expeccation and unsinning and john donne and st paul's cathedral and a hymn to god the father

My conclusion from the previous mini-essay is that sin is not a living theological concept in American life today. Oh, we will confess that we are sinners, and even at times beg for forgiveness from authorities human and divine, but we really don't take the issue too seriously. Taking a few words from the title of a book of the late Christian ethicist Lewis Smedes, we believe we are "pretty good people."

Blame it on California. It is true. Just as California has set the tone in informal dress, in high-tech companies, in establishing cultural norms and in countless other areas, California also was responsible for getting rid of sin in America's consciousness. It happened in the late 1960s where the confluence of the Jesus Movement, the modern evangelical movement, Robert Schuller and the triumph of pop psychology all created the sense that the future rather than the past, possibility rather than impossibility, and, theologically speaking, grace rather than depravity, were the words that people wanted to hear. Who is to say that the relaxation of the bankruptcy code in the 1980s wasn't a direct reflection of the California preaching emphasis beginning a decade before on the "second chance" that Christ gives all who come to him in faith?

Getting to John Donne and Unsinning

All this should be helpful background information to explain two things: (1) why American students (and Americans in general) have so much trouble understanding the mental world of someone like the great poet and Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral John Donne (1572-1631) and (2) why John Donne's view and vocabulary of sin was so rich.

I actually was inspired to write on John Donne when I discovered that he invented two English words relating to sin in one sentence in one of his sermons. About 150 of his sermons survive, but I found the quotation from one of them in the OED as I was perusing it for interesting words. Let's begin with two Donne quotations. The latter is from the OED entry under "unsinning," where it quotes a homily of Donne without more specific attribution.

"Expeccabis: and if in our language that were a word in use, it might be translated, 'Thou shalt unsin me; that is, look upon me as a man that had never sinned.'"

"Unsinning: 'it is only this expeccation, this unsinning, this taking away of sins formerly committed, that restores me.'"

Thinking on John Donne and Sin

What kind of person is it who invents two new terms in one sentence for the concept of sin? Probably a person who is deeply aware not only of what we might call the "doctrine" of sin but of sin as a living reality in his bones. He sees sin as a force that draws him away from God, that makes him fearful, inconsistent, selfish and a whole host of other things, too. But notice how he uses the word "unsinning" above. It is not used in the way that later writers would use it. They use it as an adjective to describe the "unsinning angels" or the "unsinning Son of God." Donne, however, will use it as a substantive, like we might use the verbs unsinew or unman (both of which have pretty nasty connotations, admittedly), to suggest the action of doing away with something pretty vital--one's sinews or one's manhood.

Thus, the "unsinning" Son of God for Donne would be the Son that takes away human sin. It was a moment of great self-revelation and gratitude, I believe, that led Donne to develop these two new words in one sentence. He, who converted from Roman Catholicism to Anglicanism and then became a leading Anglican churchman, was expressing his heartfelt amazement and gratitude that Christ would have removed the taint of his sins and given him the grace of life. This is a concept that was so alive in the 17th century, but barely registers on the theological Richter scale in 2005. Can you hear it?

A Donne Poem

I could think of no more potent poem evidencing Donne's awareness of his own sin than "A Hymn to God the Father." I reproduce it here.

"Wilt thou forgive that sin where I begun,
Which was my sin, though it were done before?
Wilt thou forgive that sin, through which I run,
And do run still, though still I do deplore?
When thou hast done, thou hast not done,
For I have more.

Wilt thou forgive that sin which I have won
Others to sin, and made my sin their door?
Wilt thou forgive that sin which I did shun
A year or two, but wallow'd in, a score?
When thou hast done, thou hast not done,
For I have more.

I have a sin of fear, that when I have spun
My last thread, I shall perish on the shore;
But swear by thyself, that at my death thy Son
Shall shine as he shines now, and heretofore;
And, having done that, thou hast done;
I fear no more."

Conclusion

Unless we hear the abject sadness in the first few stanzas, and the genuine gratitude of the last lines, we miss the linchpin of not only Donne's theology but of the religious thought of the 16th and 17th centuries. We may no longer have a vigorous doctrine of sin, and maybe that is to our disadvantage in some ways. But Donne did, and he gave us words, unsinning and expeccation, to cause his own mind and the minds of his listeners to pause to let the amazing grace of God really sink in.