Important thread by @drjjwilliams. I encourage you to read the whole thread, and I'll provide some thoughts of my own in a sub-thread. Sin is a condition: a spiritual force and "power" that holds the whole world captive, not just discrete acts that one commits. 1/
The reason that many white evangelicals have a hard time seeing that systemic racism exists is because they only tend to view "sin" as the latter, whereas black Christians do not. Emerson & Smith show this in their seminal book "Divided by Faith" thru years of research data. 2/
Fleming Rutledge in her magnum opus "The Crucifixion" uses developments in biblical scholarship to show that "Sin" is perceived as also a power and force (esp w/ Paul). Evangelicals' "cultural tools" inhibit their perception of this because of their individualism coram Deo...3/
...that has been around since AT LEAST the Great Awakenings. But the broader/historic Christian tradition has many more tools 4 understanding this: e.g. Augustine, & to a certain extent the EO. White evangelicals would do well to admit they have a culture & expand a bit.4/
