The Imprint of Original Sin on Western Culture

Reflection on beach

Gili Benita (CC0)

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If you weren't raised Christian or if you haven't spent much time in church, you might feel like the doctrine of original sin doesn’t have much to do with you. Maybe not, but when you start to pay attention, you can see messages about salvation, grace, good and evil in the most secular places. In a new book called "Born Bad," historian James Boyce argues that the concept of original sin is the foundation of Western thought.