punitive judgement on your character.
There was no concept of an afterlife in the Old Testament. There was no Hell. This is based on a mistranslation, a very literalist (& broad application) interpretation of Revelation and creative literature that was written much more recently. The Old Testament meaning was being ostracized for unacceptable behavior, similar to treatment that lepers received.
Through years of reading non-evangelical interpretations, I’ve come to a very different understanding of God and faith. If God actually loves me, then the Bible cannot mean what I was taught it means because those are the teachings that literally almost got me killed. So I had to either leave faith that preferred my death, or understand it in a whole new way that preferred me alive. If we are created in God’s image that can’t be taken away by anything we do. We are not separated from God. But we’ve been convinced that we have to somehow earn back that status that we never lost. The writings of the Old Testament portray a tribal, angry, vindictive ANE God who was only modestly better than the contemporary gods of the surrounding cultures. Jesus was necessary to demonstrate how wrong that understanding of God is. Jesus was necessary to show how the power structures were exploiting people for their own benefit, not connecting people with God and the resources they needed. Jesus came to bring abundant life. Jesus came to bring the Kingdom of God, not to re-establish the Temple system with the new name of Church or Christianity.
Thank you for taking the time to respond!
Another view is that while God wants to welcome everyone into a relationship with Him and impart eternal life to them (because humans are completely mortal; we only can live on if God imparts immortality, and He does not want those who are stuck in sin to live on forever like that- hence sending Adam and Eve out of the Garden so they couldn’t eat of the tree of life), for those who reject His offer of eternal life He allows them to die.
This view is conditional immortality. Those who die apart from God will be resurrected for the day of judgment, suffer their due punishment, and then be completely destroyed (perish, die, cease to exist).
Other than harm, the only way we “know” what God thinks of sin is by following what some “authority” claims it is. In other words, it’s just some dude’s opinion. And why should we accept that?!
The only person who the Bible explicitly tells us in heaven is one of the criminals on a cross next to Jesus. That man said,
“We deserve to die for our crimes, but this man hasn’t done anything wrong.”
Understandably, people like to focus on the verse before it or the meaning of faith; however, I think it’s meaningful that he acknowledged that he deserved death for what he had done.
Whatever he did, it probably wasn’t minor; it was a capital crime.
If the only person who Jesus guarantees is in heaven is someone who took responsibility for his own wrongdoing, maybe that tells us something.
“What does judgment mean in these cases?”
Originally, “judgment” meant a binding decision or to make a binding decision.
In modern Christianese, it means “Somebody (Thee, not Mee) Gets It In The Neck.”
Sin-leveling was the heart and soul of a “counseling” program I went through for wives hurt by their husbands’ porn addiction. Instead of encouraging wives to cry out to God for wisdom and comfort, and set boundaries with their husbands, they had the wives “examine their own hearts.” Through the eyes of the curriculum, I was a bitter, prideful person who lacked trust in the Lord, all because my trust in my husband was broken and I wanted him to get professional help for his addiction and anger issues. And how dare I be upset about his porn use- wanting to do fun, relaxing activities was just as idolatrous and selfish.
Thank you so much for this article!!! I don’t post comments on blog posts but this article really resonated with me.
That’s so awful! I’m so sorry. I’m glad you found me instead!
“SIN-LEVELLING
Benefits the Guilty and Hurts the Victim”
Feature, not Bug.
Evangelical Christians like to call out all the ways that Catholics are wrong, but I think this is one place where we could learn a lot from Catholicism. In evangelical Christianity, to confess typically just means to recognize that we are sinful. But in Catholicism, confession is a way to focus on specific sins committed in hopes of avoiding those same sins in the future. I have a Catholic friend who has told me in the past that he didn’t want to do anything that he would have to confess to later, and that accountability was helpful to him.
I think a lot of Christians would benefit from getting back to a Christianity that encourages us to reflect on our specific sins and the harms that they have caused. Because while all sin can potentially separate us from God, all sin does not have equal effects on the people around us. We should be particularly convicted and grieved over sins that do great harm to those around us. But when we reduce confession to merely admitting that we’re all sinful, we lose that element of accountability.
I also find it telling that this is not a universal response to sin. When we hear of a horrific murder, or an armed robbery, etc., nobody rushes to say “it could have just as easily been me”. I think that is because they are properly horrified by those kinds of sin… but the fact that that is their go-to response for sexual sin just shows that they don’t actually think it was that bad.
Great thoughts, Freddie! I agree. We need to see confession in a different way. I also like the way Catholics differentiate between mortal sins and venal sins.
You did a great job of breaking that down! It makes me think about how Jesus never judged or condemned the hurting and vulnerable,but always -always!- confronted and condemned the sin of those who claimed that they knew God ‘better’- the Pharisees and teachers. The NT writers were just as clear: as Christians, we are not to judge unbelievers, but to love them. HOWEVER we ARE to judge, confront, and enforce accountability on believers when they sin.
I also noticed that Yancey “confessed to God and his wife” but no one else- so how is he being held accountable? Oh. He’s not. But don’t worry- he wrote a book on forgiveness (during the affair!), and HE provided his wife’s statement, so there’s no cause for concern.
None at all.
Did he write the book on forgiveness during the affair? Oh my goodness. I didn’t know that. That’s awful.