"Powers and Principalities"

As we prepare to conclude our series on sin, there is one more issue to bring up (there is always at least one more thing) - that is the reality of "social sin." No, I do not mean sin that is committed in social situations (let's just not go there). What I referring to is sin that has literally been knitted into the social fabric, institutional sin. The Apostle Paul writes about this sin in Ephesians when he says, "For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places." I love the phrase that the King James Version uses, "powers and principalities." I am not really sure even what it means; but it is poetic.

Either way, what Paul is talking about is not some nebulous X-files, "the truth is out there" kind of evil, he is talking about sin that has become so prevalent, and so accepted, that it has become a part of the machine that makes the world go. That does not make it o.k. (hence Paul's call for us to "struggle" against it (Paul is always struggling, or wrestling, or pressing, or running - I love that about him). Oscar Romero, former archbishop in San Salvador, who was assassinated while conducting mass in 1980, described it this way; "Social sin is the crystallization...of individuals' sins into permanent structures that keeps sin in being and makes its force to be felt by the majority of people."

Said another way, the old adage "that's just the way things are" won't cut it in the kingdom of God. Because sin made things the way they are, and Jesus died for all sin - not just the one or two that religious leaders decide are bad.