Sunday, June 12, 2011

A thought on the Seven Deadly Sins

As another politician falls to the sin of Lust, but none seem ever to be shamed for their dedication to Greed, Envy, Pride, Wrath, Sloth and Gluttony, I cannot help but be taken by the religious and moral outlook that informs so much of our public discourse. 

Our moral scolds only care about certain of the sins, because their Jesus—and it generally is Jesus—is one who is seriously and always concerned about sexual morality, but no other sort, that is, He is clearly not the Jesus who appears anywhere in the Bible they so gladly and conveniently thump but never read or ponder.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Nor the Jesus of the tradition they pretent to care so much about. I love pointing out how for Dante, as with many of the medievals, lust is the least bad of the seven deadlies. Better to be lustful than even to be gluttonous. But, for some contingent historical reasons, so many people are hung up on sex.

Tyler Hower said...

I think they generally know very little about the tradition. And even those members of Churches with long histories have become overly engrossed with sex.
For many of them, if they think about it at all, the Gospel was rediscovered some time in the late 19th or early to mid-20th century in America and has as one of its major tenets that God loves the wealthy and deals with humanity on an entirely one-to-one basis.
Jesus, I take it, threw the money-changers out of the temple mostly because there was too much regulation.