The title is from a song by a Christian punk band back in the 80’s. Sometimes memories like that just creep up and jump you from behind.

So we been kickin’ it up a bit around here lately talking about sin, with digressions into the politics of Jesus, among other things. And politics are important, they could get you excommunicated if you, say, vote for the wrong presidential candidate. Up here in Canada, we have what’s called the secret ballot, and it means that nobody gets to know who you voted for… that way you don’t get booted out of your church for it. Stephen Harper’s campaign team called me today and after butchering the pronunciation of my name worse than I’d ever heard it done or thought it possible before, they wanted to ask how I’d vote, and of course I had the freedom to not tell them, and to tell them I didn’t want a lawn sign either (or maybe I’ll put one up that says “Suphovian Harnklampher”). I could have told them there hasn’t been an election call yet….

But I digress. We’re talking about sin. Sin and politics. Don’t ask how they’re linked.

Turns out Brad Hightower is also talking about sin. Meanwhile, Scot McKnight talks about the problem of evil but promises to talk about McLaren’s Hell Book and the politics of God and Jim Wallis.

Speaking of McLaren’s Hell Book, you of course know he’ll be all over blogdom a few hours from now. If you don’t know that, and can’t name any of the blogs he’ll be on, you’ve apparently been under a blogless rock for a week… but you can just hit some of the blogroll links in the column on the right until you find it.

Which brings me to a recent insight about sin and hell. Don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but I’ve decided you can morph the gospel, tweak it here and there, and get off fairly clean until you change what you say about sin or hell. At that point, some sinful behaviour is likely to occur, and all hell will break loose because you’re a heretical wing-nut. Of all the doctrines we could latch onto and fight the hardest to retain, why would we pick sin and hell?

See, I’ve tried to throw in some original thought so you could say that as a blogger, I’m a thinker not a linker. Hey, I try to think, but sometimes I only have time to link. Life can get busy sometimes.