The Angel Song of Advent Sung in Charleston
When Adam and Eve decided that they had the power and the authority to decide for themselves what was true and untrue, good and evil, they set in train a curse that has fallen upon the entire human race. All who, as the catechism says, descend from Adam by ordinary generation suffer accordingly.
All mankind by their fall lost communion with God, are under his wrath and curse, and so made liable to all miseries in this life, to death itself, and to the pains of hell forever. [Shorter Catechism, Q.19]And so it was that on the 17 June, 2015 Dylann Roof (22) entered a church in Charleston, South Carolina and shot to death nine people gathered to read the Bible and pray. Dylann Roof bears and is living out the curse of Adam. He was born and raised in a family. He has relatives. [Parents: Franklin Bennett Roof, Amelia Cowles. Siblings: Morgan Roof, Amber Roof. Uncle: Carson Cowles.] They, too, all bear Adam's curse.
Inside the church were people also bearing Adam's curse. They were so much like Dylann Roof--same descent, same realities of cursedness. They, however, although so much like Dylann Roof, were also different. Profoundly so. They had been born again, by the Spirit of God, into a new human race. Their human head was no longer Adam, but Jesus Christ--the second Adam, his replacement.
These were plain, ordinary, straightforward, simple folk.
