Eclipse Mints: Billboards of Sin
Eclipse Mints
There’s been an advertising campaign for Eclipse Mints going on around Sydney. The campaign involves posters with a young, good looking person having fun while wearing a t-shirt with a slogan on it. The slogan that grabbed my attention was “Sins: Why Stop At Seven?”
The obvious point here is that sin is fun. Sin is a big party. If it’s wrong, then doing it will be a great thrill. And it’s not surprising that this is coming from an advertising campaign. Advertising wants us to want stuff, especially if we shouldn’t want it. Sex sells. Sex you can’t have sells more. Sex you can’t and shouldn’t have sells like nothing else. The wilder, the sexier, the kinkier, the more marketable.
What does this campaign tell us about sin? Is sin really just a list of rules that are made up to stop you from having fun? Is getting drunk a sin because it’s too much fun for you to handle? What about the sins that aren’t fun? What about wrath? Last I checked, killing someone in cold blood was still a big no-no. But sleeping around, taking drugs, drinking excessively, these things are fun, and it’s the fuddy-duddy’s that stop us from doing it. It’s “The Man” that calls it sin so that I can’t enjoy it. Yeah, right…
Sin is serious. It’s not a joke. Sin is our disobedience to God. Sin is us rejecting the creator of the universe and telling him that he’s not qualified to tell us how to live our lives. Some of those rules are there to look after us – like I said before, most people would agree that murder is bad. Stealing things from me is not something I want you to do. While other rules may seem like they exist merely to ruin our fun, they are their for our own good. The eternal reward of following the true God and recognising his authority over this world far outweighs the momentary thrill of sin.
There is a real danger of watering down sin and not treating it seriously. “Sins: Why Stop At Seven?” tells us that we should be pursuing sin, because it is fun. There are no consequences, just a bunch of out dated rules that don’t mean anything. The problem with that attitude is that not only is it a lie, but it out right rejects the need for Jesus. It is because we need to be rescued from sin that God sent Jesus to die for us. If sin was not a problem, if it didn’t affect us profoundly, then God sent Jesus for nothing. It would have been a waste of time.
Be aware of what sin is. Treat it seriously. Don’t pursue it. Our attitude should instead be “Sins: Don’t Start At One.”
(I couldn’t find a decent picture of this poster, but you can kind of see it here.)
Edit: I found the poster online!
Pop Culture Christ 
To answer the T-shirt’s question, sins stop at seven because good is primary, evil is derivative. The Seven deadly Sins parallel the Seven Christian Virtues. (Which in turn consist of the four Cardinal Virtues–Justice, Prudence, Fortitude, and Temperance– and the three Theological Virtues– Faith, Hope, and Charity.) Fortitude and Temperance, in particular, are big problems for advertisers; those virtues reduce our need for consumer products and give us the strength to indulge in things strictly on our own terms. Advertisers would have us believe that we can’t live without their stuff, and shouldn’t even bother trying to resist the temptation of their product’s gooey goodness.
There are more than seven virtues, but the rest are lesser. There are more than seven sins, but all sins depend on virtue for their existence. Hope, for example, exists independently. To either side of it cling the sins of presumption and despair. (Of these two, by the way, despair is the worse; despair gives way to sloth, a sin from which one might never recover.) Only through the existence of hope can presumption and despair have any meaning. So, that’s why we only speak of seven sins.
The virtues are great stuff, people ought to study them again.