In defence of the doctrine of original sin.

Even when I was not a Christian, the idea of original sin appealed to me. It just took a quick look into my own heart to realise that, yeah, it's kind of dark in there. And when saint Paul says that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God all I could do was to nod in grim agreement.

When Jesus came, as God who walked among us, he didn't came to make us comfortable. Sure, he came to comfort us, but not to make us comfortable. He came to say the truth, to be the Truth. And part of that truth is our own vulnerability and, yes, our sin.

Original sin does not mean that a bloke did something wrong thousands of years ago, and that we've somehow inherited that "wrongness". Adam and Eve, the first sinners (and the first saints) represent the entirety of humanity, and in many ways the creation story explains the present more than it explains the past.

I think that many of us believe that sin is the opposite of virtue, but I'm not entirely sure that is true. Sin is the opposite of freedom. Original sin posits that we are not completely free people. In many ways we are captives of our situations. When we are born we are born into patterns and contexts, some of which are loving and just, some of which are violent and hateful. As I am born I immediately become a participant in these patterns of violence, hate or indifference.  I did not choose it. I definately don't want it, but no matter how I try I can not isolate myself from my surroundings or my relationships. I am a captive of a fallen reality.

Think for example, of a palestinian baby boy born in the Gaza strip. He is born into a pattern of conflict and anger which he has little control over, and he will probably be marked by these patterns of conflict his entire life. He did not choose it, yet he is trapped by it.

People are not islands that float in a void. People are inherntly part of a world that is good and beautiful, but also fallen and sinful. We are also part of relationships to other people, that far too often are broken and destroyed. As a component, and as a participator in this fallen creation, so am I too a fallen creation. So, acknowledging sin means acknowledging ones involvement, ones one-ness with the world. When we in the Church confess our sins, we are asking God to free us from these chains that bind us. These chains that hinder us to be our true selves, a perfect and beautiful image of God.

So, how can you deny sin, something all of us have experienced? How can you deny the patterns of loneliness, addiction, opression, violence, physical and psychological abuse that have marked us all in some fashion? Our collective experience of horror and suffering shows that there is something deeply wrong with our existance. To deny original sin, is to deny a crucial and fundamental part of the human condition. And doing so is frighteningly inhumane.