So the line had stuck in my head. “Sex,” I was pretty sure, meant whether you were a boy or girl, and “sin” made Tante Jans very angry, but what the two together meant I could not imagine. And so, seated next to Father in the train compartment, I suddenly asked,...
Many people say that racism is America's original sin. It would be more accurate to say that racism is America's original symptom and it's original sin was greed.
At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes of our lives, which is inaccessible to the...
We all die eventually; we have no choice in the matter. But there are degrees of death before the final physical one. If we are honest, we acknowledge that we are dying throughout our life, and this is what we learn if we are attentive: grace is found at the depths...
On a small scale, person-to-person, Jesus encountered the kinds of suffering common to all of us. And how did he respond? Avoiding philosophical theories and theological lessons he reached out with healing and compassion. He forgave sin, healed the afflicted, cast out...
Sin is not an unfortunate slip or a regrettable act; it is a posture of defiance against a holy God.
The root and origin of sin is the arrogance in which man wants to be his own and his neighbor’s judge.--------------------------------------Gender-inclusive version: The root and origin of sin is the arrogance in which one wants to be one's own and one's neighbor’s...
Many people define sin as the sum total of acts which they themselves do not commit.
The word “scapegoating” originated from an ingenious ritual described in Leviticus 16. According to Jewish law, on the Day of Atonement, the high priest laid hands on an “escaping” goat, placing all the sins of the Jewish people from the previous year onto the animal....
Switching on the lectern light and clearing his throat, the preacher speaks both the word of tragedy and the word of comedy because they are both of them of the truth and because Jesus speaks them both, blessed be he. The preacher tells the truth by speaking of the...