Indulge me for a moment

Several of Luther's 95 theses were directed toward a practice known as selling indulgences. Basically, for the right price, forgiveness could be purchased for you or a loved one. Sellers of indulgences would say that you could instantly release your deceased relative from purgatory if you put the right amount of money in the bucket. The pope wanted to redocorate St. Peters basilica? Time for more indulgences.

Luther rightly comdemned the practice as unbiblical and cruel. However, there is one aspect of the practice that I'd like to explore with you. In order to buy an indulgence, a person would have to acknowledge that a sin was committed that needed to be forgiven.

In the 21st century American church, we're way too sophisticated to do anything as silly as buy and sell forgiveness, but have we also stripped sin of its meaning? If we use church only as a place to validate our lifestyles and have our existential experience for the week, are we any better than those who thought they could pay their debt to God?

If we call nothing sin (while certainly acknowledging that we're all sinners...it's a neat trick) then the value of Christ's sacrifice diminishes. The purchasers of indulgences were at least aware that their sin had a price. Certainly, their thoughts about that price and the payment for it were totally wrong, but are our thoughts about them any better?