Avoiding Romanticization of Sin in Cultural Engagement
Christian theology distinguishes sharply between acknowledging the reality of sin and treating it as something to be aestheticized or celebrated. The doctrine of original sin establishes that humanity inherits a corrupted nature from Adam's transgression, not through imitation but through propagation [2]. This inherited corruption means that "we are not corrupted by acquired wickedness, but bring an innate corruption from the very womb" [2], placing every person under the curse of Adam's disobedience [1]. The Reformed tradition emphasizes that this corruption affects our entire nature, resulting in both guilt before God's justice and pollution of our moral faculties [4].
The Nature of Sin's Corruption
Sin involves both guilt—our liability before divine justice—and pollution—the corruption of our nature that makes us incongruous with God's holiness [4]. Charles Hodge articulates this dual aspect: "The one expresses its relation to the justice, the other to the holiness of God" [4]. This understanding prevents any romanticization of sin by establishing that it represents fundamental alienation from the source of all good. Augustine's anti-Pelagian writings stress that even infants bear this corruption, describing "a heavy yoke upon the sons of Adam from the day that they go out of their mother's womb" [6].
Sin's Comprehensive Reach
The tradition uniformly rejects any notion that sin can be compartmentalized or treated as morally neutral. Calvin notes that "one sin is sufficient to efface and extinguish all remembrance of former righteousness" [3], citing James 2:10 to show that offending in one point makes one guilty of all [3]. Aquinas similarly emphasizes that "every actual sin is caused by our will not yielding to God's law" [5], whether through transgression, omission, or acting contrary to divine command. This comprehensive view of sin's reach means that cultural engagement cannot treat sinful patterns as merely aesthetic choices or neutral expressions of human creativity.
The theological framework thus provides no ground for romanticizing sin in any sphere. Since God accepts only "righteousness, innocence, and purity" [1], and since sin represents hardness of will against divine law [5], cultural artifacts that celebrate or aestheticize rebellion against God's order must be recognized as expressions of the very corruption the gospel addresses.
Sources
- CCEL (Reformed) “John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, section 37: by God, to whom nothing is acceptable but righteousness, innocence, and purity. This is not liability for another’s fault. For when it is said, that the sin of Adam has made us obnoxious to the justice of God, the meaning is not, that we, who are in ourselves innocent and blameless, are bearing his guilt, but that since by his transgression we are all placed under the curse, he is said to have brought us under obligation. 146 146 The French is, “Car en ce qui est d’t, que par Adam nous sommes fait redevables au jugement de Dieu, ce”
- CCEL (Reformed) “John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, section 37: was clearly proved from Scripture that the sin of the first man passed to all his posterity, recourse was had to the cavil, that it passed by imitation, and not by propagation. The orthodoxy, therefore, and more especially Augustine, laboured to show, that we are not corrupted by acquired wickedness, but bring an innate corruption from the very womb. It was the greatest impudence to deny this. But no man will wonder at the presumption of the Pelagians and Celestians, who has learned from the writings of that holy man how extreme th”
- CCEL (Reformed) “John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, section 69: possible for us to perform works absolutely pure, yet one sin is sufficient to efface and extinguish all remembrance of former righteousness, as the prophet says ( Ezek. 18:24 ). With this James agrees, “Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, is guilty of all,” ( James 2:10 ). And since this mortal life is never entirely free from the taint of sin, whatever righteousness we could acquire would ever and anon be corrupted, overwhelmed, and destroyed, by subsequent sins, so that it could not stand the scrutin”
- CCEL (Reformed (Old Princeton)) “Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, Vol. 2, section 44: God is the source and standard of all good. His favour is the life of the soul. Congeniality with Him, conformity to his will and nature, is the idea and perfection of all excellence; and the opposite state, the want of this congeniality and conformity, is the sum and essence of all evil. Sin includes Guilt and Pollution. Sin includes guilt and pollution; the one expresses its relation to the justice, the other to the holiness of God. These two elements of sin are revealed in the conscience of every sinner. He knows himself to be amenable”
- theology (Catholic (Scholastic)) “Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Supplement (Supplementum), Of the Object of Contrition, Art. 3: Article: Whether we should have contrition for every actual sin? I answer that, Every actual sin is caused by our will not yielding to God's law, either by transgressing it, or by omitting it, or by acting beside it: and since a hard thing is one that is disposed not to give way easily, hence it is that a certain hardness of the will is to be found in every actual sin. Wherefore, if a sin is to be remedied, it needs to be taken away by contrition which crushes it. On the contrary: On the contrary, Penanc”
- Schaff ANF/NPNF (Patristic) “NPNF1 Vol 5: Augustine — Anti-Pelagian — CHAP. 50.--THE RISE AND ORIGIN OF EVIL. THE EXORCISM AND EXSUFFLATION OF INFANTS, A PRIMITIVE CHRISTIAN RITE. (part 2): is altogether vanity;" (7) or how the apostle says, "every creature was made subject to vanity;" (8) or how it is written in the book of Ecclesiastes, "vanity of vanities; all is vanity: what profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun?" (9) and in the book of Ecclesiasticus, "a heavy yoke is upon the sons of Adam from the day that they go out of their mother's womb to the day that they return to the mother of all”