The blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous, so that He will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us- 1st John 1:7b-10 NASB

Doctrinal teaching has fallen on hard times. 

Even many Christians are uninterested in learning the details of most doctrinal teachings. The attributes of God, redemption and justification by faith just don’t hold a lot of appeal these days. Although, perhaps, the doctrine that has fallen on the hardest of times is the doctrine of original sin. 

Nobody likes it.

Seriously. 

Even many Christians are uncomfortable with the whole concept. Original sin is a tough sell in a culture that is easily offended and obsessed with fairness.  Original sin is the belief that every human being is morally and ethically corrupted from the moment of conception by Adam and Eve’s choice to disobey God and eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 3, Romans 5:12, Ecclesiastes 9:3, Psalm 14:2-3). The doctrine of original sin teaches all humans are sinners from conception (Romans 3:23, Psalm 51:1-5). This means human beings cannot rehabilitate or fix themselves (Ephesians 2:8-9, Titus 3:3-7), we need God to do that for us. 

The above-mentioned gloominess aside, the criticalness of a doctrinal teaching is revealed by what happens when a person (or culture) stops believing it is true.  Most folks in the west stopped believing original sin was a reality about fifty years ago.  There are at least four ways the world has gone crazy town because we ditched the doctrine of original sin, including:

Criminals have become sympathetic victims rather than bad guys- 

Most western societies see criminals as victims and justice for actual victims of crime as unfair and unjust. Original sin teaches that all people (regardless of upbringing) have an inborn inclination towards evil. Conversely, most secular folks believe humans are born perfect and are corrupted by traumatic personal experiences or less-than-perfect parents. Christians believe even unredeemed people have a choice about whether they fully give into their sinful tendencies (Calvinists call this “common grace”). When a culture ceases to believe in original sin, bad behavior is no longer about choices it’s always about trauma and the whole notion of personal responsibility dies an ugly death. A criminal is not a criminal because they chose a life of crime, they are a criminal because of forces outside their control like poverty, abuse, suffering and neglect (Romans 2:5-8). The unintended consequence of this belief system is that our justice system often shows more compassion to lawbreakers than to law abiders (Isaiah 59:14-15). 

Parenting gets weird-

For generations parents have understood that kids are born with a tendency towards rebellion, bad behavior and disobedience (Proverbs 22:15, Ephesians 6:1). Even godless societies agreed it was the parent’s job to squash rebellion and steer children towards law-abiding behavior and decency. When parents stopped believing children were rebellious from birth all of sudden, they were forced to blame themselves and their own broken upbringing for the bad behavior of their kids. This has created a weird approach to childrearing where parents live in fear of traumatizing their children with any kind of discipline or even disapproval (Proverbs 13:24). As a result, children are oftentimes quite awful, and parents are unspeakably miserable when they should be enjoying one of the ultimate blessings of human existence (Psalm 127:3-5) 

Becoming our most authentic self suddenly seems like a great idea-

The death of original sin gave birth to the whole notion all people should do their best to “become my most authentic self”. This whole idea of finding our authentic self is unbelievably popular today. Nobody even questions whether this is something we ought to be doing. However, if one looks a little deeper at the fruit of this view it becomes clear that “being my most authentic self” is at the root of transgenderism, sexual deviancy, adultery, many divorces and most child neglect.  This is because as fallen beings our most authentic self is our sin nature. Consequently, our most authentic self is typically weird, sinful, selfish, vulgar and wants what it wants when it wants it (Ecclesiastes 6:1, Genesis 6:5). None of this nonsense should be celebrated. 

Everyone gets their own truth- 

Believing the lie that people are inherently flawless, logically leads to the belief that what each individual person thinks or believes is always right and true. Because no one wants to start calling people out for being wrong, we have instead conceded that everyone is entitled to their own individual truth. The truth each individual holds does not have to be provably true it just has to be believed by the individual. One does not have to be a rocket scientist to determine that eventually my “truth” will conflict with someone else’s “truth” at some point. This is when things get ugly because we all know deep down inside there cannot be multiple truths.

The fruit of denying the reality of original sin is clearly bad. Sadly, we cannot force unbelievers to believe any Christian doctrine. However, as Christians we can see to it that we are walking in truth (John 8:32) and teaching truth to the next generation. When we walk in truth we instantly become the salt and light this world needs (Matthew 5:13-16)