Time to Rethink Christianity, Reincarnation and Original Sin

Over the years newspapers in India have reported experiences wherein a young man or woman with a vivid memory of a former life, leads or is lead by their current parents to some distant location only to be able to identify everyone in their former family and the account of their death is often exactly as people in the other location remember. In further thinking about it and assuming one believes that humans (and perhaps other animals) possess a spirit separate from their earthly bodies, it seemed to me that reincarnation did present the most logical answer to the question of what will happen to us when we die. With an assumption of a loving God (without which all else makes no sense in any event) logic would seem to suggest that at death few of us would be pure of heart and innocent enough to be with God in heaven and few of us would be evil enough to be in hell or that these would be the only two choices. Certainly the idea that the vast majority of humans would be consigned to hell suggests a vengeful and unfeeling God, the kind of God that I refuse to believe exists.

In researching the subject I found that the idea of reincarnation and Christianity was never thought completely laughable. Indeed, one of the founders and martyrs of Christianity, Origen of Alexandria, firmly believed in Christianity and reincarnation, although Origenism as it was known, was declared heresy at the Council of Nicaea, presided over by Constantine in 325 A.D. Since that time only very small Christian sects (perhaps including Celtic, Grail or Druidic Christian churches) have attempted to reconcile Christianity and reincarnation. Believers in Christian reincarnation can, however, point to the Bible itself, especially the book of Matthew and particularly Matthew 17. In it, Jesus identifies John the Baptist as the literal reincarnation of Elijah. In fact, for Old Testament prophecy regarding Jesus to be possible, Elijah would have had to have been present at the time of Christ. The logical problem this poses for Christians that do not believe in reincarnation is obvious.