Yesterday’s post was wrong. Cain was not the first to protest against God’s Will to the point of disobedience. Cain was a mere embodiment of the Original Sin of Protestantism. If Cain wasn’t the first Protestant, who? Eve.
It made sense to say, “Cain was the first Protestant.” The adjectives that described Cain included “angry, downcast, ill-disposed, lying, disobedient, slothful, jealous, impatient, accursed, unproductive, wandering fugitive who hides from God”.
When he killed his own brother, he had fallen so far from God that “first Protestant” seemed the perfect description.
But, it was the mother of the murderer who first protested against obedience to God. Eve’s colossal conceit concluded: “Appeasing my vanity is more important than obeying God.” Eve heard the lies of the snake. She knew they were lies. She loved those lies more than God’s truth because they gave her an excuse to let her vanity run free. Eve freely chose to eat the forbidden fruit. Eve was the first Protestant.
It was her original sin that corrupted the human programs who inherited the swollen vanity that led the lost of every age to separate themselves from God by saying, “I’m as good as God and do as I please.”
Many, many Protestants would follow. Billions of them. They included all who put feeling good about themselves ahead of obeying God and The Only Church He Founded. In every age, Protestants echo the First Protestant’s loving of self more than God.
And, as Adam and Eve, when Protestants sense that God is near, they hide in the woods.