The earliest converts were converted by a single historical fact (the Resurrection) and a single theological doctrine (the Redemption) operating on a sense of sin which they already had—and sin, not against some new fancy-dress law produced as a novelty by a ‘great man’, but against the old, platitudinous, universal moral law which they had been taught by their nurses and mothers. The ‘Gospels’ come later and were written not to make Christians but to edify Christians already made.
CS Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
A sense of sin is perhaps our most essential sense.
The seven deadly sins of the 21st century:
Intolerance
Failure to mask/vax
Whiteness
Heteronormativity
Climate denial
Election denial
Christianity
I was converted in 1994 (at the age of 64) after reading “Who moved the stone,” which convinced me that the Resurrection did occur. Needless to say, I had a sense of sin, but the notion of redemption came later.
CAG-
You correctly identify secular humanism as a religion with dogmas and sins.
It is, of course, a false religion, and sadly has less truth in it than most of the others because it acknowledges no God and has little to support its beliefs other than the proclamations of its self appointed prophets. It has a holy writ called science – a book that is both constantly revised and always infallible.
The followers are often more devoted, more certain, and more evangelistic than the followers of Christ. They are rapidly making it the state religion of the world. They have little tolerance for what they consider heresy and will exert power against heretics to “cure them for their own good” with no mercy, because they believe they are right.
We will soon be ( or already are) in a religious war with these infidel and it will be fought with the tenacity and fierceness of any other previous war of religion.
Unless we decline to fight and sell out Our Lord. It’s been known to happen…
“… it acknowledges no God and has little to support its beliefs other than the proclamations of its self appointed prophets.”
And, increasingly, the full weight of the “justice” system.