Down With Original Sin!

I recently found an article on the Associated Baptist Press pointing to Albert Mohler’s use of Original Sin as an explanation for toddlers’ bad behavior. Mohler was responding to a Wall Street Journal article that discussed aggressive behavior in 2-3 year old boys and girls. Mohler’s response: it is the fault of original sin.

Great.

Very helpful.

That must be why many Southern Baptist are baptizing their children before the age of 5. The kids are brats, they are brats because of original sin, therefore if you “wash them of their sins” via baptism they will no longer be brats. But that doesn’t seem to work. Instead what you end up with is a 3-year-old who is now selfish and angry and wet and not fully understanding why they were forced underwater. That will make for great therapy sessions in the future (and when is that no different from infant baptism?).

What does it help to tell people that their kids are acting out because of original sin? Instead of helping it seems to take away any hope for the parents to teach their child the behaviors of sharing, empathy, fairness, etc. It is saying that no matter how much you try your child will always act out because they are born rotten. Unless, of course, you hit your child because “spare the rod” and all that crap, and a good beating will set the child straight. Mohler is quick to tell us that “time-outs” wont work but says spanking is. Based on what theology? This is an arcane kind of logic that leads to more therapy.

Let it be said, there is never a good reason to hurt, hit, beat, or use any kind of capital punishment on a child. It does not help or beat the sin out of them in any way at all. That is just stupid. Spanking is stupid (are you angry at me yet?).

What kind of message are we sending when we tell people that they are born bad, rotten, evil, broken people. Yes, we are all born with tendencies to be selfish, hurtful, prideful, envious, mean, and cruel. We are also born with tendencies to be gentle, compassionate, loving, merciful, and in general good. Often time children are a mixture of all of these things in a single moment. That is what makes them so much fun.

What kind of message are we sending that says we believe in a God who holds us responsible for someone’s misguided decisions based on the hissing of a serpent thousands of years ago (i.e. the Adam and Garden of Eden story)? This is a God who just cannot let it go. What does it further say that the only way this God will stop blaming us for what someone did thousands of years ago is to demand a human sacrifice, and that the sacrifice be his own son (who is also him, but not so much because atonement theory favors Jesus more as the son then as God incarnate… do I smell a heresy?).

Can we please move beyond the idea of original sin? Can we please excise it from our lexicon of Christian theology, tear it out of our Sunday School books, stop teaching it, pushing it, and basing our faith and commitment to Christ on it? Let the cruel, inhumane doctrine of original sin fester in the heap of theological ideas whose times have come to pass with: biblical literacy, patriarchy, the notion of the elect, damnation, and hell (and I am sure that there are others… are you angry at me yet?).

We are born searching, yearning, and desiring relationships. We are born with an original need to be in communion with others and with the divine. Part of being human is learning how to be in a relationship that gives and takes and grows together. Sometimes toddlers are just cranky, or mean, and are still learning how to be a good person. Sometimes grown people are still learning that as well. Maybe some day I’ll learn how to like and respect Mohler’s writings; while he keeps pushing his outdated, and dangerous and bad theology, respecting and liking Mohler will be difficult to achieve.