After Eden

Is it possible that Christianity—in the global north—may have made a walk of faith easier? Has the narrow way been widened not only by offering a Sunday Morning experience designed to be friendly and supportive rather than instructive and challenging, but a theological creed that correspondingly adjusts the scriptural emphasis away from the Cross and unto a more culturally acceptable interpretation of God’s Word? And what about the warning of eternal judgment? Do we need a new challenge to awaken us to the danger of compromising the message or worse not promoting it at all? Has the church tampered with the theology to explain away certain sins because they are now a part of a culturally acceptable lifestyle and too adversarial in modern thought? Where is the defender of the faith? To ask this in Bonhoeffer’s terms: Has Grace been cheapened? And are certain practices once thought anathema now ... far more christian than we care to admit!? This book is intended to look at the consequence of Adam’s sin and what God expects of His church or the believer in Christ now that He has overcome this woeful beginning. As I studied scripture in the light of some of the current theologies, primarily protestant, reformed or evangelical, many questions were raised because it seems that some theology is the product of reasoning more than scripture; some reflects the general mindset of the time in which it was written and not in language contemporary to the Apostles. Let’s cut to the chase. Is it possible theologians have softened the truth to make Christianity more comfortable for us? Is the theology of two natures, a progressive sanctification, a declared righteousness, and eternal security, doctrines where the rough edge of a scriptural emphasis has been filed down to justify the adage: “I am still just a sinner saved by grace.”