Mid-Week Meditation: The Continuum of Sin...

With the rise and fall and rise and fall of Herman Cain, and the rise and fall and apparent rise again of Tiger Woods, the fall and fall of Bishop Long and the whatever Jerry Sandusky is doing this week (he can't even lie for the camera and say that he's not attracted to boys), I have been meditating on sin.

Clearly, a continuum of sin exists in our spiritual and even secular cultures--some sins are more egregious than others. I don't have it all figured out, this continuum we have, but as near as I can tell, it works something like this:

At one end of the continuum are what we'll call the "Oprah offenses"--adultery, domestic violence, and the emotional abuse of a partner or spouse. There are no offenses more repugnant in our culture than these sins, called Oprah offenses because, Oprah spent much of her career railing against these sins.

Just under those sins are sins against children and the otherwise helpless. On this place of the continuum, we place child molesters and mothers who kill, neglect or mistreat their kids. Casey Anthony and Jerry Sandusky live here.

Next on the continuum is, the killing, mistreating, or otherwise causing pain to an attractive, productive woman of European descent...if you are not of European descent. Ask O.J. Simpson why he's doing a 10-year bit for trying to take back property that was stolen from him.

Messing with someone's cheddar who matters in this society is next on the continuum. If Bernie Madoff Ponzied prison inmates or the people who love them, he wouldn't need protection in prison because he wouldn't be there. But he did not. Madoff bilked professionals and people who vote and pay taxes and write fundraising checks to senators.  He had to do some time.

Mistreating animals...In some sections of our culture, this is above the Oprah offenses.

Selling drugs, killing for self-defense, drunk driving and engaging in war seem to be a bit lower on the continuum. 

There are certainly other sins, of which I am unsure of their placement on the continuum, but this is what I have gleaned from years of listening and reading.

When the Apostle Paul proclaimed in Romans 6:23 "that the wages of sin is (sic) death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ", is this what he meant? Can a continuum of sin (I may have sinned in this way, but at least I didn't do what he did. He's disgusting) that is consistent with Paul's pronouncement that all sin is punishable by death without Christ checking it in?