A Peculiarly Christian Account of Sin

Abstract

“The Church's notion of sin, like that of Israel before it, is peculiar. It is derived, not from speculation about the universal or general state of humanity, but rather from a peculiar, quite specific account of what God is up to in the world. What God is up to is named as covenant, Torah, or, for Christians, Jesus. If we attempt to begin in Genesis, with Adam and Eve and their alleged ‘fall,’ we will be mistaken, as Niebuhr was, in thinking of sin as some innate, indelible glitch in human nature.”April is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, …Winter kept us warm, covering Earth in forgetful snow, …What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man, You cannot say, or guess, for you know only A heap of broken images, where the sun beats, And the dead tree gives no shelter. …T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land, I, 1922