'Perhaps the most common imbalance in American evangelicalism is to overemphasize the Fall. Consider the typical evangelistic message: "You're a sinner; you need to be saved." What could be wrong with that? Of course, it's true that we are sinners, but notice that the message starts with the Fall instead of Creation. By beginning with the theme of sin, it implies that our essential identity consists in being guilty sinners, deserving of divine punishment. Some Christian literature goes so far as to say we are nothing, completely worthless, before a holy God.
This excessively negative view is not biblical, however, and it lays Christianity open to the charge that it has a low view of human dignity. The Bible does not begin with the Fall but with Creation. Our value and dignity are rooted in the fact that we were created in the image of God, with the high calling of being His representatives on earth. In fact, it is only because humans have such a high value that sin is so tragic. If we we were worthless to begin with then the Fall would be a trivial event. When a cheap trinket is broken, we toss it aside with a shrug. But when a priceless masterpiece is defaced, we are horrified. It is because humans are the masterpiece of God's creation that the destructiveness of sin produces such horror and sorrow. Far from expressing a low view of human nature,. the Bible actually gives a far higher view than the dominant secular view today, which regards humans as simply complex computers made of meat - products of blind, naturalistic forces, without transcendent purpose or meaning.
If we start with a message of sin, without giving the context of Creation, then we will come across to nonbelievers as merely negative and judgemental. After an extended trip through Africa (described in Dark Star Safari) the writer Paul Theroux said one of the saddest moments in his journey was "hearing a young woman [missionary] tell me she was heading for Mozambique and adding, "They're all sinners, you know." Theroux concluded that missionaries only make people "despise themselves." We need to begin our message where the Bible begins - with the dignity and high calling of all human beings because they are created in the image of God.
Moreover, in our secularized culture, startrting with the Fall renders the rest of our message incoherent. In an earlier age, when most Americans were brought up in the church, they were familiar with basic theolgical concepts - which meant that the revivalist's simple message of sin and salvation was often adequate. When people heard, "You're a sinner," they had the context to understand what it meant, and many were moved to repentance. But contemporary Americans often have no background in biblical teaching -which means that the concept of sin makes no sense to them. Their response is likely to be, What is sin? What right does God have to judge me? How do you know He even exists? Beginning with sin instead of creation is like trying to read a book by opening it in the middle: You don't know the characters and can't make sense of the plot.'
Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth, p.87.
