{"id":4764,"date":"2008-09-26T00:20:55","date_gmt":"2008-09-26T05:20:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/jesuscreed\/2008\/09\/26\/friday-is-for-original-sin-friends-9\/"},"modified":"2008-09-26T00:20:55","modified_gmt":"2008-09-26T05:20:55","slug":"friday-is-for-original-sin-friends-9","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2008\/09\/26\/friday-is-for-original-sin-friends-9\/","title":{"rendered":"Friday is for (Original Sin) Friends"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

By the end of the 19th Century there was so much hope and optimism in the air, one could easily have concluded that the very notion of original sin was a relic of an ancient past. Within 30 years or so, original sin would make a valiant comeback \u2014 so the 10th chp of Alan Jacobs, Original Sin<\/a>\"\"<\/em>. [Our next book for Friday is for Friends will be Kathleen Norris, Acedia and Me<\/a>\"\"<\/em>.]
\nCan a person believe in original sin and be an optimist? (Of course, this depends on what we mean by \u201coptimist\u201d but take the first sense that comes to your mind.) Is the self-image culture a deconstruction of original sin?
\nThe 19th Century was the age of progress and the successor to the vast and wide development of all sorts of theories of happiness, all of them within the grasp of everyone for all time, but it had its share of critics. Like Dostoevsky, and one can\u2019t bring up the Russian novelists without succumbing to their moods of despair over human nature. Jacobs also sketches William James. But Jacobs does not agree with the many who think optimism took a hike when WWI arrived.
\nHis focus though is Rebecca West and her 2-volume Black Lamb and Grey Falcon<\/em>. This piece of non-fiction sketches at one point the focus of the Eastern Orthodox church on \u201cthe evil part in man\u201d and the Western\u2019s on \u201cour universal corruption.\u201d West sees then a two-headed calf, which when fed in one mouth led to the food being spit out the other mouth \u2014 and she sees in the 2-headed calf a parable of the West. Solzhenitsyn, too, saw the profundity of human corruption \u2014 and he became Orthodox. West, on the other hand, finds herself staring at an Augustinian humanity with no theology to relieve its fury. All she found was humanity corrupted.
\nIn contrast to West, who saw humanity corrupted and found no way out, Whittaker Chambers championed the path from Communism to Christianity as the solution to a robust concept of original sin. He was joined by many, including in his own way Reinhold Niebuhr.
\nIndeed, original sin figures prominently in the history of culture.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By the end of the 19th Century there was so much hope and optimism in the air, one could easily have concluded that the very notion of original sin was a relic of an ancient past. Within 30 years or so, original sin would make a valiant comeback \u2014 so the 10th chp of Alan […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[337],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-theology"],"yoast_head":"\nFriday is for (Original Sin) Friends<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"By the end of the 19th Century there was so much hope and optimism in the air, one could easily have concluded that the very notion of original sin was a\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2008\/09\/26\/friday-is-for-original-sin-friends-9\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Friday is for (Original Sin) Friends\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By the end of the 19th Century there was so much hope and optimism in the air, one could easily have concluded that the very notion of original sin was a\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2008\/09\/26\/friday-is-for-original-sin-friends-9\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-09-26T05:20:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=jescre-20&l=ur2&o=1\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2008\/09\/26\/friday-is-for-original-sin-friends-9\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2008\/09\/26\/friday-is-for-original-sin-friends-9\/\",\"name\":\"Friday is for (Original Sin) Friends\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2008-09-26T05:20:55+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2008-09-26T05:20:55+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252\"},\"description\":\"By the end of the 19th Century there was so much hope and optimism in the air, one could easily have concluded that the very notion of original sin was a\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2008\/09\/26\/friday-is-for-original-sin-friends-9\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2008\/09\/26\/friday-is-for-original-sin-friends-9\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2008\/09\/26\/friday-is-for-original-sin-friends-9\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Friday is for (Original Sin) Friends\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/\",\"name\":\"Jesus Creed\",\"description\":\"Scot McKnight on Jesus and orthodox faith in the 21st century\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252\",\"name\":\"Scot McKnight\",\"description\":\"Scot McKnight is a recognized authority on the New Testament, early Christianity, and the historical Jesus. 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