Sin and Living through Repentance

Different approaches from noted LDS and Orthodox teachers on the subject

Round 1- FIGHT!

Introduction

Repentance is central to a Christian life, but different faith traditions may have very different lived experiences with repentance. Eastern Orthodoxy and the Latter-day Saint (LDS or Mormon) faiths (two I’m very familiar with) both emphasize the need to turn away from sin and return to God, but, in my opinion, their approaches and the resulting experience are quite different.

In this article I will attempt explore the concepts and approaches to repentance by looking at the teachings of two influential 20th-century religious figures: Saint Porphyrios (1906–1991), a beloved Eastern Orthodox monk and spiritual elder, and Spencer W. Kimball (1895–1985), an LDS Church president and author of The Miracle of Forgiveness¹.

I will delve into how each taught repentance, highlighting differences in tone, their understandings of the purpose of repentance, and the process believers undergo, while lending thoughts from my own experiences in both faiths. Each man saw repentance as essential to spiritual life, but their styles and approaches differ as a result of the underlying theologies, or doctrinal understandings, of each religion.

Views on Sin and the Unforgivable Sin

The differing views on Sin and, as a result, the differing approaches to repentance largely stem from differing understandings about what Christ achieved on the cross. What LDS might term “The Atonement.”

I’ve written about this in detail in the following article, which I recommend reading if you have not yet read it. It is illuminating and quite different from the Protestant/LDS view.

Different Approaches to Sin and Repentance

Let’s start by understanding how each tradition views Sin and Repentance as a result of their theological beliefs. The different attitudes and approaches to repentance are a direct result of these core beliefs. By doing so, we will see how important theology is. It’s not just an academic or intellectual exercise; it directly shapes the lived experiences of people within a tradition, and it is the life experience of people within a religion that will determine how much that tradition can affect their lives and ultimately their “salvation.” Theology and doctrines matter, A LOT! You can’t just sweep this under the rug and look only at lived experiences because the experiences are direct and unavoidable consequences of theology.

• In Orthodoxy, sin isn’t a crime or offense against God that needs punishment or restitution to satisfy a divine sense of justice. Instead, sin is a disease that needs healing.

  • The way we think about it is that as we become holier and more transformed by God’s Grace, we align ourselves closer to the image of God. This would be what is happening as you progress in “eternal progression towards Exhalation.” It’s a process, not a destination. The objective is to come closer to God by aligning ourselves with Him.

  • Sin is a disease that takes us out of alignment with the Image of God and needs healing. When we sin, our souls become afflicted, and we get off course in that journey to come closer to God. (That’s why sin means to miss the mark.)

  • All sin separates us from God to some degree, but in Orthodoxy, there are no classes of sin, such as “deadly vs. minor” as there are in Roman Catholicism. Orthodoxy is Mystical and not legalistic.

• In LDS/Mormonism (and Protestantism - I add protestantism because the LDS perspective on sin and the atonement is inherited from Protestantism, which in turn inherited it from Roman Catholicism.) Sin is an offense against God because you broke his rules or transgressed His Law. This mindset, based on a very different understanding of the “Atonement”, requires some form of payment or restitution. The very word Atone, means that you need to make amends for these transgressions of God’s will. Otherwise, God will be angry and you will ultimately be punished in some way. Thus, this view of Christ and what he accomplished on the cross is centered around him paying all of the penalties and punishments for our sins so that he is the one who satisfies all of God’s demands for Justice, creating the ability to provide us with Mercy.

Each of these approaches has a different effect on the soul and your resulting relationship with God.

They also have different implications for how you can interpret the nature of God, or what you can infer about God’s nature. In the first, God is envisioned entirely as a God of infinite love and mercy; he doesn’t seek to punish us, but to love us and gather us back to him.

In the second, God also loves us, but is open to being construed (but is not necessarily always construed) as an angry God who demands justice. In this view, Christ needs to “ransom” us from him so that Christ can show us Mercy since God the Father is mainly concerned with Justice. Effectively, this is not the Lord of the New Testament, but a kind of negotiation with the God of the Old Testament.

It’s difficult for me to articulate the difference regarding how this played out in my lived experience in a short statement, but let me attempt it before continuing.

The difference is like Standing before a Judge when you know you are guilty and trying to beg forgiveness to avoid punishment vs. stepping into a hospital for your soul, where healing is real but can be painful; Where the Physician himself meets you, soothes you, nurtures you and heals you, not with demands but with his own life.