More on original sin

Peggy #24 wrote “I am unwilling to embrace either original sin or total depravity because of the ultimate consequences they have regarding how we are to perceive humans. That is where I cannot follow Augustine, Calvin and Luther.”

I’m thinking that how we see OS is dependent on one’s personal church history; mine is fuzzy liberalism followed by 30 years of friendly and flexible evangelicalism. The reason I’ve started reading and trying to participate in these discussions is that our little community here in the UK has been thwacked from out of nowhere with some startling form of conservatism that I’ve never seen up close before.

As a theological pipsqueak, I’d never heard the term “total depravity” before this week. But as a woman of God I’m determined to develop a vocabulary to explain why I reject the concept.

So when I say Original Sin, I mean a natural tendency to put self first. If we believe that everyone is afflicted, no matter how “well” they appear to be (ie the Pharisees), then no one can be beyond Grace just because of current behaviour.

I guess I see it as the only real level playing field in the world of poverty and exclusion by class, education and opportunity. (in any country or culture). I hate the thought of wounded people being battered into the Kingdom. I’d much rather be able to say – actually, the basic problem is not that you rob banks/take dugs/are a racist thug (we’ll deal with that later); it’s that you and I both care more for ourselves than for God or the people around us.

Thanks for helping me get my thinking straight and I apologise is this all sounds simplistic.

and one more thing

I’m blogging towards some resolutions.

I figure that if I write down enough incomplete thoughts, I will see a wholeness that I didn’t know was there.

Wants vs Calling

Yesterday I wrote in an email to a friend:

“Is it weird to want and I mean WANT to have a voice in this? I feel like I’m going to burst unless I am able to articulate what’s going on around me. Maybe it’s calling? Or maybe it’s megalomania? I guess that will come clear.”

So here’s what I’m blogging towards:

• I want to understand what’s going on in my local community of worship:

doctrine oriented leaders who spend their time and energy correcting people’s thinking.
a new (to me) world where a bible-centred life is better than a Christ-centred life.
a world where, no matter what I try to communicate, I am already wrong.

(Quote from a real conversation with the new rector:

me: You know, if there were a ten point scale of theology from conservative to liberal and you’re a one, then I’m probably a two or two point five at most.

him: I doubt that.

oh. Well there you go then.)

• I want to be able to converse intelligently with people from this apparently neo-reformed theological perspective. I want them to not be able to ignore me even though my gender is clearly against me.

• I want to clarify my own thinking about how best to live in the midst and on the edge.