Christianity’s Original Mistake
Original Sin is a weapon that makes sense
“For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.”
1 Corinthians 15:21–22
For many Christians, being a Christian means believing Jesus died on the cross to save you from your sins. It’s a belief that ties the knot with Adam and Eve who brought sin into the world after disobeying God’s command to not eat from the Tree of Knowledge.
This idea for many Christians is called, Original Sin.
Original Sin is a term that defines the nature of mankind’s sinful condition because of Adam’s fall. It teaches that all people are corrupted by Adam’s sin through natural generation, by which — together with Adam’s imputed condemnation — we all enter the world guilty before God. Original Sin shows that we sin because we are sinners, entering this world with a corrupt nature and without hope apart from the saving grace of God in the gospel.
So, because Adam sinned, you (yes, you the reader) came into the world a sinner. This means you cannot enter heaven’s gates unless you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior, for saving you from those sins. Then, and only then, can you escape hell.
Of course, this is a Christian creation despite its origin story coming from the Hebrew Bible. You won’t find the idea, term, or concept of Original Sin in the Old Testament. It was first developed by St. Augustine (354CE–430CE) and is mostly part of the Catholic and Protestant faiths.
What this does, is creates a self-fulfilling need to be a Christian. The Church invents a problem that they have the cure for.
Many Christians do think Adam was a historical figure, so Original Sin makes sense. Along with all the guilt, gaslighting, and shame that comes with it.
But, if you believe that Genesis, Adam and Eve, and eating the apple is just a metaphor, and not literal, then there is no need for Jesus to save you from your sin since no sin was created.
You might then conclude that the concept of Original Sin is bunk.
But it’s not.
It’s the original theological answer to the first and most important philosophical discovery about mankind: humans suck.
The evidence is obvious: war, genocide, slavery, racism, corruption, greed … you name it. These ideas are as obvious to the 21st-century mind as they were to the 4th-century mind. However, in 400CE, God was the answer, not psychoanalysis.
Back then, the Christian church did a pretty good job of explaining why people were horrible. But that was over 1600 years ago. We’ve figured out a lot of things since then.
Today, most Churches in the United States use this idea of Original Sin to guilt people into submission and belief. The fear of Hell is a powerful ad campaign. But it creates an “Us against Them,” mentality. It allows people to use religion as an excuse to hate. The fact is, too many Christians are hoping that people go to hell these days.
I want to be a part of a Christianity that brings people in because they want to be better and do good for others. I’d rather people feel guilty for not helping out than for feeling they’re damaged goods as a default. I’d rather people feel good helping people for the sake of helping, instead of seeing it as a means to an eternal end.
These branches and churches do exist but are not the majority. Currently, the majority of Christianity are gatekeepers and fearmongers. This creates a self-perpetuating cycle of bad human behavior.
Original Sin describes the default nature of humans. It’s not God’s blueprint.
