Augustine and the Weight of Sin

Many Christians were taught some version of it. We are born sinners. Even a newborn carries Adam's guilt and stands condemned before God until something washes it away. Some churches teach it gently, some with fire, and some only in the fine print of a creed.

You're not imagining it. Telling parents that their newborn is guilty before God, and might be lost if it dies before a ritual, is a cruel thing to say. Many grieving mothers have heard it. Most Christians don't know where the idea came from, or that it reached full form four hundred years after Jesus. They also don't know what Jesus said about children, which was close to the opposite.

Measured against the center