Mark Ellingsen, Sin Bravely: A Joyful Alternative to a Purpose-Driven Life (New York: Continuum, 2009)

Is religion supposed to make you happy?

This question begged for an answer throughout Mark Ellingsen’s Sin Bravely: A Joyful Alternative to a Purpose Driven Life. The author believes that Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Life is too focused on the self to combat the rampant narcissism of a me-driven culture in modern America. Taking a leaf from Martin Luther, Ellingsen offers his alternative of sinning bravely as a way to avoid the inevitable “guilt and sense of inadequacy” that come from a “duty-oriented conception of faith and life” (3).

Brave sinners know that they are narcissists, but they also know they cannot do enough to escape their sinful situation. Instead, they proceed with a life of service to God and neighbor that is bracketed with the comfort of knowing that they do not need to get things exactly right. While Warren’s proposal amounts to trying to dig oneself out of a hole, Ellingsen joyfully frames his alternative: “Instead of a life driven by purpose, let’s have more fun. A life of brave sinning is the way to go to get happiness and contentment” (3).

The last piece of that statement lands with a thud. If narcissism is the problem, then should the merits of a counter-response be judged by the goods it produces for the brave sinner? Happiness and contentment—warped concepts in the culture to which Ellingsen writes his challenge—are still framed by him as products to acquire, to “get.” When “contentment” often means material security and “happiness” often means feeling good, aiming the gospel toward these ends without critically deconstructing them is problematic.

It’s problematic because even though God meets us sinners where we are, and that is wonderful news, He also has an annoying tendency to drive us out into the wilderness. Physical and spiritual deprivation are natural parts of a life of faith—they aren’t always symptoms of a deficient relationship with God. Happy as I am that God calls me His child, following through on that promise has led me to some unhappy times and places.

There is a certain joy that comes from being a Christian—Ellingsen is on target with his book’s subtitle—but ultimate joys need to be distinguished from penultimate times of happiness and unhappiness. This Christian rejoices that, ultimately, he belongs to God even if his life is perilous to its end.

Though the uses of “happy,” “content,” and “joy” confuse the book’s project, Ellingsen offers important critiques of Warren’s purpose-driven faith where the focus is on a person’s “responsibility to fulfill the divine mandates of our purpose” (30). Though A Purpose Driven Life opens with the line, “it’s not all about you,” Warren proceeds to focus his energy on you discerning what God wants you to do.

The critique continues with the excellent observation that even though such an approach is legalistic, it is accompanied by a surprising lack of talk about sin. “Warren speaks only of faults, weaknesses, or mistakes, and [Joel] Osteen only refers to barriers of the past, mistakes, or ‘disappointments” (43-44). Not only is such an approach ill-equipped to effectively transform a me-obsessed American culture, but it also fails to convey the true saving power of the gospel.

That power in this culture requires the naming of sin. “Sometimes knowing your situation, no matter how bad it is, can free you,” Ellingsen writes. “It sets you free from the burden of thinking it could be different, that you can make it different” (48). The unconditional love of God in Christ Jesus is only understood when one sees that Christ died for real sinners. Coupled with the joy of knowing God’s love, awareness of the bleak human condition results in a self-forgetfulness that Ellingsen sees as the key to happiness.

Here is where his case takes another strange turn. To buttress his proposal that self-forgetfulness is a key to happy living, Ellingsen includes neurobiological studies of how the brain works and what happens to the brains of Buddhist monks while they meditate. In these studies, it is possible to determine that the monks who engaged in spiritual exercises lost a sense of themselves while meditating and ultimately were happier for it. From this, Ellingsen extrapolates that a life of self-forgetful brave sinning will result in a similar state of happiness.

In making this argument, Ellingsen confuses praxis with ethos. The theory of brave sinning is a wonderful way to approach life, but it must be implemented in various ways. “This focus on God includes the awareness by brave sinners that because they can do no good, any good that happens in their lives must be God’s work despite their seedy motives” (64). This focus, then, is put into practice by the brave sinner who serves others while knowing how good it makes her look, by the brave sinner who receives Holy Communion while not reconciled fully to his brother, by the brave sinner who writes a book about brave sinning, and by the brave sinner who reviews that book. Good works in such an approach become “joyful games” rather than deeds on which salvation relies (73), and the brave sinner is empowered to “not get so bent out of shape” over life’s failure to be perfect (65). Sinning bravely motivates such engagements, but it is not in itself a practice.

The neurobiological argument falters because there are plenty of practices in which people may train themselves to completely lose sense of themselves—no concept of salvation by grace through faith required! Meditation and yoga come to mind, as do various church practices. Perhaps the studies Ellingsen cites support the popularity of repetitive praise music and rote liturgy, but they do not necessarily illustrate the brain that results from approaching life as a brave sinner. When Ellingsen admits that the neurobiological element of his argument is ultimately unnecessary (91), it is frustrating to realize he has led the reader through an entire chapter of confusing scientific studies which could be debunked without affecting his proposals.

The science confused this “lay” reader, but the book over all is quite accessible. It is not, however, written at the same level as Warren’s work. I tracked down the “40 Days of Purpose Campaign Edition” of The Purpose Driven Life, designed for group study with simple chapters to be read each day. Perhaps Ellingsen is already at work on a group study edition of his book, but the current edition will not meet the same audience who read Warren’s.

And that’s a shame. There are problems with the execution of Sin Bravely, but Ellingsen’s core concept of sinning bravely as an alternative to purpose-driven faith is sound. If Lutherans have a word to share in an Evangelical-dominated marketplace on the question of what it means to be a Christian, brave sinning is it. “Beware of aspiring to such purity that you will not wish to be looked upon as a sinner, or to be one,” Luther wrote to George Spenlein in 1516. “For Christ dwells only in sinners” (Tappert, Letters of Spiritual Counsel, 110 [WA, Br, I, 33-36]). This theme in Luther’s thought, more succinctly stated when Luther advised Melanchthon to “be a sinner and sin bravely, but believe and rejoice in Christ even more bravely,” is what inspired Ellingsen (67).

He and other writers should continue to mine the richness of this message and find a way to bring it to those Christian bookstores dominated by names like Warren, LaHaye, and Osteen. At one such store in my home town, a young member of my church once sought a Small Catechism and the sales clerk asked for the author’s name. Perhaps the next time I wander over there, the shelves that were bursting with the autobiography of Joe the Plumber will instead be filled with titles like The Prayer of Jabez for Sinners, or The Sinning Bravely Daily Sin Journal, or even that apocalyptic thriller The Left Behind Are the People for Whom Jesus Died. Those books won’t promise a happier Christian, but they will argue for an assured trust in God’s overwhelming promises.

A sinner who is occasionally brave, David C. Drebes is also a Master of Sacred Theology student at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, a graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary, and an approved candidate for ordained ministry from the Virginia Synod of the ELCA.