Embracing ignorance in order to force literalism is a hallmark of the issue at hand.
Some people can absolutely marvel at the complexity of Life, while at once cling to and demand the most simple explanations without question.
I think sin is anything that displeases God and does not symbolize anything else. I believe that the irreducible truth is that where there is sin, there will always eventually be death.
I believe the bigger lesson here is not about symbolic or literal truth, but about the metaphysical connection of sin and physical death in this world God has created. Death was not created by God. He did not put a second law of thermodynamics into the universe. Sin- Independance from God, caused physical and spiritual death to happen and one role of all religion, and especially Christianity, is to redeem man from death.
Are you satisfied that we only need to know that there was an origin of man, and that how he is now is based on no particular history. Man dies now and that has nothing to do with anything. It is just the way of thingsā¦ has nothing to do with literal disobedience. Disobedience to a personal God or to a creative process? Donāt take God literally, because He (it) is just a concept. I get much more to hang my faith upon by considering Genisis to be historic and literal.
Just jumping in hereā¦.
Churches 
exist within a broader culture and American culture is becoming more anti intellectual and also anti democratic. Personally Iād go so far as to say that a bigger problem isnāt that many in todayās society have some sort of problem with education or the well educated but rather that thereās some sort of retreat and regression into a world of spectacles and entertainment and sound bites and feelings and emotions.
Another problem is that I think what some people perceive as anti intellectualism is the latest form of class warfare heating up. College has become increasingly necessary for many fields and less accessible to many. Upward mobility is not part of the new normal in the USA and that alone is going to spark class conflict.
I donāt think looking at the church in isolation from the large society is the best approachā¦