As a child, I was taught we are inherently unworthy of God’s love. “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us,” I would intone at Sunday mass, along with the other parishioners. I was imploring God, not just to overlook my theft of the last cookie in the pantry, but for something more fundamental. I asked him to remove the heavy weight of shame from my eight-year-old shoulders.

I had absorbed the doctrine of “original sin” into the marrow of my bones, even though it was hard to square with another key teaching of my church: God is love. Surely, I reasoned, a loving God would not send me to hell if I failed to believe in Him?

Eventually I left the religious institution of my childhood, but core ideas have stuck to me like burrs on the back of a (sacrificial) lamb. Looking for a way to live an ethical life outside religion, I ask myself: is there utility in a doctrine of sin?

In the Christian faith, sin can be broadly understood as twofold: original sin and actual sin. Actual sins can be........

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