In his blog, Monday Memo, the Rev. Jack Harnish looks at the contrast between self-reliance and God-dependence.
REV. JACK HARNISH
Retired Pastor, Detroit Conference
The old doctrine of “original sin” has been debated up and down, often coming to the conclusion that there really is nothing very original about sin, it’s been about the same in every generation. The traditional doctrine was that we were sinful from birth simply by the result of being human and therefore “totally depraved”. Hence, the urgency to get this baby baptized as soon as possible, because what would happen if the child was to die. Then some years ago Matthew Fox tried to change the emphasis by focusing on “original blessing”. So which is it?
I must admit that as I sprinkled the water of baptism on the heads of hundreds of beautiful babies in their white dresses, I simply could not believe they were somehow sinful or that I was in some way washing away the stain of original sin. To my estimation, they were the perfect picture of pure innocence, not sinfulness. Now give that child two years, and you could see the tendency to sin, to desire to WANT MY OWN WAY!! making itself known in the “terrible twos” and beyond, but at the point of baptism, this child was nothing but a fresh, clean and pure blessing from the God of our creation.
All of this came to mind as I read an article by Professor Mark J. Hanson in the journal, “Christian Bioethics”. Ok, I confess, this is not my typical reading material, it was passed on to me by a friend. The author is relying on the great theologian Reinhold Niebuhr in a conversation about the nature of sin. Hanson says, “Sin is occasioned when a person fails to acknowledge his or her finiteness and dependence upon God and thereby seeks his own power. Sin is the basic problem in human life.” And this from a scholar, not a preacher. He writes, “The reason why there is a heightened sense of sin in Christianity is that the vision of Christ heightens the contrast between what man truly is and what he has become.” Well, that’ll preach!
Back to the original question of original sin versus original blessing, the article includes this beautiful phrase: “The blot of sin on the human soul does not wipe out the sense of human goodness. Some memory of a precious condition of blessedness seems to linger in the soul. It points to an essential nature that is unchanging.”
It’s time for Ash Wednesday. The day reminds us of our sin, reminds us that we are dust and to ashes we will return. It’s a time to acknowledge our finiteness and our dependence upon God rather than claiming our own power. During this season as we look to Jesus and our vision of him heightens our awareness of how far we have fallen short. But all of it is shot through the a blessedness that lingers in the soul. We are broken, but not destroyed. We might be depraved, but not totally. We may be lost, but we can find our way home. We know our own sinfulness, but we also know we are children of an eternal Heavenly Parent who loves us still and calls us back.
Original sin may run deep, but deeper still runs the original blessing of our being created in the image of God and the call to be all God intends us to be. Thanks be to God.
Note: The article I quoted here is entitled “Indulging Anxiety: Human Enhancement from a Protestant Perspective” by Mark J. Hanson, Christian Bioethics, 199, Vol. 5, No. 2, pp. 121-138)
Last Updated on February 28, 2017