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 | In Genesis, Adam, Eve, and a serpent disobeyed God and were punished. This punishment extended to their children, grand children, and subsequent descendents. Two hundred and forty generations later, humans today are still being punished for the original sin of our first parents. |
| Also in Genesis, because of widespread violence, wickedness and evil by men and women around the world, God created a great genocidal flood. Almost the entire human race drowned, including innocent newborns, infants and children below the age of accountability. |
| Also in Genesis, Ham, a son of Noah, apparently committed an immoral act against his father. He was not punished, but a curse was placed on his son and his son's descendents to be forever enslaved. |
| In the book of Joshua, more innocent newborns, infants, and children were slaughtered as part of a genocide against the Canaanites. The mass murder was justified on the basis that the adults in the country worshiped the wrong God. |
| The Christian Scriptures contain support for the conservative Christian belief that one can be saved by trusting Yeshua of Nazareth (a.k.a. Jesus Christ) as Lord and Savior. One result of salvation that one attains Heaven after death in place of Hell. Another is that one's sins are transferred to Yeshua on the cross, who was said to have led a sinless life. One's sins are remembered no more by God. |
Examples of such punishment do occur: Some are:
| In the USSR, individuals were often oppressed because of their parents' anti-Communist beliefs or actions. | ||||
| During 2002, the tribal council in Meerwala, Pakistan ordered Mukhtaran Bibi to be forcibly gang raped because her brother was alleged to have had an affair with a woman of a higher-status. 4 | ||||
| During many religiously motivated mass murders and genocides in the Bible, children were killed solely because of the religious beliefs or religiously motivated actions of their parents or ancestors. | ||||
| The concept of collective responsibility is common today. Some
people hold all Muslims, Christians, Jews, Catholics, men, Caucasians,
etc. responsibility for the actions of one Muslim, Christian, Jew,
Catholic, man, Caucasian, etc. For example:
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Most people are horrified by such actions. Oppressing, raping or killing others who are merely related in some way to a perpetrator is unacceptable. They consider punishment of the innocent for the crimes of the guilty to be morally repugnant, abhorrent, and profoundly immoral.
About the transferability of sin:
Most secularists and followers of the major religious traditions active in North America believe that a person is responsible for their own sinful behavior, and not for the sins of others. They believe that in a just society:
| If a person robs a bank or commits murder, the state does not persecute that person's father, children, or neighbors. Also a person cannot be held responsible for an ancestor's bad behavior. To blame a person for a criminal act which occurred before they were even born is particularly ludicrous, and profoundly immoral. |
| It is irrational and immoral to hold all persons of a given race responsible for the actions of a single person of that race. This also applies to categories other than race, such as gender, sexual orientation, ethnic origin, nationality, language, religion, color, etc. |
| Of all crimes, genocide is considered the most reprehensible, because it typically involves killing many or all members of a given race or culture or religion -- often including the innocent youths, children, infants and newborns -- for the real or imagined sins of adults. |
Comments on the transferability of sin:
Professor Gregory Millema of the philosophy Department at Calvin College describes that, in North America, sin is considered a personal matter and does not spread throughout a culture:
"People in contemporary Western culture think in terms of individual rights, individual liberties, and, presumably, individual responsibilities. According to this characterization of contemporary Western culture, the individual bears moral responsibility for what he or she has done. Moral responsibility is a personal, individual matter, and we should never be expected to bear responsibility for the wrongdoings of another (unless we have agreed to do so voluntarily, as when we take responsibility for the actions of our child, our subordinate, or our senile parent). Moral responsibility is not something which can somehow spread spontaneously through a whole group of people; it is confined to each individual exactly in proportion to what the individual has done or failed to do." 4,5
Retired Bishop John. Shelby Spong of the Episcopal Church, USA described a church service in his parish church during 2007-JUN. He was distressed when a passage from 2 Samuel 12 was read to the congregation. It describes a prophecy by the prophet Nathan that as punishment for David's adulterous affair with Bathsheba and David's subsequent murder of Bathsheba's husband, God would cause David and Bathsheba's infant son to sicken and die. Bishop Spong wrote:
"One of the three lessons from the Bible that Sunday was so dreadful that I first cringed as I heard it read, then I railed against it silently. What I really wanted to do was to shout loudly: 'That is not true.' ... When lessons are read from the Bible the reader normally concludes the reading with the words: 'This is the Word of the Lord!' to which the people dutifully respond like well-trained sheep: 'Thanks be to God.' ... All of these well practiced liturgical acts were designed over the years to surround the Bible with authority, to enhance the power of scripture and to train the minds of the lay people to revere the Bible. Christians have been taught consciously and subconsciously not to confront or to challenge something for which God's authorship is being claimed. ..."
I am not now and have not been for years prepared to acknowledge that the words of the Bible are in fact the words of God in any literal sense. In worship, therefore, when I hear a biblical passage read that portrays God as a kind of monster, whose behavior would not be recognized as moral by any standard today, I am offended. ..."That approach to the Bible must be challenged as must the debilitating message that so many hear in church. The Bible is filled with dark, unlearned themes that in the hands of 'the righteous' give rise to an abusive use. It has in its pages what I have called: 'The Sins of Scripture.' It is time for the Christian Church to say that publicly, openly, honestly. 6
The Bible vs. modern culture:
In most cultures, sin is attributed to the sinner, and is not transferable to another person or group of people. This belief forms the foundation of the world's justice systems. Modern secular and religious moral codes affirm the thought expressed in Deuteronomy 24:16 which states that children are not to be executed for the sins of their fathers, or vice versa:
"The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin."
Many would reject the concept that the children, grandchildren, great grandchildren and great-great grandchildren of a person who hates God are to be punished. This thought is found in Exodus 20:5, which is part of the most frequently cited version of the Ten Commandments:
"Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them (idols), nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me." 1
Yet, the concept mentioned in the Ten Commandments that sin can be transferred from the guilty to the innocent is found throughout the Bible:
| There are many passages in the Hebrew Scriptures which conflict with
modern religious and secular codes of morality. Many events in ancient Hebrew
history are described in which
either:
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| We have also found examples in the Christian Scriptures (New Testament) in which sin is transferred from guilty individuals to an innocent person or persons. |
References:
- From the King James Version of the Bible.
- "Bishop Spong Q&A," Beliefnet, 2005-JUN-08.
- Rev. James Petigru Boyce, "Absyract of ?Systematic Theology," (1887), Chapter 28, Page 60, at: http://www.founders.org/
- Gregory F. Millema, "Collective Responsibility: Introduction", Rodopi, (1997). Read reviews or order this book safely from Amazon.com online book store
- Online at: http://www.calvin.edu/
- J.S. Spong, "This is Not the Word of the Lord," A New Christianity for a New World series, 2007-JUN-27. http://secure.agoramedia.com/
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Copyright © 2002 to 2007 by Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
Originally written: 2002-OCT-20
Latest update: 2007-JUN-28
Author: B.A. Robinson
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