The great lie afflicting Christianity must be called out and defeated. The great lie is the doctrine that the disease of sin is to be understood--in an always-awkward mixing of metaphors--as a state of brokenness. In the most important application, "disease" ought really to be addressed with careful individual remedy, and whether or not it is fatal to the soul is a matter for God alone. "Brokenness," on the other hand, invites the ministrations of the clergy--those purported doctors of the soul whose diagnoses are always correct (if invariably all patients fall short of perfection), and whose remedies can be packaged for sale.
God addresses with remedy--wholesome correctives meant to salvage, bolster, and heal us in our diseased state. If metaphor is anything, God's remedy is an organic, fluid process. God's remedy is embodied and mediated by Jesus, a rather unsurprising fact, since all of Creation is embodied and mediated by Jesus. At the start of the most elemental gospel, Mark, we are confronted with a quote from Malachi and a quote from Isaiah (introduced together as both being from Isaiah). Both are imprecisely rendered from the Hebrew, and both speak of God applying correctives to his people.
The gospels pull toward a new way for people to live. The clergy pull toward new people doing the living. Something will have to give.
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