I was reading ‘The God Who is There’, by Francis Schaffer, recently and was really intrigued about what he said about guilt (I think it has some relevance to your question - specifically as a way to talk about sin).

Schaffer notes that a ‘modern’ understanding of guilt tends to be limited to feelings of guilt that one might have about things that they have done that they later regret (Like that time I said something really nasty to the girl at work who drives me nuts. She cried and I felt like such a heel).

Schaffer encourages his readers to challenge people to understand guilt in the Biblical sense.

“Christ died for man who had true moral guilt because man had made a real and true choice.”

In this sense, people are guilty because they have done something wrong (not feeling guilty because they did something they wish they hadn’t). This is the Biblical sense of sin; not acts that we feel bad about, or things that are generally agreed upon as harmful to society, but actions that make us guilty before God.

I remember many productive conversations at University that surrounded such topics. I didn’t have Schaffer’s knack for putting things just so, but I do think that this is a helpful way to make the concept of ’sin’ understood.

Looking forward to seeing you in Cardiff.

Cameron Fraser