THE PROJECT / PROSPECTS OF “REDEEMING SIN?”: SOME CORE INSIGHTS AND SEVERAL UNRESOLVED PROBLEMS

Abstract

This contribution offers an overview of a five-year project on Redeeming Sin that included a number of postgraduate projects registered at the University of the Western Cape, a series of international colloquiums hosted more or less annually, two monographs by Ernst Conradie (one forthcoming), and a number of articles. The notion of “redeeming sin” is ironic, as Christians typically speak of redemption from sin. Here it refers to attempts to retrieve the category of sin in the public sphere, for example in relation to ecological destruction, economic inequality and various forms of violence based on race, gender, language and culture. The polemic nature of the project is highlighted – to acknowledge but also to challenge a preoccupation with the theodicy problem (focused on the relationship between natural evil and social evil) in North Atlantic Christian theology.