Marcus J. Borg Quote

[S]in in popular Christianity is often understood individualistically, obscuring the reality of social sin. An emphasis upon sin most often leads to introspection about what I have done wrong. Of course, such introspection can be helpful, but it clouds the fact that much of human suffering and misery is not because of our individual sins, but because of collective sin. For example, when it is emphasized that Jesus died for our sins (and thus for your sins and my sins), our sins are seen as responsible for Jesus’ death.But it wasn’t individual sins that caused Jesus’ death. He wasn’t killed because of the impure thoughts of adolescents or our everyday deceptions or our selfishness. The point is not that these don’t matter. The point, rather, is that these were not what caused Jesus’ death. Rather, Jesus was killed because of what might be called social sin, namely, the domination system of his day. The common individualistic understanding of sin typically domesticates the political passion of the Bible and Jesus.