Brian Castelli – With His Heart

I’m always looking for ways to link popular media to faith. I like to write about redemptive themes. This post is a bit different. I was talking to a friend the other day about the stickiness of sin. That is, sin has a way of clinging to us. I’ve written previously of a friend who took one step off the narrow path and then proceeded to sprint into deeper and more flagrant sins. I also know first hand of what it feels like to carry the guilt of unconfessed sin. It’s like an invisible backpack of bricks. Other people can’t see it, but it slows us down, hunches us over, and affects everything we do.

Spiderman 3, the movie, comes to mind here because of that black, icky thing that covered Spiderman for part of the movie. Background: An asteroid crashes to earth and Spidey goes to investigate. The asteroid contains more than just rock and ice, however. It carries some kind of icky black symbiote that clings to Spiderman, becoming part of his Spidey suit. Except for the fact that Spidey’s suit changed from red to black, you couldn’t even tell it was there. I’m not sure if the thing was evil or if it somehow amplified Peter Parker’s evil nature, but Spidey and the icky black thing together were a bad mix.

After Spidey had done some really bad things, he came to his senses and tried to get rid of the icky black thing. He struggled mightily to get the thing to let go of him, but it was like gum-on-steroids stuck to the bottom of a shoe. Spiderman pulled and pushed, stretched and groaned, tried and failed, but eventually succeeded at ridding himself of the thing.

I think sin in our lives is like the icky black thing. It clings to us, blending in such that other people aren’t always aware of it. We often struggle mightily to rid ourselves of it, but, unlike Spidey, we usually don’t have the strength to get rid of it on our own. (We haven’t been bitten by radioactive spiders after all!) We need help. We need a savior.

I came across an article on MSNBC today. I was intrigued by the title: One tiny truffle may lead to more indulgence. The article sites the work of a couple of Florida researchers, Juliano Laran of the University of Miami and Chris Janiszewski of the University of Florida Gainesville. The bottom line: Giving into a small temptation may be the first step down a slippery slope of indulgence. Are you surprised? I doubt it. You and I live on the same planet, after all.

I think it’s safe to apply the slippery slope rule to sin in our lives. A man know used to be a decent, stand-up guy. Then his wife left him for another man. For a while he seemed like the same guy. Then he started messing around with other women. Then I began to observe hints of other immoral behavior. He even started lying to me to cover it all up. A new man emerged – one that seems to have gone deeper and deeper into a lifestyle that does not suit him. I believe he is on the slippery slope.

Laran and Janiszewski characterize their research in terms of goal conflict. Their study shows that whether people give in to that first temptation and how they react when they do corresponds to how firmly held their goals are. A person who has strong convictions about eating healthy will be less likely to indulge in the first place and more likely to return to healthy eating habits if they do. I can’t resist the urge to tie this conclusion to sin in our lives as well.

One of my firmly-held beliefs is that we ought to have good reasons for our choices. When we understand why we make the choices we do we are more likely to be consistent with our goals. Let’s use the example of a young woman who refrains from having sex before marriage because she’s afraid of what her mother will think. Under constant pressure from her boyfriend, she may give in and discover that her mother’s reaction isn’t so bad. She becomes more and more willing until pre-marital sex becomes a “natural” way of relating to the men she dates. The slide down the slippery slope began because she didn’t have a really good reason for her behavior. If, however, the young woman understands that pre-martial sex is wrong – not just because her mother says so, but because it is against God’s plan for her life, that it is a violation of the purity she brings to her marriage, that it is a betrayal of her vows to her future husband, and is a step of disobedience to her Lord and Savior – she is less likely to give in to her boyfriend’s advances.

Translate this into what it means for us. If we are living our lives to please Jesus, we will be less likely to give in when temptation comes our way, and, for those times when we do give in, we will be quick to repent and return to Him. If our world view is consistent with the truth found in scripture, we are much less likely to make choices that involve us in sin.