The osmotic nature of sin

On the drive to church this morning my wife and I were listening to the radio. A story came on that touched on the way MBA programs years ago moved away from producing managers with a comprehensive view of business to the current practice of teaching the different iterations of how to maximize profit. The belief of the professors interviewed was that they were producing single-minded businessmen, without an ethical framework and devoid of any concept of acting for the common good. As a result of having 25 years of uninterrupted growth very little was put into communicating the responsibilities implicit in operating a business to ones employees and the world at large to plan for the tough times as well as the lucrative. In short, they are manufacturing greedy, guileful entrepreneurs who put self before everything else.

Our conversation picked up on the two discreet camps of belief vis-à-vis the interplay of personal and business lives. On one side there is the belief that what one does "in the privacy of their own homes" or even "after work hours" should have no bearing on how they function at work "as long as it doesn't harm anyone." The other camp believes that a person's business life and personal life are both indicative of the character of the person.

To put this in concrete terms Bill Clinton was seen by the former group as beset upon by hypocritical, right-wing bigots who wanted to impeach the president on matters completely unrelated to his fitness to serve. The latter group saw the president as having broken trust with the American people. They saw his juvenile goings on as actionable, or if not criminal, worthy of forceful censure.

I believe this all points to a unique aspect of sin. From the Eastern perspective, sinfulness is a sickness in need of healing through repentance; not through the juridical notion of punishment but through the act of conversion - the turning back towards Christ. As we sin we become less and less like ourselves, like the true self He intended us to be.

I have yet to feel quite ill at home and quite normal at work. Similarly, I have never gone to work feeling feverish and assumed that because I contracted the illness at home that it wouldn't infect others while at work. There is a very permeable membrane between who I am at work and who I am at home. Beyond what I wear and the workplace rules that I have to conform to regarding appropriate discussion topics, avoiding harassment, and not eating other peoples' food from the refrigerator, I am the same person. If I have a fight with my wife it is logical to assume that I will be less avuncular with my staff. If I make an unfortunate gaffe at work one should expect that I will be worrisome or distracted when I sit down to dinner at home.

So how silly is the argument that my nefarious actions (based on the moral and ethical teachings of the Church), however unrelated to what I do at work, will have no consequences on the choices I make 'on the clock.' Sins have a transmutative effect on the entire person.

So if one fornicates, repeatedly gambles or drinks to excess, participates in sodomy, peruses pornography, etc. they could be said by that former group to only be doing damage to themselves in a way that should not be up for judgement by ones employer. No one was "harmed." In fact, to dismiss self-destructive behavior is to overlook the osmotic effect that demoralizing oneself has.

When Bob from accounting comes to work covered in bruises and lacerations he will without a doubt be asked over and over again what happened to him. If his answer is that he spent the weekend beating himself with a 2x4 his HR representative will be call him to her office forthwith. How different is the spiritual equivalent? There is a discernible darkness to those battling great sin. Conversely, if we look at St. Seraphim of Sarov, he glowed visibly as a consequence of his holiness. St. Anthony the Great was able to be picked out of a crowd of monks over and over by those searching his guidance or healing. They would arrive and immediately run towards him, embrace him, and beg his aid.

This is not a call to make judgements about all ones coworkers or to point fingers at friends of family. This is an entreaty to reason and deference to the consistent teachings of the Church over the millennia above the contradictory and equivocating reflections of mass media.