The subtitle of this highly interesting book accurately captures its contents. Part 1 presents the theological foundations of the argument, which are based on the freshly coined concept of ‘unoriginal sin’ and then explores repentance as the work of responsibility and repair. In part 2, several ‘case studies’ are presented across three concerns. These concerns are the ‘wicked problems’ of the subtitle: ‘environmental injustice, the exploitation of globalisation, and health disparities’ (p. 113). Climate change is also discussed in part 1 as a wicked problem (p. 16). The interpretive contribution of the neologism ‘unoriginal’ is also clear: ‘unoriginal sin makes us complicit in the harms they [sc. wicked problems] cause’ (p. 113). From such a position, the theme of repentance emerges and leads to the recognition of responsibility and to the work of repair. In other words, the crucial point is that unoriginal sin directs us to the identification and acknowledgement of complicity: our individual actions are ‘enmeshed in structures’ (p. 3). The argument thereby seeks to develop a ‘robust theology of sin and repentance [that] should help us understand our own involvement in harmful systems, demonstrate how we can take responsibility for the harms, and help us discern what we must do to repair those harms’ (p. 7). Unoriginal sin is, in Rebecca Copeland’s presentation, critical and diagnostic.

The term ‘unoriginal’ is proposed as an advance on the term ‘original’ and seeks to distinguish itself from the older term. Copeland’s argument thus has the task of showing how ‘unoriginal’ is itself an act of theological repair. For example, ‘original’ has the merit of directing our attention to sin that originates – in other words, sin has a beginning and, we might hope, an end. Unoriginal in Copeland’s argument does not, I think, deny this – and the new coinage also has the capacity to stress the perdurance of sin: that sinning is inescapable. This is a welcome emphasis, and some contemporary readings of original sin also stress this aspect. In addition, arguing for unoriginal sin as meaning that sin is ‘not inherent or inevitable’ and ‘does not lie at the foundation of human nature’ (p. 8) overlaps with one (narrative) reading of original sin: inescapable but not necessary, fundamental but not foundational. Copeland also proposes the rejection of ‘congenital’ as a basis for unoriginal sin, and this is in line with some contemporary reconstructions of original sin.

In addition, Copeland argues that unoriginal means that sin ‘precedes the willing of the individual human agent’ (p. 8). Unoriginal sin is thereby unavoidable and prevenient – yet it is also one further thing: ‘the result of human agency, choices, and action’ (p. 8). For unoriginal sin, then, there seems to be a tension between the claim that sin has a social and transgenerational beginning prior to individual willing and the claim that it is also the result of human agency. Perhaps this is the point: unoriginal sin names wicked problems as not the result of individual willing (hence the subsequent problem of complicity) and indicates that any action against wicked problems must be collective if it is to be effectual (hence the emphasis on structural sin). The aim is to avoid quietism, understood as the denial of complicity, and in turn to refuse the avoidance of responsibility. Such an analysis is helpful as preparation for the theological interpretation of structural sin – a theme that is important to Copeland’s presentation of the case studies. The creativity of the term is then demonstrated in the way it helps to identify these structural aspects.

The case studies of part 2 are from the United States, which leaves open how fully its diagnoses travel beyond that setting – and, as Copeland notes, they ‘will probably not shock most readers’ (p. 113). The case studies have a double function: they explore further selected wicked problems but also exemplify the way that people might act to repair harms rather than being defeated from the outset by the intractability and scale of the problems. In terms of diagnosis, systemic racism in the perspective of unoriginal sin shows that although such ‘systemic racism grew from intentionally racist practices of discriminatory segregation, zoning, and hiring practices, it no longer requires the malice of overtly racist individuals, actions, or beliefs to continue harming people of racial minorities’ (p. 123). In the context of a discussion of the health disparities and Covid-19, Copeland makes the same point: ‘Using the language of unoriginal sin to describe the health disparities we face recognises that we are living in a dysfunctional system. To say that these disparities are unoriginal sins focuses on the multi-generational, structural, and/or unintentional factors that help to create them’ (p. 164).

Case studies aside, what is most interesting and most portable in this book is the concept of unoriginal sin. Its power may lie less in the introduction of a wholly new theological concept than in a persuasive redescription of themes present, but not always foregrounded, in contemporary interpretations of original sin – especially complicity, structural entanglement and the call to reparative repentance. This is a welcome constructive move and the strength of this book.