Rating sins; and why we shouldn't.

I hate how we subconsciously or even consciously rate sins. What’s the worst?

I think most of us would say murder. That feels pretty obvious to me.

Another common one would be sexual abuse and assault, especially to minors. I can get behind that. 

Christ said the greatest sin was to deny the Holy Spirit (Mark 3:28-29 and plenty of others), to blaspheme him. 

The gap between murder and denial of the Holy Spirit may seem off-putting to many. Especially those who do not recognize or identify with the divinity of Jesus Christ. It may even seem off from the other teachings they know of him. And they would be perfectly sound of logic and reason to be troubled by this. 

I'm looking at this differently. If the worst sin is to deny the Holy Spirit that brings us to a redemptive Savior, then why do we spend so much time fighting against the ability to change (repentance) and establishing a hierarchy and classification of sin. Especially when Christ gave us a lot of positive tasks to do. 

I think it's easier to understand the weight of sin when we look at the Savior's two greatest commandments. I'm going to over simplify this for brevity and to make my point a little bit; love God and love your neighbor. 

Now the greatest sin is just a repudiation of the greatest commandment. Denying God means we don't love him. Especially if we negate the messenger.

Now I personally can frame the greatest sin in that light. And it gives me pause about what the next greatest sin may be and I don't know if it's possible to classify a second worst definitively when it comes to the doctrine. 

For myself, as I've struggled with this I've seen that harm is how I look at sin at this point. And I know that it's not as doctrinally or theologically sound. It's just how I can make it make sense in my brain. 

Now what do I mean about this. The more harm an action does to the greater the sin. And harm done to others is greater than harm done to self. 

But I don't think that's the way it's framed, it's more about spiritual distance and culturally conformity. And I don't say that lightly. 

Let's just compare some things real quick. Which is "worse"? 

Which is worse:

Having a coke or a cup of coffee?
Having an energy drink or a cup of green tea?
Having a cup of coffee or lying to your neighbor?

Controlled marijuana use or a physical altercation?
An unmarried couple in a committed relationship living together or tax fraud?
Heterosexual adultery or a married homosexual couple?
Pedophilia or homosexuality?

Now I went for something that matters to me here. I was almost hyperbolic. And now I'm going to address a couple things.

One was the word of wisdom. Not participating in the word of wisdom means nothing about a person's character if they haven't made a commitment to follow it. And it's about spiritual commitment. There as aspects to following the word of wisdom that are potentially more physically harmful than not following it. We shouldn't judge people for partaking of substances if they are not pressuring us too, or not causing harm through their use. 

Next comes to the law of chastity. If you have made a commitment to save yourself for marriage and be faithful in the bonds of it, then that's all that matters to you. You either kept it or you didn't. The type of partner shouldn't make it worse. What should is consent and coercion. 

In my mind, rape, molestation, and pedophilia are heads and tails above all other sexual crimes. But the problem I see is that our cultural conditioning equates homosexual acts with non-consensual acts. And sometimes we make them worse. Think about how that makes us view LGBTQ+ people at large. We equate them as worse than other sexual crimes and equal to horror. We have to change that. 

Sins are sins. Most are personal. Repentance is personal. And what defines it is due to our personal values, commitments, and covenants (to ourselves, deity, and others). Ranking them only limits our ability to interact and have compassion for others. 

Now I know this is a place commonly filled with cognitive dissonance. Because it's faith. But I'm naive or hopeful enough to think that we can change some of the discourse. Sin can be shameful, the whole concept can lead to isolation and ostracization. We can be more hopeful, we can be most productive than we have been. If we stop turning sin into a rating system and focus on our own challenges.