The Gospel Banner

 By  Nana Yaw Aidoo I hold that if a man resists challenges to his views, that man does not own his views but rather is owned by his views. Hence, it is only right to ask whether we might have been mistaken when we read or hear viewpoints that contradict what we believe to be true. I have encountered two such challenges to certain beliefs that I hold, these past few weeks. An acclaimed gospel preacher made a Facebook post in which he declared; “You are not a sinner because you sinned. You sinned because you are a sinner.” A few days later an even more experienced gospel preacher would make clear what the first one implied in his Facebook post when in an otherwise beautiful sermon, he spoke of “the sinful nature which we inherited from Adam.” In other words, Adam’s nature was corrupted when he sinned, and that very corrupted or sinful nature is inherited by Adam’s race through procreation. This view, called hereditary depravity by theologians, is one that I reject. And after some thin