ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS
July 10, 2026
Someone posted the following:
Some Christians agree that Adam and Eve did not actually exist. Those Christians then admit that Jesus died for nothing.
If you’re a little confused, let me try to give it some context. There is a theological concept called Original Sin. It is the belief that we are all born sinful and deserving of punishment. So a nine-month-old baby is understood to be a horrible sinner by nature and deserving of eternal damnation. If you are troubled by this, you’re not alone. Yet many Christian traditions argue it as a clear Biblical idea, but there is nothing further from the truth.
First of all, Judaism — the religion that first owned the Adam and Eve story — does not interpret the story that way at all. In fact, outside of a small hint to it in Romans 5, there is really no Christian argument for original sin until a guy named Augustine some 400 years after Jesus. From the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came upon the church after the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus, the faithful have tried to make sense of Jesus’ death. Why did he have to die? It is an excellent question, and over time, Christians tried to back their way into what they argued was a strong explanation. Of course, it ignored the declaration found in the Creation Poem of Genesis 1, where humanity is declared to be good, not sinful or evil. I’m willing to claim that every human being is capable of sinful choices and actions, but just because we have a faith story by which an ancient people tried to give an explanation of how they came into being, does not somehow create an eternal damning of all humanity. Of course, the Christian theory says that Jesus took the punishment we deserved, but that also ignores the centuries of history before Jesus where the message of God is one of love, mercy, kindness, and grace.
There are times when you try to back into an explanation that might sound good until you play it out all the way, and then it raises more questions than it answers… most of the questions being deeply troubling.
So returning to the quote at the beginning of the Etching: the assumption is that if you don’t believe in Adam and Eve, then there is no explanation for the death of Jesus. But notice how everything in this argument hinges on the assumption that the story of Adam and Eve is about Original Sin, and the argument would say that to be Christian, you must believe in Original Sin. Yet we have four Gospels that tell the story of Jesus, including his death. These four Gospels present four different perspectives. I find this to be wonderful and helpful, but not one of them gives any impression that the death of Jesus was to pay the penalty of Original Sin, and thus saving us from eternal damnation. It’s simply not found in the Gospels. It was introduced into the Christian vocabulary by Augustine, and then slowly entered the Christian tradition, eventually becoming the normative argument. It sounded good, except that it goes against so many other parts of the Jesus story. Think about it for a moment—the parables of the lost (sheep, coin, and son) all reflect extravagant grace, a gift that did not require someone to die. The lost sheep was not punished for being lost. The lost coin was not put forth as an example of the damnable original lostness of all coins.
The death of Jesus was, first and foremost, an execution by the Roman Empire. Some will argue that God planned his death from the very beginning of human history, but I believe the explanation has more to do with the power of love, kindness, and mercy to disrupt the power of Empire. Those who believe the only way humanity can exist is with a clear top-down structure, reinforced by fear and the threat of violence, find themselves sort of dumbfounded by this alternative power that is revealed through a humble teacher who refused to play the games of the Romans. They killed him for it, yet his resurrection and the Spirit-empowered church is God’s way of saying, “Worldly power holds no ultimate sway over my unconditional and limitless love. In the end, my way always finds a way.”
So again, the idea put forth at the beginning of the Etching is based on a foundation which is, in my opinion, a house of cards. One little bump, and it all falls apart. This is the reason that those who have and continue to hold that belief often use fear and the threat of hell to keep people from raising questions. Deep down, I believe they know the argument won’t hold up. As I see it, Jesus’ death was an atrocious example of political power seeking to destroy anything that got in its way, while at the same time, it shows us how Jesus was unrelenting in his commitment to the way of love. I can build my faith on that!
Thank you for giving us a love that refuses to shrink or give up. Thank you, Merciful God! Amen.
