You might have guessed, I’m more of a Pelagian than an Augustinian. It is not a line I would want to hear in any Anglican - indeed, any Christian - sermon. It was, however, said in a recent sermon in Washington National Cathedral. So what did the self-confessed Pelagian in the pulpit preach? For John, human love is always derivative of the source, God’s love. And my friends, this is exactly why I struggle with the doctrine of original sin. If the divine image of God and God’s love is coded into our factory settings, why then should we, in our purest essence as newborns, why would we be stained with sin in all its wretchedness? How can an innocent child be birthed from sin, when the Bible tells us that we are birthed from love? I love this story, that the Celtic Theologian John Philip Newell tells of the fourth century Celtic monk Pelagius, who was convinced that when we hold a child immediately after its birth, when we feel the softness and smell the sweetness o...
Old High - Burkean - clerk in holy orders