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“The story goes, “God told Adam and Eve not to eat forbidden fruit. They did anyway. They were then cursed and so was all of mankind from then until the return of Jesus.” That’s the gist of it. So my question is, ‘why does this make any sense?”  “EXPLAIN ORIGINAL SIN TO ME JUST ONE MORE TIME” – Life After Religion

Ben’s question resonates with me. “Why does any of this make sense?”

His strapline also makes sense to me: “Life after religion.”

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We seem to have painted God Soft Hands Jesus into a corner where all that is left is “I believe! Hallelujah!”

A corner that is applauded as standing up to the tide of secular evilness.  A corner that is God’s last stand (or my “last stand” for God?) in this fallen world.

I have plenty of questions and a few thoughts.

Bible teaching refuses to distinguish between control and invitation.  Control is of myth and fable – like the Garden, like the Tree, like the Eviction, like Original Sin.  Control is necessary within religion or else religion (and the faith it espouses) is not recognisable and has no “followers”.  Without control and clarity to know when one is “in” and when one is “out” … then what purpose does religion (and the faith it espouses) have at all?

I was taught control and found invitation.

Yet that invitation to step and grow beyond the control … that “purpose” of invitation …  I am not so sure the body of Christ knows how to handle that evolution.  I am not sure the body of Christ really wants that evolution to happen.  I wonder if the body of Christ needs Creation and The Garden and Original Sin and the Cross more than it needs “God”.  A God of invitation and growth.  A God of freedom and diversity.  A God who really does welcome all because God sees no difference in that diversity.  Sees no reason for bullshit other than from bulls who are bulls in a field where bulls do shit.

But not from us who are not.

I was taught control and found invitation.

So the Garden and Original Sin … ?  All of that “control” … ?

Is that where God wants us to stop?  Is that what God is all about?  That “we” defend this line in the sand … paint “ourselves” into this corner … stand alone content with “I believe!” … ?

I prefer to walk on the paint.  I prefer not to have lines in the sand I cannot cross.

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What about you?

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