Is Broken the New Sinful?

One of the obvious negative side effects to using language like broken so much is it has trained people to think, you know, I'm not I'm not a bad person. Sure, I do bad things sometimes, but I'm not a bad person.

All right, Tim, the question for today's episode is, is broken the new sinful?

Certainly in the minds of many people, it seems to be it is.

Yeah, yeah, it definitely seems like it. I don't know about you, but my personal experience has been, you know, most Christians, regardless of, you know, where they lean in terms of do they lean left politically or right politically or, you know, you know, how much of how even how much of the Bible do they actually believe?

You know, plenty of people who would agree with me on probably the majority of my, you know, theological views, you know, maybe they might disagree on some tertiary things. But I've met people who largely agree with me who still use broken as a sort of like a replacement or like a synonym for sinful.

Right. And so they'll talk about, you know, hey, we just we you know, that person, they're just a broken person. You know, they just need Christ. And then and then they'll be better. Right. And and really what they mean is that person is a sinful person who has not repented of their sin, but they're saying broken.

Right. And so so where is the where is this coming from? I mean, is this actually like a well, number one, is this actually a good way for us to talk? Like, is it OK to replace sin with the word broken?

And then follow up question to that is why are we seeing this so much? Why is it so popular?

Jared. Yeah. I mean, I think it's a poor substitute for sinfulness. So, you know, part of this, I mean, you know, I can give you my perspective on whether or not it's a good way to speak based on just, you know, pragmatic considerations or something along those lines.

But I mean, really, if you do believe that the Bible is sufficient, if you believe the Bible is sufficient for life and godliness, then, you know, I'm of the firm opinion that individuals would do well to try to be as intentionally biblical as they can in their language.

And, you know, that's that's just a, you know, a logical implication of the doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture. If the Bible is sufficient for life and godliness, then, you know, I think if you can speak the way the Bible speaks, you're going to avoid a lot of the errors that come from not speaking the way the Bible speaks.

And I mean, just to give you a simple example of how that could work in another area, I mean, I think, you know, thinking about the difference between asking forgiveness and apologizing, you know, for many apologies are like a substitute for asking forgiveness, but there's a lot of things that are lost when you choose to apologize instead of asking forgiveness.

And so, there's some, there's a lot of value in just speaking the way the Bible speaks and using the terms that the Bible use. And, you know, like for many people, like, they think, well, you can just kind of change it up and use different terms and we all mean the same thing, but then you may be really surprised at, like, how many errors come from, you know, just simple change in language in that kind of way.

And I think, like, the issue with brokenness and, you know, as a substitution for sinfulness, which it seems that many people are using it that way, that there are a lot of things that are lost when you, you know, speak about people as if they're primarily broken, like that's their fundamental problem is that they're broken instead of they're sinful.

There's a lot of things that are lost in that way. And we can, you can talk about some of those things, but then in terms of where, where is it coming from? I think it's coming from basically, like, the fundamental problem is that we're living in a victim society and, you know, the victim society we're living in is getting more and more of a victim society over the past few decades.

But then this is language that really, you know, has really pervaded the music that we sing. And a lot of people, they get their theology more from the songs that they sing than from the Bible that they are reading.

And so there's a lot of things that are conspiring to produce, like, this language as being the standard language that you're using. I mean, I remember, you know, 20 years ago, there, you know, secular songs started speaking in this way.

And that's just a natural, like, as I'm saying, that's a natural consequence of living in a victim society is that the language is going to reflect that. But then even Christian music, like French Christian music songs started speaking that way, you know, when I was in high school and, you know, early college, I remember that shift starting to happen.

And then right now, it seems like with, you know, Christian music, the state of the current Christian music right now, the go-to expression is broken and not sinful. And that's the go-to expression, and then that's the expression that you're going to find, like, where you would expect sinful to be used, you're going to find broken to be used.

But then, like, these two things, they don't mean the same exact thing, and they have, like, entirely different connotations at times, and I think it's a very.

Poor substitute for the word in general. Okay. So, you know, you're saying, hey, they don't mean the exact same thing. Well, let's talk about that a little bit. So, sinful, I mean, we all know what sinful means.

Hopefully, we all know what sinful means, right? Basically, like, we're transgressing against God. We're failing to meet the standard that He's set for us, right? And then there's a specific consequence for that, which the Bible says ultimately is eternal death and hell, right?

So, that's what sin is, but then what's being communicated with broken? Jared. Well, it's a vague word that can mean.

A lot of different things, and so it's very difficult to even know what people are saying at times. I mean, I think the primary connotation that most people take away from this language is the victim language.

So, we're living in a victim society right now, and there's a lot of different comprehensive ways in which we are stuck in, you know, like this victimization kind of mindset and like in terms of where we lean to find our fundamental identity.

So, whether you're talking about the intersectional categories of, you know, quote-unquote race or gender or quote-unquote sexuality or, you know, the able-disabled discussion or the fat, you know, fat discussion as it, like fat's now a victim category too, but like you have all the intersectional broken categories, like our intersectional victim categories.

You have the psychological victim categories, which used to be kind of like your background, your upbringing, like, you know, what is your problem? Well, fundamentally your background, your upbringing, your education, you know.

Yeah, food you eat, you know. The new one is food, like new is food, like everything's going to food now, where that's the new materialistic answer for everything, but then you have all the DSM labels, but you know, in like, and then you add like the Me Too hysteria to all of it too, and essentially you just have like a pervasively like victim society.

And in that way, when you're saying that you're broken, like you're basically viewing God as the, you know, the cosmic, you know, healer who's going to come and, you know, comfort you and fix your fundamental

Pete. You're going to pick up all the pieces for you.

Jared. Yeah, and put them all together and give you a big hug, you know, and that kind of thing and, you know, tell you, you know, and then it's all packaged in like the language of universal positive regard, meaning like most people, they don't really want counsel from people.

What they want is they want people to come along and tell them that they're amazing and they're wonderful and they're special and they're unique. And, you know Pete.

Just like everyone else. Jared.

Good looking and yeah, and smart and, you know, so, so attractive and, you know, all this stuff. So, I mean, but they just want to be told that they're like, just, you know, they want to be agreed with everything, like they say they want it to be agreed with, and they want to be told that like nothing's their fault.

Pete.

Yeah, people don't want people don't want to hear you are the problem.

Yeah, not you're the problem. So, everything is not your fault, it's everyone else, right? And, you know, if everyone else is to blame, you're fine, you know, and you just need to be encouraged and agreed with and affirmed for what you think and what you feel and who you perceive yourself to be.

And so, in that kind of world, like broken, like really is fundamentally, I think most people when they're using it, they're using it like in this language of like you're oppressed, right? You're oppressed in certain ways and God has come to fix you, you know, to help you to cope with life and to deal with all that.

Now, I mean, in its strongest use, I mean, you know, it may be that some people are also using it to suggest that they're like a program that has a glitch in it or something like that, right? So, and God's come to fix you.

So, then you so, it's, you know, common in like your classic CCM songs or your typical traditional CCM songs to, you know, talk about like God's come essentially to help you have victory, right? And help you to overcome and, you know, to put you together again, you know, and fix you, you know, and all that.

And so, but in that language

It's not a struggle you close.

It's not, yeah, well, in the worst cases. But, you know, with all that, like essentially, you can be broken like in the sense of like flawed, right? But then it's like, it still feels very victim-y, you know, like it feels like it's not your fault.

It's not your fault that you're messed up. It's someone else's fault.

Your fault, you're messed up, yeah, you know, like maybe sin has caused you to be messed up. So, it's almost like it's pushing the problem back a degree, right? So, sin has caused, you know, the entire world to be messed up, you included, and God's come to, you know, give you purpose, fix you up, you know, and, you know, you're like fix your programming glitch.

But even that's very impersonal, right? Whereas like if you're sinful, there's like a sense of like a strong sense of personal responsibility there. Like you are the problem. Like you're the villain in your story, right?

You're not the victim in your story that God's come to heal. You're the villain that God's come to forgive. That's what most people are fighting.

You know, it's funny that you mentioned that because I can recall many, many times talking to Christians, you know, and non-Christians and Christians alike, you know, basically saying like, hey, you know, sometimes people will ask, for example, hey, you know, how can a God send people to hell?

If he really loves people, how could he send them to hell? And my response is always what you're saying right now, you know, basically you're looking, you know, let's assume we're all on a sinking ship, right?

And God has the ability to, you know, save everyone, get everyone off the ship, but he doesn't. He doesn't get everyone off the ship. Well, you can look at that and say, well, he must be evil because no good God would purposefully not save someone.

But the flaw with that analogy is you're thinking of it as if every single person on that ship were totally blameless, right? That they have not done anything wrong in the scenario. They're simply on a ship that is sinking through no fault of their own.

Really, the way that you should be thinking about it is like, let's pretend it's not a cruise ship. It's like a prison ship, you know, taking prisoners to some island or something. Well, those people have done something wrong, right?

And so…. Jared. Yeah, the question is not like,.

How can a loving God, you know, send good people to hell? Like, the question is, just how can God forgive evil people, essentially, right?

Pete. Yeah, when we're asking how can God send people to hell, we're asking the wrong question. Really, what we should be asking is how can God let people into heaven, right? And you have those kinds of conversations, even with Christians, and they still look at you like dumbfounded sometimes.

Jared Yeah, particularly with children, yeah.

Where they're just like, what? Like, what do you mean, what? I thought you knew that. You should know this. How did you even become a Christian if you don't even know that, you know, we are all sinful?

Like, none of us have a right to, you know, tell God who to let into heaven, you know? And so, to even have that conversation is, at this point, you know, I think one of the obvious negative side effects to using language like broken so much is it has trained people to think, you know, I'm not a bad person.

Sure, I do bad things sometimes, but I'm not a bad person, you know? And maybe even, you know, I still need forgiveness for some of those bad things I do, but generally, I'm a pretty good person, you know, because you're right.

I'm not sinful. I'm broken. I'm broken. I'm just messed up, you know?

Jared. It's a euphemism. Yeah, it feels nice and polite. It's a way of avoiding the fundamental problem.

Tavis. Yeah, it's a lot less ugly to think about yourself as, you know, broken, you know, possibly through no fault of your own, right? You're implying that as opposed to just saying, like, you know, like the, I guess it was the, you know, the tax collector that Jesus was talking about that refused to even look up to heaven as he was, you know, begging God to have mercy on a sinner, even as him, you know?

And so, it really does seem like one of the negative side effects to all this is we've just completely lost the idea that we are inherently all evil, you know? So, like, when you think of Hitler, you know, that's what you think of as, like, the pure, the purest form of… Jared.

Paragon of wickedness, yeah. Tavis.

Yeah, but then, like, we have to get, we really do need to get to a place where we all view ourselves, you know, like Hitler in terms of how God views us, right? You know? And so, obviously, there's a difference between, you know, between, like, there's a worldly difference between, you know, telling a lie and murdering six million Jews, right?

But from a spiritual perspective, we're all in the same boat. Jared.

Right, yep. That seems to be one of the major consequences of, you know, this language in general is it's a way of softening the blow for people and keeping them from, you know, realizing that, you know, they do need a savior, right?

You know, as the Bible says, I mean, those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick, right? And, I mean, you could change it to, you know, I didn't come to call, you know, victims, but villains to repentance.

And if you don't…. Tavis.

I didn't come to call the broken, I came to call sinners.

Jared. Yeah, I mean, and that's really true. I mean, like, you know, most people, like, once you adopt that victim identity and victim labels, like, you really, like, in our culture and our society, you're putting yourself beyond the need for repentance, essentially.

And so, because, I mean, the rules of the game are obvious, you know, you don't shame the victim, you don't blame the victim. You, you know, you believe the victim, you validate them, you affirm them, you know.

And so, the more that we use this kind of victim language, the more that you're preventing people from being able to repent for sure.

Tavis. Okay, fair enough.

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