There\u2019s a bizarre trend going on in Great Britain. Former church members are getting \u201cde-baptized.\u201d As Time magazine reports, \u201cMore than 100,000 former Christians have downloaded \u2018certificates of de-baptism\u2019 in a bid to publicly renounce the faith.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now, there have always been people who have walked away from their faith. But what\u2019s behind this public display? And why are so many downloading an apostasy certificate?<\/p>\n
Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society, has some theories about why his group\u2019s idea has found unexpected popularity. He told Time that \u201cchurches have become so reactionary, so politically active that people actually want to make a protest against them now…. They\u2019re not just indifferent anymore. They\u2019re actively hostile.\u201d<\/p>\n
Well, maybe. But the Church has always been active in public life, standing against wrongdoing in the culture. And there have always been people who resented that.<\/p>\n
Sanderson also states that the \u201cde-baptism\u201d rite is meant to \u201cmock the practice of baptizing infants too young to consent.\u201d But again, infant baptism has long been a subject of debate within the Church. There\u2019s nothing new about that either.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m more interested in something on the NSS website, which reads in part, \u201cLiberate yourself from the Original Mumbo-Jumbo that liberated you from the Original Sin you never had.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now that, I suspect, is an idea that is appealing to a large number of people. Believing in your own innate goodness isn\u2019t exactly new \u2014 it has its roots in the lie that the serpent told Eve. But in this postmodern, therapeutic culture, I can understand how \u201cliberating\u201d it might feel not to believe in personal sin or evil.<\/p>\n
And that should terrify us. Where does most of the evil in our world come from, if not from people who believe they\u2019re incapable of evil?<\/p>\n
Is it really possible to look at the past 10 years even \u2014 from Enron, to 9\/11, to Bernie Madoff, to dozens of other scandals \u2014 and not believe in the sinfulness of human nature?<\/p>\n
In my opinion, a person who can do that is a candidate not for \u201cde-baptism,\u201d but for a padded cell.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t mean to be too harsh, but that attitude is a total denial of everything that human history and human culture teaches. And yet that just might be the attitude the \u201cde-baptized\u201d are celebrating.<\/p>\n
The eminent scholar Alan Jacobs, professor of English at Wheaton College, puts it well in his book ORIGINAL SIN: A CULTURAL HISTORY. As Alan explains, even though the doctrine of original sin is unattractive and difficult to understand, we cannot deny its effects on our world. He writes, \u201cAgain and again the literature and culture of the West have returned to this doctrine, worrying over it, loathing it, rejecting it \u2014 only to call it back in times of great crisis or great misery.\u201d<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s hope it doesn\u2019t take another catastrophe to bring the \u201cde-baptized\u201d back to their senses.<\/p>\n
The sad truth is that every time we think mankind has liberated itself from the dusty old notions of sin and evil, we discover how disastrously wrong we were.<\/p>\n
________<\/p>\n
Copyright (c) 2009 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. “BreakPoint with Chuck Colson” is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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