Ep. 4 – Original Sin or Original Blessing?

Pronch :
Hi I’m Pronch

Adam :
and I am Adam, and this is Sacred Skepticism, a podcast where we, two friends delve into the depths of spirituality and belief figuring out where we overlap where we share a ton of common ground and when we are far apart as well.

Pronch :
Each Episode unfolds as a unique journey through our evolving perspectives, and we get to see how each other sees the world

Adam :
And this conversation started and then built and built so we encourage you actually to start from the beginning of this season 1 as the episodes build on the conversation that unfolds as we go.

Pronch :
So Take a moment, sit back, relax and explore with us as we uncover the next layer of our shared exploration

Adam :
We love having these conversations, and what makes it even better is knowing that you’re following along with us, So, welcome to Sacred Skepticism

Pronch :
So how are you doing?

Adam :
I’m doing okay. It hasn’t been a great week, but there’s up weeks, there’s down weeks and there’s a lot of weeks in the middle. So yeah, I’m doing all right. How are you doing?

Pronch :
I’m doing okay as well. Work’s been really picking up and it’s kind of hard to keep your mind on all the different aspects of things and not, you throw a lot of balls in the air and it’s hard to juggle, so sometimes it’s hard to focus, but I’m glad I can take a moment to just kind of push that all away and just chat with you for a little bit. That’s really been looking forward to it.

Adam :
I agree very, even as I have different, a variety of things that I do in my work in a variety of even hats that I wear within the hub and within my job, it’s actually been really nice. It is just so fun to just chat and talk and so it doesn’t feel like a whole other thing. It feels actually in a lot of ways, like a nice break from, I do so much kind of coordinating and stuff in my work, and so just to get to sit and chat and think and listen is actually a beautiful break from that stuff. Yeah,

Pronch :
And I mean, conversations are so important to, so to be able to dedicate time for it specifically, I just want to talk to a person right here. I love it. It’s so

Adam :
Good. And not have it be like, so in order for me to make sure that we achieve X, right? Yes, I talk a lot in meetings and things, but a lot of them are setting something up or how are we going to do this? Or let’s make plans. Let’s make plans for this project. And so yeah, it’s nice to just actually have a conversation where you just get to listen and be present. And our conversation’s like we haven’t really mapped them out, and so it’s been fun to just let them just go where they go.

Pronch :
Yeah, so true, so true. Well, on that note, let’s dive in. Let’s dive in. So thinking back on what we were talking about in our last episode, you brought forward this idea of the nature of your faith and the nature and what I said actually, a lot of the people that I know, you would say it’s christocentric and I didn’t know what that term was. You helped me to understand it, and I like what that means for how people interact with the world and interact with each other, is taking on the positive aspects of Christ and everything. And what I asked in response to that, once I understood it, was, sure being focusing your life on everything, on Christ, we have to look back at what’s before Christ. Because if Christ Christ is the fulfillment of everything before, that’s where we kind of left that little nugget there. So what I wanted to ask and where I thought would be a really good idea for us to just kind of focus on was the idea of sin, the idea of original sin, the reason Jesus came, you know what I mean? The reason Jesus came to take on our sin and die for us for that purpose. And what is sin, I think is the primary question. What is it from your perspective? And then from my perspective, the word sin is a religious word, so

Adam :
For sure.

Pronch :
Yeah. So from what I want to first ask you is in your perspective, what is sin high level, not about why Jesus came or anything like that? And then I think turn it around on me, ask me those things that you described, what do I think those things are?

Adam :
Sure, yeah, that’s great.

Pronch :
So to you, what is sin?

Adam :
Great, great question. Love this question. Chat about it all the time. With youth, young adults and folks in the hub, again, there would be so many angles and definitions within traditions and within individuals. For me, where I have come to at this point, knowing that I’m sure I’ll continue to evolve with this as well. Sin for me, the way that I understand it and operate is anything that is to put it in a very base, very straightforward way. Anything that harms, and specifically the choices that we as people make that take life away and life on multiple layers. And so I won’t dive super into what I even mean by that word in this context life, but that which makes the world less. And so anything that takes in a harmful way away from life and life to its fullest, whether it’s life of people or the planet.

:
For me, sin are the ways that we elect to go our own way and take life or harm. That would be a very clunky, and I’m sure a theologian would be like, ah, you’re missing a lot of pretty key points in there. And I’m sure I am, but I’m not a minister and I’m not a trained theologian. So I’m sure that’s a very, very base and rudimentary and clunky way, but for me, that kind of gets to the heart of it. And as we talk, I might be able to open that up more because I

Pronch :
Was great. Sure. Let me poke at it, let poke at it. Go for it. So something that make that, I guess less prosperous things are at a certain level and sin is something that makes it less than that level. So is it only individual or is it societal?

Adam :
No, no, no, no. I would be very, I think that, yeah, I actually work a lot because we have so many traditions that only emphasize the individual aspect of sin. I push back pretty hard against that, and I’ve kind of come to the point where I would teach a lot in our circles about there is individual, there are ways that we do that as individuals, but there is a ton of systemic, I would what I say, systemic sin as well. So the ways that our systems and structures take life away. And again, those systems and structures, I would say would come back to at some point people were involved in the creation of those systems and structures, but we can build systems and structures that take life away from people, and it’s not even an individual pushing the button or keeping it aloft. So I would say there’s absolutely individual and there is systemic sin too. I would be very, very convicted of those two things, and I might even be missing other aspects. But those two are ones that I’ve come to at this point saying there is definitely both. And if we emphasize one and the other is absent, I think we do ourselves a disservice on both sides.

Pronch :
That is interesting. I’ve never thought of the concept of sin as being an individual thing, one sins against another or would sin against the creator. That’s how I’ve only ever thought of sin as a concept. So to think that the way you’re describing it there that society can sin or the system can sin is very, very interesting,

Adam :
Or I might say can produce sin, that systems can produce harm in taking life away. And I also grew up just really understanding that concept of the individual piece. One, I think because when you’re kids, you don’t understand systems and structures, you don’t have that level of understanding yet. But also because in white Christian circles, there is an intentional systemic problem of emphasizing that because it has absolved, it has absolved, colonial and white structures of the ways that those structures need to change. So I actually, I think there is a huge problem of the whiteness in Christianity or the colonial project of Christianity. It has intentionally obfuscated the idea of systemic and collective sin so that those harmful machines within white Christianity can continue. And we focus on individuals because it is a form of social control as well. Walter Brigman, who’s a great theologian, talks about that a lot, that there is a social control element to talking about individual sin and the way it controls people’s wallets, controls people’s bodies, controls people’s minds to some extent. So I also grew up like that too, and I think it is a huge problem in the West and in white Christian circles.

Pronch :
So where would you say that you get that concept of sin? Where would you get that definition? Is it what you feel inside or is there something that is the basis for it for you?

Adam :
So like I said, so I would’ve grown up with the church being the influence over that. And like we said, it is totally like a religious word. I don’t think it has to be limited to that, but it is one of those words where if you say that outside of church context, people kind of know an idea of what that means because it’s become so massive in general culture, but it is a religious word, and there’s a specific Hebrew word that it comes from that then was translated into English. So I would say my initial encounters with sin, and especially the idea of then the individual sin certainly came from the church. I would not try and avoid that. That’s obviously true. But I would say then where I’ve grown and evolved in understanding and added depth of understanding and sloughed things away that I learned that I think actually, I don’t think that that’s true would have come through my experience with studying and following and experiencing the way of Jesus and understanding scripture at a more mature level as well.

:
Because the idea of systemic sin is actually, it’s all over scripture, but it didn’t get taught to me that way. But as I started to understand context and writer and audience and genre of literature within the Bible, scripture also started to open up these ideas for me and just looking at specifically the story of Jesus in the gospels and then what I’ve learned from theologians that I’ve read commentaries and things like that. I would say that particularly I’m heavily influenced by sort of an intersectional liberation theology, which is sort of a particular branch of tree of traditions, and they are specifically critical of white Christianity and colonial Christianity that has created kind of a caricature of faith. And so I would say that those are the influences that would’ve led me to those things. And I will say the last thing would be my experience in the world, which is my subjective experience, but seeing examples of what people would say that’s a sin, and then looking at it actually critically and going, if this is sin, why is someone experiencing a deeper level of peace or love or contentment?

:
And if this thing that you’re calling is sin, so for instance, the example that I think about a lot is folks who would claim that LGBTQ plus relationships are sinful. Why then if those are a sin, and if sin is supposed to be this thing that is harmful to us and harmful to the world around us, which a lot of people would agree on that even kind of conservatives would agree on that, if that stuff is harmful, why are people experiencing deeper levels of love and joy and generosity and all the things that also in scripture are listed as what’s called the fruit of the spirit? How is this sin producing good things? That then makes me go, okay, maybe we actually need to reorient what this means. So I would say my experience in the world through the lens of following Jesus and understanding that Jesus God wants us to live life to the fullest, that has helped me sort of create litmus tests as I come across new topics.

Pronch :
Sure. Oh man, there’s so many different directions to here. I know I’m

Adam :
Going too deep into

Pronch :
There. No, no, no, it’s fine. It’s fine. And also we still want to turn it around on me exactly. But to the idea of how can a sin produce love and joy? For example, people of the LGBTQs plus, I don’t know all of the letters. I’m sorry.

Adam :
That’s okay. Yeah, I obvious say two s, which is two-spirit and lgbtqia plus community is what I often say.

Pronch :
Yeah. Sorry if I am missing any members of the community there, but I love the way you put that there. The idea of two people loving each other does not hinder prosperous, it does not hinder life thriving. It actually makes those things better and develops those things in greater ways. And people having to suppress who they are is horrible, horrible to have to suppress who you are. And that

Adam :
Creates harm,

Pronch :
Right? Yes. Oh, it very, very much does. Very

Adam :
Much does, right. That is where I would say that’s where the sin is.

Pronch :
Yes. Well, and so where I go here, and again, without wanting to get too into the weeds and debating you or whatever here is, if we want to put the Old Testament down and just say that was people, why were they writing what they were writing? The questions we were asking in the last episode about where the origin of the stories of, and the Levitical laws saying if man lies with another man as he would a woman, blah, blah, blah. But Jesus is quoted in the red letters as saying those same things and that backbiters and thieves are the same as homosexuals and that they deserve, and anybody who supports them are worthy of death, and those are words that are attributed to Jesus.

Adam :
So he doesn’t say that actually Jesus actually never mentions the word homosexual in the gospels actually.

Pronch :
Okay. So I am willing to concede, I’m

Adam :
Only concede it does come up in the New Testament through some of the epistle authors. Sometimes that word has been translated, but actually, so that is a conflation that people attribute. But actually, so to be clear, this isn’t one way or another. Jesus never mentions same sex relationships or obviously didn’t have language like this, but never mentions the LGBTQ plus community. It is mentioned in two or three times in the New Testament epistles by some of the authors things that are attributed to the Apostle Paul or writers who are using the Apostle Paul’s brand essentially. So actually to be clear, Jesus does not say anything one way or another about things that we would now use the term the LGBTQ plus community. Jesus never mentions that community or that in reference to the Levitical laws. In fact, Jesus actually has some pretty key moments where he quotes Old Testament and omits certain parts of it that are very conspicuous. And I won’t go too deep into that now. Yeah. So I do think that is an important thing just to catch it. Absolutely. It has been attributed, and the word also homosexual in the Bible didn’t come up until 1946 and later the first,

Pronch :
No, it, it’s describing homosexual, but

Adam :
Yeah, that is never actually, so the red letters you talk about, so in the gospels, which I’m sure we’re not going to look at them as the most perfect representation of everything either. I’m not saying that there aren’t things to dig into with understanding gospels on a deeper level, but to be clear, Jesus actually never ever mentioned that the most Jesus really dives into when it comes to romantic relationships. He talks about marriage a few times, but that’s about it. And in fact, he talks about the fact that the path of marriage and of romance is not for everyone, which some people look at as understanding Jesus, talking about critiquing traditional pathways and saying there’s a deeper level than this. So Jesus never mentions that actually.

Pronch :
Okay. And I appreciate your insights into that. I have been misinformed and misunderstood. Want to take an offline look and just double check a couple things that I thought Please do. And it’s very, very possible that what I’m thinking of is one of the epistles, something Roman, I think that is you, something like that. Yeah. So no, I appreciate that insight. I really, really do. But anyways, but taking it back to the idea of sin, all of this comes from the Bible. The idea of these things being sins being bad come from the Bible, and the Bible is how we know who Jesus is. And obviously the Bible is made up of 40 different books, different offers, 1600 years, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, all of that, of course. But taking that all into account of this is the source of how we know what things are like, what Jesus believed, what Jesus said, and what we know as to be as sins. So I love your idea of categorizing the idea of sin, of anything that hinders prosperity, that anything that takes away the life and not killing, you’re not saying anything that kills. You’re saying anything that makes life less. Was that a good way of restating your position on what is sin? Yeah,

Adam :
The one maybe I didn’t say that I think could help. The one last thing would be, so the Hebrew word is, I’m going to butcher this, but kata, which is K-H-A-T-A in our modern alphabet in our modern western alphabet. And what that really translates to is to miss the mark or to miss the goal or to miss the target. And so actually, that might even be a more helpful way of an intro understanding of that. Because even as, even my definition that I use, then you could kind of start to pick that out. But to miss the mark is really what that word in Hebrew, which is again, we talk about the Bibles, where we get sin. Actually it predates Christianity, it’s Jewish, it’s a Jewish term, a Jewish understanding. And the Christians have interpreted this in a certain way in the Christian Bible. But yeah, like kata would mean to miss the mark or to miss the goal, which is actually this kind of beautiful, liberating thing that it feels a lot less shame inducing to just go, wow, I missed the mark. There is something that I’m striving for. There is a target that we are looking for and I missed it. So actually, I would say that that is actually a better definition that I work with. And I would say that’s the way that kata, which is the original Hebrew word for sin, that’s what it more or less translates to miss the goal to miss the mark.

Pronch :
So what are the wages of missing the mark?

Adam :
Oh, so the Bible would say death, and then we would unpack what that means. But that for me, that idea of the wages of sin are death. That’s where, yeah, that’s

Pronch :
Why I asked question that way.

Adam :
Yeah, yeah. Because something that’s written in the New Testament, and that’s for me then why I extrapolate into talking about that which takes away life. So that’s actually framed. I’m glad we went this way because it’s actually stumbled my way into the better framing, which is sin is to miss the mark. And the effects of that are things that take away life or what in Romans, I think chapter six would say, I think it’s six 20 something. I’m not as good at knowing my verse numbers.

Pronch :
Okay, me either.

Adam :
So the wages of sin is death is written. And so that’s why for me then that’s how I get to the point of going not what is sin, even though I said that earlier, but what is the effect of sin? It is that which takes away life. And yes, on a literal level in many cases, but also on more than a literal physical level, there’s lots of way we can take life from people without throwing a punch. And so the effects of sin are life being suppressed, life being taken away. And that happens when we miss the mark, because God’s vision for us is for us in our society and the universe to have life to the fullest. And so when we miss the mark, the reason why that’s pointed out is not to shame us or to go these people. I feel like God probably thinks that constantly, but it’s because it’s interfering. It’s creating a disturbance in the work of creating more life in the universe.

Pronch :
Okay. So then why was Jesus then died? I want to try to put things into the terminology that we’ve laid out here. Jesus then died for us having missed the mark. Why is that necessary? Why does that need to be?

Adam :
I don’t know.

Pronch :
Okay. Interesting. I

Adam :
Don’t know. Okay. So yeah, we could get into the hole. That’s an idea that many traditions would kind of express in that way, that Jesus died for our sins. And so I think there’s a lot to be gleaned out of that. I think there’s a lot of ways that people then unpack what that means in unhealthy or what I would say incorrect ways. But yeah, that’s certainly a tradition piece that many traditions have, which is Jesus died for our sins. So two things about that, then we can get into more in a Jesus in the crucifixion episode, we don’t know. And anybody who says they do is not really being honest. We don’t know how the whole crucifixion resurrection event worked. I don’t think we ever will. I don’t think that’s the point. And I’ll be honest, I don’t really know why that’s the event that needed to occur in that way. There are some really beautiful writings on this that I’ve been really interested in talking about the way that I, there’s this beautiful subversion of that which takes life by God, participating that, and then subverting it and reversing the effect that death brings life. And certainly we look around in the world and we see death can bring life in so many ways in the created world. Think about mulch. The death of a tree brings new life to a forest.

Pronch :
Let’s actually just put in Mufasa right here, circle. When we die, our bodies become the grass and the antelope eats the grass. And so we are all connected in the great circle of life, as Mufasa would say.

Adam :
Yeah. So some people would take that as an aspect. Some people would run with that as a major theme. So there’s so many layers to where people would go, I think this is why. But I would say at the end of the day, that’s not something that I have spent a ton of time as a specific aspect. I just believe that it happened. And I believe that it did have a singular effect on the universe, on me as an individual and on us. But on one level, I do want to say, why did Jesus die? I think Jesus was ushering in a life that was completely countercultural to the dominant systems. And dominant systems will not allow that. And so we see that all over our world today. And so one of the answers to why did Jesus die was because we are violent and we killed him. And so I say we as the collective humans like humanity. But I do think that the idea of why did it have to happen in that exact kind of way, I have no, I have no idea. I don’t presume to. Now,

Pronch :
I heard on a podcast episode of dogma debate now called the David c Smalley show, that he was interviewing a self-proclaimed Catholic, who David was saying to him, okay, so you’re a Christian, so you believe that Jesus died for your sins. And he said, whoa, hold up. And he’s like, what? No, no, I believe that Jesus died. He was challenging authority. And David kind of looked at him with this, well, you could hear that he was looking at him with a bit of a cockeyed look saying, but isn’t believing that he died to save your eternal soul? Kind of an essential part of being a Christian. And the guy’s response was, you can’t tell me what my faith means. And it was just very interesting. So then, okay, I guess again, keeping everything on the subject of sin, but not wanting to branch too far, really, this is very intriguing to me. If you think that what happens if someone in your belief, everything, what happens if someone does not believe and profess that Jesus is the Lord and Savior and died for sins and believed for what happens to me when I die, not believing that God is God,

Adam :
Right? So I’m not trying to avoid that question, but I actually think that would. So the idea of the afterlife and where we get into debates about universalism, hopeful universalism, eternal conscious torment. So we’re getting into then a thing that actually would take us too far away. So I do, yeah,

Pronch :
I agree. Agree. I want to get there, but I don’t dunno if

Adam :
Right now is the time I actually think that’s a whole different episode.

Pronch :
I

Adam :
Agree. But what I will say on the last piece that you shared is, yeah, so there are traditions, like I said, there are traditions that would say a core understanding is Jesus died for our sins. And there are other traditions in Christianity that would say, I think not to speak for him who you just referenced on that podcast, but that Jesus died from our sins would be another interpretation and understanding of the event of the crucifixion. So yeah, it’s important then to understand that a lot of the stuff that we encounter, again in colonial settings like here in the north of Turtle Island and in what we call Canada and in Western white Christianity, which has been married to that colonial project in many ways, pushing each other along for now hundreds of years, we have only been taught certain frameworks that have helped push those oppressive systems along.

:
And so then when I encounter some of those, if I start to learn and understand those things as producing more harm, then I would say that that’s when we have to take a look at things. And the things that we often get taught in our upbringing in this western white dominated colonial Christianity require a deep reexamination and require us going. Is that the only way that people have understood this event? Because get taught by most of those spaces that it’s always been this way and we’ve always understood sin in this regard. We’ve always understood Jesus’ death, he died for our sins. And you can believe that and you can go into that, but it’s just not true actually to say that, that there’s only one way to understand these events and especially when you look at the life and work of Jesus as a first century Jewish rabbi, that’s not at all how Jesus would’ve engaged with these topics.

:
That’s not at all how that tradition engaged in terms of there are black and whites and there’s dogma and there was so much more room for conversation, for distance and for disagreement. So when we talk about sin, when we talk about even Jesus dying for our sins, we do have to understand that there are even, as I’ve said, the interpretation of that word kata and how I extrapolate it, that’s where I go. But that is not, and we’ll encounter this again and again as we talk, and this has been informative for me. These are not the only ways people have understood. And when I encounter understandings or frameworks that I’ve been taught or participated in or taught myself and then realized that they might be producing, missing the mark where they might be producing a suppression of life, I start to reexamine those things. And I am more drawn towards understandings that produce life because that’s what I believe God is at work doing and God is inviting us too. So I want to know what you think because I’ve just talked now for 20 minutes.

Pronch :
You have. You have. And I appreciate it. I’m learning, and I was thinking that as well, like man, I’m not saying much here, but really everything you’ve described, the idea of missing the mark is so not something that I would associate with the concept of religion really at all. That is a really beautiful way of looking at how do we work together as humans? How do we make sure that what we’re doing does make humanity thrive more, does make life thrive more? The idea of life thriving and that being the objective, whether that objective was given to us by a God or just being, Hey, this is a really good idea. Humans, we’re intelligent. We have the brains. We can think we do better together, we do better when we’re not suppressing the idea of life and life being prosperous. I really love it. And I just don’t see the necessity of that concept coming from a God, coming from a God for me.

:
Those attributes and that desire for betterness and the desire for cooperation for me comes a hundred percent through our evolution as a species. There’s something that is in conflict of our species, and I think probably of all mammalian species generally, I don’t know beyond the mammals, but the idea of teamwork is one of the main things that got us to where we are now. The idea of working together. But Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the very base thing of, and do you know what Maslow’s hierarchy of needs are? Yeah, I do. Yeah. Okay. For those that don’t know, there’s a basic, there’s these different levels of things that you need in order to survive. And one of them is basic safety and security, and actually on the very basis also intimacy and love, which is one of the reasons why people who are homosexual, trans, whatever, they need to be able to feel intimate. The idea of just, well, it’s the sin. So just don’t act on your impulses. That whole idea is just, yeah, we

Adam :
Know suppressing and muting

Pronch :
Is just, yeah, we don’t need to get into it there. But Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the idea of if I don’t have food, I will die. So there is this there contrast of that’s in our evolution of like, I need to eat, so I’m going to take this apple and I’m going to eat so that I will survive. But if I take this apple, the group doesn’t have that apple. How does that affect the group? These are very much in contrast in our evolution as a species, the idea that the group needs to work together so that the group has enough food, but the individual needs the food in order to survive. That’s very much in contrast. But one of the things that’s made us really develop as a species has been the concept of teamwork. The more that we work together, the more that we care for each other, the more that we thrive.

:
Yes, individually we can survive temporarily, but we cannot survive long-term as a species on our own. The world is just too cruel. There’s too much out there that can kill us. The 20% of the landmass that we are able to occupy that is earth would kill us if we were outside of that 20% exposure, blah, blah, blah. So that’s how I see those things developing naturally without the concept of a God wanting us to work together. It’s just us coming up as a species. And the more that I’ve been looking into this, the more that I’ve been learning about how evolution has just influenced us to every degree, it’s one of those things you don’t really realize that, oh, that evolved. This one blew my mind, this one blew my mind. Let me ask you a question. Why do we laugh? Not because something’s funny, but the concept of laughter as a base. Do you have any idea why we laugh? No. No.

Adam :
Like the physiological piece? No.

Pronch :
Yeah. And it’s not known. It is just hypothesized that one of the reasons we would laugh is to make it outwardly visually obvious that you are a part of the in-group. If you find something funny that somebody else finds something funny, you are clearly from the same group. And culturally, this might be funny, you have a, oh, I remember that moment when so-and-so did that funny thing. Ha ha ha. But if you’re not a part of the group, if you don’t know that thing, why don’t you find that funny? That should be funny to you. You’re not a part of the group. Interesting. And it’s a theory, it’s a pause theory. But as soon as I heard that, I went, that makes sense. That makes so much sense. Why would we have this violent? And it’s not like, ah, kill you violent, but this actual takes over your body reaction, visceral to something response, right? Yeah. I like that. Much better than violent, a visceral response to something happening that kind of incapacitates you if you’re laughing. It

Adam :
Absolutely does.

Pronch :
You can’t focus on defending yourself, you can’t focus on, so that’s this tiniest little thing of that evolved, most likely the idea of something being funny. So all of this in my mind comes from our evolution. And this is not saying that religion and God and Christianity is in opposition to evolution. I would not propose that. I believe that evolution is more of a leaning towards one of the reasons why religion is maybe not accurate, why the belief of a God is maybe not accurate. But I would not go as far to say that the idea that evolution exists because God put it into action, God derived. So I would allow somebody to have that belief, obviously allow,

Adam :
What am I saying there? Yeah, thank you. I appreciate you allowing you to have that. I’m going to stop

Pronch :
Somebody have their belief. What the

Adam :
Hell? I say, no, I know what you mean. Yeah. You know what I’m trying to say? It doesn’t have to exist in those binaries.

Pronch :
Exactly. Just because evolution is does not mean that God is not. So I’m going to concede that point. So I

Adam :
Think that’s a straw man argument on multiple sides where people just try and set those up against each other and just going like, yeah, fish isn’t blue, but well, sometimes, but I guess, yeah, sometimes you’re right, we don’t need to set up these categories, but But it is important to then understand how they inform one another for each of us.

Pronch :
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. So everything that you’ve described comes down taking it back to the idea of sin being missing the mark that’s in my mind, that is just how do we prosper more? Is we want hit the mark. What is the mark? Let’s define the mark. The more we say that’s

Adam :
How works

Pronch :
For me, the more we develop, the farther we go along as a species, the more we define, oh, this is the mark. Let’s keep on hitting that thing. I love that. I just don’t see why it should be attributed to the concept of a God and why it should be attributed to the concept of Jesus and how Jesus was. I wanted to use the word necessary, and I think that that’s probably a

Adam :
Comfortable way to say, I would say in my individual belief, Jesus is incredibly necessary in this aspect. So there are certainly traditions that might go into nuance and different angles on that, but for me, I think necessary is a fair way to put in our conversations where I would be coming from.

Pronch :
So

Adam :
I think that is completely fair.

Pronch :
So then I think that that being the next chapter is a long chapter on its own. And I think that we might need to put ourselves to a rest here knowing that maybe we’ll talk offline, maybe our next chapter is why is Jesus necessary? Because if you want to put your stake in the ground that yes, Jesus is necessary, I want to hear you go on for another 20 minutes.

Adam :
Need I

Pronch :
Would to about why? Because I don’t think, obviously, because Don,

Adam :
This would be a place where we disagree.

Pronch :
So I think that we need to press hold here and let people listen to the next episode about that. Do you agree? Do you think that that’s a good place to put it down?

Adam :
Yeah, yeah. I think this is a good coverage of sin as this major aspect, this major theme was a great way to start diving in. And it does then lead inexorably, at least for me for sure, towards then the next piece is understanding then Jesus. So I think that’s a great place to hit pause for now.

Pronch :
I want to ask you one question here though. Yeah. We were talking last time about the Bible and the stories being told in a specific way to convey some sort of message. The Old Testament books, the Torah, they’re not necessarily literal. This happened, this happened. So the idea of original sin before we close this chapter. Yeah,

Adam :
We didn’t get to talk about that.

Pronch :
That’s right. I do want us to go with why was Jesus necessary, but I actually want to quickly go original sin. Is there in your mind unoriginal sin, or is it more of a concept,

Adam :
I’m going to have to understand my feelings or beliefs or whatever you want to call it? Unoriginal sin. I’m actually going to have to kind of sidestep both of those for a second and say that. So I believe that the way original sin has been taught in the West over the last few hundred years is wrong and harmful. And I believe in original blessing or some people call it original goodness. And so what I mean by that is that many people at teach that basically that we’ve been deplorable from the start and at our core is that we’re rotten. And a lot of that is then the implications that come out of how many people teach original sin. Not everybody, but how many people understand and have been taught original sin is that we’re rotten fruit from the start. And thankfully because God is really good and God is really gracious, God redeems and transforms that rotten fruit.

:
I don’t think we’re rotten fruit from the start. I love you. Thank you. And anybody who says, at the end of the day, we’re just not a good person or we’re just not good people, I would say, don’t you talk about my mom that way. My mom is the most lovely person. Now. Do I think that we’re perfect? And do I think capable that we’re not capable of being absolutely rotten fruit? No, of course. We absolutely are. And we see that all over. I am capable of being just the most rotten fruit. And we see people out in the world, we look at people producing harm starting wars, and we would say that is some rotten fruit. But original sin is a theological concept that the way it is typically taught in most Catholic doctrine and Baptist and evangelical doctrine, I don’t agree with that.

:
And I think it is missing that the start of the story in scripture is this process of God creating and going, it’s good, it’s good, it’s good. And then humanity in the multiple tellings of that, and there’s two of them in Genesis, there’s two different tellings of creation. So when people go, these are very much contrast, literal and interpretive, you go, okay, well, which was it? Were we made on the first day or the last day, the sixth day? So there’s this beginning of the story that it’s good, it’s good, it’s good, it’s good. And we are declared good in the initial. Now from there things happen. But when people teach about this idea of original sin, many times they’re teaching about the idea that from the start we have just been heinous and rotten. And I think that that is actually, that’s ripping out the first few pages and then saying, this is the start of the story, which completely alters the story.

:
And so I believe strongly in original blessing. And I believe that sin, as we talked about, is incredibly crucial to the understanding and the story and our faith. So let me put it this way, I think that Jesus is way, way, way more important than anything. And that includes our various understandings of sin. And that doesn’t mean that sin then doesn’t matter because like I say with Jay, Jesus is very necessary as we encounter this sin problem. But many people, because of that teaching of original sin, sin is the focus of the story. And I think that for me, Jesus is the focus of the story. And so we’ll have more implications on that in the next episode. But yeah, that’s where I would sit with that.

Pronch :
Okay, very cool. At this point, very cool. Then yeah, then let’s move forward next time on starting the convers. I have no aspirations that we can answer the question, why is Jesus necessary a no?

Adam :
That’s be a very clear expectation because we’ve seg agreed us theologians for a long time, and then just two dudes, heres, we’re not going to be breaking new ground here, and I’m not going to be breaking new ground. I’m just going to be able to say, this is this way. I’ve stumbled my way to this point, and you going to be able, this is the way you stumbled your way to this point. So

Pronch :
Yeah. Very cool. Very, very cool. Well, okay, well, we’ll talk more next time. Thank you so much for this. This was really,

Adam :
Really good. I love it. Always. Alright, talk next time.

Pronch :
Talk next time.