Two days ago I posted an article on the phrase, “All Sins are Equal in God’s Eyes.”  This was the latest installment in the “Taking Back Christianese” series.

In that post, I argued that this phrase is frequently misunderstood and misused.  Paradoxically, some use the phrase to bolster the seriousness of sin (by arguing every sin is equally a big deal), while other use the phrase to downplay the seriousness of sin (by arguing that no sins are any worse than others).

In short, I argued that while no sin is small, some sins are smaller (or larger).  Put differently, sin is serious enough that one is sufficient to separate you from God, but that does not mean all sins are equally heinous.

After writing that article, and seeing the response that it received, I decided to poke around Twitter to see how common this belief “all sins are equal” really is.  I was surprised by what I found.

Of course, what people say on Twitter is not a scientific test of what people generally believe.  But, it is illuminating nonetheless.  Below are a few examples to give you a feel for how the phrase “all sins are equal” is being used in our world today.

I encourage you to read each one. It is a stunning picture of what our world believes about sin. And here is the thing to realize: what a person believes about sin really does affect their behavior. [Read more…]