call yourself a Christian?

I woke up this morning to various graphic descriptions of the Eldoret church massacre in Eastern Kenya. I was there, briefly, in the mid 90s, and my memory of Eldoret was of utter PraisetheLordsville, with every other building a place of Christian worship. I visited Rwanda soon afterwards, soon enough still after the genocide that, when I visited one of the churches in which hundreds there were massacred, they were still sorting the dismembered body parts into neat rows... as though neat rows of dismembered body parts would somehow make up for what they'd done. And I felt this morning as I felt in Rwanda back then: how can people who call themselves Christians and claim a personal relationship with Christ perpetrate such evil?

And then, later on in the morning, I utterly blew up at three of my very closest friends. Certainly, I didn't take pangas to their skulls or burn their babies alive, but I did most definitely say things they found very hurtful that will change our friendships forever and I cannot pretend otherwise. And I call myself a Christian, too.

Theologically, intellectually, I struggle with the concept of Original Sin as a premise on which to base the Christian message. Intuitively, though, instinctively, I can feel such evil inside of me...