Sin and redemption – accepting the existence of evil.
I suggest that both sin and redemption are ideas that need reviving in secular discussions. Evil is something that does exist.
How do we to understand those who have caused the pain, suffering and death of the innocent? For some religions such perpetrators can be subject to eternal damnation for the sin of breaking the fellowship of the Kingdom of God.
From the perspective of the secular sacred we do not have the divine privilege of judging these people to be damned. If all humans are part of the universal fellowship then none can be permanently excluded. Membership is inherent although it can be subject to penalties and restrictions for those who damage it.
Criminals break the law, sinners break the ultimate bond of the universal fellowship of humanity.
For more discussion on this see my article ‘Sin and Redemption’ where I consider some of the following issues:
- how might we concieve of ‘sin’ in a secular context?
- is a secular and psychological sense of redemption possible?
- is committing a sin is more an act of infidelity and inauthenticity than it is a crime?
- the dread we feel as we antifipate committing a sin comes not from transgressing a command of God, but is a dread of the inauthentic – a sense of the emptying of the core of our humanity
- we must find credible ways of being able to talk about evil and sin in a secular context
