If Christianity is to experience a Copernican revolution, it must start by looking at the beginning of the human story as recorded in its scriptures. Christianity is largely centered on the idea that humanity is drowning in sin as a result of our first parents disobeying God's command to avoid eating from the tree of knowledge in order to be like God, knowing both good and evil.
Both the Creation and the Fall from Grace myths are important in understanding human anguish as a byproduct of a pursuit to become gods unto ourselves; that is, to be more than who we are which has resulted in our proclivity towards selfishness, to be less than what God intended us to be. Selfishness is the essence of sin, which is the cause of our perpetuating the collective state of anguish traced throughout human history. The Fall from Grace myth, however, can only be understood against the backdrop of God's original grace, the creative and redemptive principle seen throughout the human story described in Scriptures.
Grace is what brought us into being and it is to grace we will return, as the well-known hymn "Amazing grace" proclaims. Grace is the alpha and omega of creation, the signet ring of God.
None of us asked to be alive, yet alone asked to be alive at this particular time and place. None of us had a personal say in our being. We may think our parents did, but then again, they didn't have any say in their being and so on throughout the generations leading up to us. That we exist is simply a matter of grace. The conditions under which we exist or were brought into this world, however, is or can be an entirely different matter.
It is from the writings of the apostle Paul and later from Augustine and others that the doctrine of original sin has been garnered; that sin has been passed down to us like some spiritual genetic code inherited from our parents going back to the time of our mythical first parents, Adam and Eve. The doctrine of original sin has dictated that unless we are saved from our sins, we will be eternally doomed because of them. It is the premise, the backdrop, upon which Jesus' story is largely understood; that his sole purpose for existence was to pay the price of our sins so that those who "believe" in this version of his story will be saved from eternal damnation and be rewarded with a blissful life throughout eternity.
As demonstrated in the last two posts, there is another way of understanding Jesus' story. What makes Jesus such a remarkable person is his insight into human nature at a time and in a place experiencing great anguish. He did not see sin as something that dooms us to eternal damnation but rather he saw sin as something being perpetuated in the here and now, a rock we heap on others and ourselves which immobilizes us from participating in the God's creative and restoring grace.
Sin does not doom us to eternal damnation. Sin distorts the present, turning it into a living hell of our own making, a rock we heap upon ourselves and others; a rock that makes it difficult, if not impossible, for ourselves and others to crawl out from under. It begs the question Jesus was trying to get people to ask themselves in his own day, "Why do we insist on beating ourselves and each other up?" "Why do we insist on throwing stones?"
Perhaps the most damaging teaching found within Christianity is the doctrine of original sin. It prevents those who desire to follow Jesus to freely and fully do so. It has turned Jesus into a paragon of perfection that none of us are able to emulate or fully follow, because none of us are or can be the true God and true Man Jesus is defined as being in our ancient creeds and alluded to as being in some of the epistles of the New Testament. The doctrine of original sin has turned Jesus into a god to be worshiped instead of a son of God, a very human brother, who taught that we, like him, are children of God, his siblings created by the same grace that brought him into being and the grace that enables us to accomplish what he has done.
"Go and do likewise" is the essence and at the heart of Jesus' gospel message. Why? Because it will liberate us from the rocks we heap upon ourselves and one another. It will help restore us to God's original intent and allow us to rewrite our stories, our collective history, in the light of God's original grace. It is through Jesus' teachings and the examples that we, with the help of God, can save humanity from self-destruction, a paradigm premised on acting from the perspective of grace and the potential it holds rather than a perspective that defines this life as doomed to abject failure and sinfulness.
In case we think humility is best accomplished by acknowledging our sinful nature, the totality of scripture suggests the opposite; that humility is a byproduct of recognizing our existence as dependent on and a result of God's grace.
Original grace needs to replace the doomed perspective of original sin which perpetuates the idea that hope for renewal and restoration can only be realized in a "next" life. Like this life, the next life is in God's hands, but the conditions of this life weigh heavily in our hands because we are responsible for them and by God's grace we can do something about them. God works through and with whatever we offer God. We can within the framework of God's grace work toward realizing God's ever-present grace in the life we are now living into by following Jesus' example and embrace God's original grace that creation proclaims. In grace, we can make this a better world for ourselves and our posterity.
Until next time, stay faithful.
Norm
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