Sin, Shame, and Resonance: Affordances and Dis-affordances of the Doctrine of Sin in Young People’s Theologizing

Drawing on a qualitative study of how young people in Christian youth ministries theologize about existential dilemmas related to sin and shame, this paper explores the affordances and dis-affordances (Reichel, 2023) of the Lutheran doctrine of sin. The study discloses an unresolved ambiguity: the liberating force of the doctrine of sin, as theologized by the young people, is not connected to what they describe as their primary existential dilemma – a profound sense of shame. Taking the approach of theology as design (Reichel, 2023), the paper points to how the doctrine of sin could be made more relevant to the young people’s lived experiences if it were to integrate the language of shame more explicitly. To make such a move we draw on Hartmut Rosa’s theory of resonance (Rosa, 2019) and particularly the concept of categorial inadequacy related to the Lutheran understanding of sin as being curved in on oneself.