Theological Perspirations: Sin creating inhumanity

My day at Auschwitz continues to seep onto the fabric of my life. I had a feeling it might that first night as I sat at the computer. I was at a pub like computer cafe in Krakow, Poland, where men were looking at horrible objectifying photos and I was writing about the "objectification" of humanity during the holocaust. Ironic! I sat there trying to put into humble words the right sentences to describe my numbing day. How dare I even try! But I must if not only for me, but for them. They deserve a little human sweat. The whole experience continues to be digested in me and just like our sweat carries smells of dinner from the night before (kimchi and garlic are the worst!), these Auschwitz perspiration's show themselves in the form of theological questions and thoughts.

These theological perspiration's are not just any old thing but very much connected to the ideas and questions I have been asking. The very reason I felt compelled to visit Auschwitz is because I am asking, "What does it mean to be human?" Not a new question, I know that. It is as old as the time we count, as old our specie. It is this question that humanity has wrestled with from the beginning and continues to wrestle with to this day, and frankly it is the question we will continue to wrestle with until the end of time. It is "the" question as far as I am concerned because it has everything to do with how we live with ourselves, each other and God. All great things and all things lacking greatness find understanding through how people, cultures, nations, religions answer the question, "What does it mean to be human?"

So I encounter Auschwitz, the Auschwitz experience living in me, with this question. I continue to be impressed upon by both sides of the Auschwitz and Holocaust tragedy. Both sides, the prisoners and the Nazi's, had to become somehow less than human for it all to occur. Before I had thought that the Nazi's had to have treated the prisoners as non-humans. In order for a human to do the acts of murder to any and especially to that degree you have to take the human out of the people you offend. Yet, I had never thought about how inhuman the Nazis would have to become in order for them to be able to treat others as they did. Could a human really want to kill 11 million Jews, orchestrate crematoriums, experiment with babies and more? No, I just can not believe that a fully human person can do this.

Then I ask, so how does sin play its role in all of this? People in their right human mind, whether religious or not, I believe would consider sin to play a part. Wouldn't they? Yet I am unashamedly Christian, so of course sin is here. Growing up in the church and learning about sin and its relationship to my own humanity, I came to the conclusion that to be human is in essence to be sinful. My humanity is defined by by the nature of its sin problem. This is where we get defensive phrases like, "Come on, I am only human" or "I am just human, that is why I...". Sound familiar? I know that there are passages in the Bible that support this way of thinking to a degree. Also, I believe that sinning is somehow a part of our life from birth to death in varying degrees. Yet, if sin is definitely a part of how the Holocaust was able to happen (I am talking as an underlying cause not in terms of politics of course), and if all involved had to become somehow inhuman to perpetrate such actions or to receive the brunt of the human tragedy, then does sin in fact make us more human or less human?

Does not sin make us less and less human? Does it not strip our humanity from us and cause us in turn to strip the humanity from others? If it does cause us to strip the humanity from others, does it also cause us to strip the humanity from the very one who has and is in the process of redeeming, and recreating our own humanity--Christ? Sin has such destructive power for what it means to be human! It is a reductionary "agent" which causes us to be and act as less than human.

Such theological perspiration's are causing me to question what I've always thought about who we are, how we relate to ourselves, God and others. It also puts into question how I(we) understand my(our) relationship to sin. A life lived on a perpetual pathway towards the cross in hand and heart with Jesus, is a life towards our true humanity. It is a life towards true humanity because it is lived towards less and less willful sinning; it's a life more defined by Christ's perfect and holy humanity. A life that is becoming more and more human because of Christ, is a life where humanity is celebrated and where sin is seen as the agent of lack of life, i.e. death.

So, what would happen if we lived our theology from the belief that sin creates inhumanity? What would happen if we lived from a theology that said our humanity is more defined by Christ and our co-journey with him rather than by a theology that says, "to be human is synonymous with sinfulness"? How might we understand sin to be creating non-bodily death in or many life layers--personal, local, and global? I have suspicions rather than answers. If we did, we might take our sins more seriously. We might bring confession into a higher place in Christian worship and life. Christ might really shape us inwardly and outwardly, communally and personally. Maybe we would create more space for the truly other and for God in our lives! Maybe our defensive phrases about ourselves and others would change from, "I'm only human" to "I'm so inhuman!" May the perspiration's continue!