Structural Sin and the Death of Institutions

Structural Sin and the Death of Institutions explores how Christian understandings of sin map onto institutional failures. It argues that institutions frequently create conditions in which individuals are disempowered and disposed to sin, and that uncritical appeals to redemption, reconciliation and restoration perpetuate harm. The book engages the turn to despair, abolition and termination in recent theologies, and builds on work by those working in other fields including the penal abolitionist movement. It offers an account of sins common to many institutions, including secrecy, exceptionalism, and the over-privileging of institutional reputation, and argues that Christian accounts of forgiveness of sin should not gloss over damage but appropriately remember the past. The volume will appeal to readers interested in Christian doctrines of sin and ecclesiology, including scholars of theological ethics, practical theology, and political theology, and to those asking how far their own continued association with flawed institutions is an unacceptable moral compromise.

Susannah Cornwall is Professor of Constructive Theologies at the University of Exeter, UK.