Piet Schoonenberg’s book, De Macht der Zonde (1962), was translated into English in 1965 (University of Notre Dame Press: Notre Dame, Indiana).  Man and Sin: A Theological View is divided into 4 chapters plus an epilogue.

This is a book on theology.  Its pages are free of banter.  Its lines of thought are evocative and sometimes tangled.  In some spots, one paragraph will occupy many blogs.

This type of theological text reminds me of what someone said about a biochemistry text: Every sentence sums up a doctoral thesis.  Perhaps, theology is even worse, since each sentence sums a centuries long controversy.

Nevertheless, I have several tools at my disposal for commenting on this text.

From An Archaeology of the Fall, I have a foundational perspective: Our world is a world of symbolic orders and social constructions.  Social constructions situate symbolic orders.  Our judgments about our social constructions are constrained by the very words we use.

Chapters 9 and 10 of Menninger’s book should be read with the last few blogs in mind.  Menninger could “hear” that “something was wrong”, yet he could not correctly identify “what that ‘something’ was”.  He could not because he could not see into the future.

40 years later, the reader cannot help seeing that Menninger was swimming in the waters of Progressivism and looking towards the ark of Christendom.  Now, we are deeper in the waters.  We are further from the boat.

The “morality gap” that Menninger announced on pages 192 and 226 only makes sense in regards to a changing of public symbolic orders from Christianity to Progressivism.  Menninger struggled to put it into perspective, but he could not.  He presented his interpretation, but – like all interpretations in psychoanalysis – his interpretation must be regarded as provisional.

In trying to understand how Menninger’s interpretation “missed the mark”, we have constructed a new – semiotic – tool.

The crossing of two nested forms, one horizontal and one vertical, is the hard-won gift bestowed by Whatever Happened to Sin?

The intersecting nested forms visualize what Menninger was trying to convey: On the vertical axis, there is a choice.

How does the Progressive think^correct (and projected think^incorrect) fit into the Christian vertical nested form?

Progressive think^correct (and the projected think^incorrect) constitute a think^group.

One of the characteristics of think^group is a shift from personal to collective responsibility.  Progressives who accuse others of political incorrectness demonstrate their “moral superiority”.  At the same time, the are not held personally responsible for the consequences of their actions. This conscience^lacking is dramatically portrayed (with well researched stories) by Ann Coulter in her many books.

The Public Cult of Progressivism has popularized the concept that the individual person is not responsible for her situation.  On one hand, they are correct when “responsibility” means “conditions of development”.  After all, no one is responsible for the situation of her birth.  On the other hand, they are wrong when “responsibility” means “I will take charge of my own situation”.

The “meaning” of the word “responsibility” has changed.

Menninger’s “interpretation” confounded Christian and Progressive symbolic orders.

First, let us consider the nested form on the vertical axis.

In the Christian sphere: think^divine(virtue(conscience^free)) and think^group(sin(conscience^lacking)) are exclusive nested forms that always interpellate one one another.

In the Progressive sphere: think^correct(political correctness(conscience^correct) is exclusive and superior to think^incorrect(political incorrectness(conscience^incorrect)). Think^incorrect and conscience^incorrect exist as deductions (that is: they must exist in the accused) from the structure of the vertical nested form.

The cryptotheological superiority of think^Progressive mandates the application of sovereign power.

Think^correct corresponds to the “super-ego” of the Public Cult of Progressivism.  Words are true by way of tautology.

For example, the term “medicare” is, precisely, “medical care provided by the Public Cult”.  Political debate must conform to this tautology.

Anyone who disagrees with any feature of this central government program may be labeled as “a person who wants to take medical care away from those provided”.

That person is “politically incorrect” and therefore exhibits both think^incorrect and conscience^incorrect.  She is a bad person.

The catch-all character of the word “political incorrectness” inadequately captures the dramatic unfolding of each perceived act.  I say “perceived act” because many accusations of political incorrectness are not necessarily founded in fact, but perception.

Menninger’s “interpretation” confounded Christian and Progressive symbolic orders.

First, let us consider the nested form on the horizontal axis.

In the Christian sphere, we substitute “law^essential” for “crime”; “sin” for “political incorrectness”; plus a still unclear “disposition towards sin” for “symptom”.

In the Progressive sphere: “Crime” puts “political incorrectness” into normal context.  “Psychological symptoms” make “political incorrectness” possible.

To me, this implies that Progressivism removed elements from Christianity and claimed them for their own.

By analogy, this is what Enlil, the air-god of the city of Nippur, did to An, the sky-god (in An Archaeology of the Fall).  Enlil took the sun, moon and stars from An, leaving the masculine god as stony darkness.

Menninger could not see into the future.

I write almost exactly 40 years after the publication of this book.

My critique of Menninger comes precisely from the place where he could not see.

That contributes to the beauty of what I am about to say, which is also what I have been saying.

The answer to the title question, Whatever became of sin?, is “political incorrectness replaced the term”.

This implies that the horizontal axis that Menninger attributed to “sin”, that is, “crime(sin(symptom))” is actually “crime(political incorrectness(symptom))”.

In short, Menninger confounded the Progressive symbolic order with the Christian symbolic order.

He could not see the future development of the Public Cult of Progressivism.  He was immersed in it.   In the late 1960’s, the Public Cult of Progressivism and the private cults of the New Age Movement (white magic) and Satanism (dark magic) were “in the water”.

As a trained psychoanalyst, Menninger could “hear” (that the word “sin” was no longer used) but he could not fully “interpret” (what the loss implied).  So he presented the “interpretation” that he had at the moment.  Like all psychoanalytic interpretations, what he wrote was provisional.

OK.  The last blog was a hypothesis.  I have not demonstrated that this “way of projection” is sufficient to categorize Public – or Sovereign – Cults.

Certainly, when a Christian “names a sin”, she is not projecting an agenda into “a void of another person” according to the logic of Menninger’s mandala in the same fashion that the Progressive does.  The sinner knows this.  The Christian does not want to coerce the sinner into “becoming good”.  She wants the sinner to “convert”.  The sinner knows this.

The Christian aims to save “souls”.  The Progressive aims to “save” everything else.

This contrast is significant.

Menninger’s mandala may be valuable in discerning the nature of “religion”.

What is the nature of Progressivism?

Sovereign religions – Public Cults – are constructed on the mythology that the rulers are “holier and wiser” than the populace that they lord over.

If “what the rulers say” is defined as “equivalent to think^divine”, then they may declare particular actions to be “the equivalent of sin”.  These declarations reflect a superior – perhaps, superhuman – conscience^{beyond good and evil}.  This state of conscience defines the “golden calf”.

Disobedience by the populace must be (by deduction from the vertical nested form) due to think^group (a set of incorrect beliefs that puts “what the ruler has declared to be the equivalent of sin” into context) and conscience^lacking (a less than clear conscience, that is, bad intent that makes disobedience possible, a state of conscience that defines the “scapegoat”).

These deductions are projected onto whoever appears to be disobedient.

Then, on the horizontal axis, the accused exhibits a symptom (that is, an abnormality that made the disobedience possible) and must be punished severely for the crime (in order to show that the ruler’s “equivalent to think^divine” carries the prestige of law^essential and puts the disobedience into a normal context).

After naming the “sin” (in this case, “the political incorrectness of owning a gun”), Progressives deduce what the other components of the vertical nested form must be.  Then they project those deductions onto their opponents, creating straw man (or witches) to incinerate.

At this point, I suggest that the claims that gun owners suffer latent aggression (a symptom) and that “they should be outlawed” (a crime) appear as complements to the Progressivist projection of think^incorrect and conscience^incorrect onto their political opponents.