"Ashley Madison is the number one service for people seeking discreet relationships."
translation: "Ashley Madison is the number one service for people seeking to cheat on their spouse/partner and get away with it". Adultery rebranded as discretion.
"Some journalists have turned the focus of the criminal act against Ashley Madison inside out, attacking us instead of the hackers," the company said on Monday. (source)
that's right, because what you do stinks. It isn't illegal but it's destructive and evil. Every secret will eventually be revealed, so the hackers have just given 33m people a sneak preview of one small aspect of the day of judgement. People will sin if they can persuade themselves that a) they aren't really doing something that bad and b) they can get away with it. Ashley Madison is complicit in both.
In other news, Mammon continues its baleful patronage of global football. Spending £1bn on footballers in a calendar year isn't obscene conspicuous consumption on bread and circuses, it's 'investing in playing talent'. Of course.How many desperate refugees in mainland Europe you could effectively transfer to a fruitful new life with £36m, instead of moving 1 football player?
Showing posts with label sin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sin. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 02, 2015
Thursday, April 02, 2015
Christianity: Public Benefit, Personal Benefit
The contrast between the Christianity I see our culture belittle nightly, and the Christianity I see our country benefit from daily, could not be greater.
The reality of Christian mission in today’s churches is a story of thousands of quiet kindnesses. In many of our most disadvantaged communities it is the churches that provide warmth, food, friendship and support for individuals who have fallen on the worst of times. The homeless, those in the grip of alcoholism or drug addiction, individuals with undiagnosed mental health problems and those overwhelmed by multiple crises are all helped — in innumerable ways — by Christians....
...genuine Christian faith — far from making any individual more invincibly convinced of their own righteousness — makes us realise just how flawed and fallible we all are. I am selfish, lazy, greedy, hypocritical, confused, self-deceiving, impatient and weak. And that’s just on a good day. As the Book of Common Prayer puts it, ‘We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts…And there is no health in us.’
Christianity helps us recognise and confront those weaknesses with a resolution — albeit imperfect and fragile — to do better. But more importantly, it encourages us to feel a sense of empathy rather than superiority towards others because we recognise that we are as guilty of selfishness and open to temptation as anyone.
More than that, Christianity encourages us to see that, while all of us are prey to weakness, there is a potential for good in everyone. Every individual is precious
Monday, January 21, 2013
The National Lottery: pet parasite of the nation.
It's amazing how quickly we come to regard institutionalised sin as part of the national furniture:
There are those who claim that to argue against a pastime which gives moments of pleasure in ordinary lives is elitist and snobbish. The truth is the very opposite. It is the Lottery which is the ultimate in social divisiveness. The poor make regular contributions to the rich; in return, one out of many millions will be rewarded and held up as an example of the good fortune which could befall any of them. Could there be a more cynical form of elitism?
If Conservatives truly believed in the importance of work and the market, they would oppose the National Lottery. If those on the left disapproved of exploitation of the vulnerable, their position would be the same. Yet in politics and in the media, it is given a free ride.
Camelot has announced that the Lottery is being revamped. Its central message will, of course, remain unchanged. Your life can be transformed by greed and gambling.
more here.
As reported last week, Camelot are doubling the price that Lotterites will have to pay for their weekly fix, offset by rises in payouts to the miniscule number who actually win. Did you notice the big national debate that kicked off? Me neither, with the above article being one of the exceptions.
Gambling is a cancer on the poor, sucking most money out of the most deprived communities. A local set of shops in one of the less prosperous parts of Yeovil has seen several businesses and retailers fail, yet the bookies carries on. The gambling industry has been strangely immune to the recession, with year on year increases almost across the board even since the banking crash. .
Meanwhile some of the MPs who are supposed to scrutinise this are in the pay of the gambling industry. One bad but possibly credible argument for raising MPs salaries is that it will make them harder for vested interests to buy, but with several billion to play with I can see the gaming industry comfortably outbidding whatever salary we give our legislators. Government statistics show that problem gambling has increased, despite the recession, yet what's happening to address this? At least the Camelot price hike might put a few more people off the gateway drug of the Lottery, though I doubt this has come high in their considerations.
The gambling industry is a parasite, and the Lottery is its equivalent of bread and circuses. If the BBC can devote prime hours each week to promoting the Lottery, then don't expect them to host a national debate on its merits. That's going to have to come from somewhere else, but we have to have it.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Evasive Action
“Poetry may make us a little more aware of the deeper unnamed feelings which form the substratum of our being, to which we rarely penetrate, for our lives are mostly a constant evasion of ourselves.” TS Eliot.
I heard this quoted by Gordon MacDonald a few months ago, reflecting on the fall of King David, and our habit of running away from our past rather than repairing it. It's one of those quotes which has latched on to me and won't let go, so I've a feeling it's not finished with me yet. I do find it easier to be active than reflective, and to fill time with distractions/stuff rather than letting myself settle.
One of the reasons I avoid myself is fear. I was quite nervous getting ready for a 7 day silent retreat back in May, partly it was fear of what God might do to me once He got me alone for 7 days without my Seven Dwarves (Twitter, internet, TV, Wii, Books, background music, comfort snacking) to provide junk consolation. It turned out much better than I expected. But I'm still falling back into the old evasive actions, and still haven't done what I promised I'd do after hearing Macdonalds words. For 6 months I've intended to go back through my life story, asking God to show me where the knots and wounds are, and to help me face up to them. And I'm still avoiding it.
I heard this quoted by Gordon MacDonald a few months ago, reflecting on the fall of King David, and our habit of running away from our past rather than repairing it. It's one of those quotes which has latched on to me and won't let go, so I've a feeling it's not finished with me yet. I do find it easier to be active than reflective, and to fill time with distractions/stuff rather than letting myself settle.
One of the reasons I avoid myself is fear. I was quite nervous getting ready for a 7 day silent retreat back in May, partly it was fear of what God might do to me once He got me alone for 7 days without my Seven Dwarves (Twitter, internet, TV, Wii, Books, background music, comfort snacking) to provide junk consolation. It turned out much better than I expected. But I'm still falling back into the old evasive actions, and still haven't done what I promised I'd do after hearing Macdonalds words. For 6 months I've intended to go back through my life story, asking God to show me where the knots and wounds are, and to help me face up to them. And I'm still avoiding it.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Sin and Misery
"Failure to attain a deeply satisfying life always has the effect of making sinful actions seem attractive. Here lies the strength of temptation.
this is no less true if the failure is caused by our efforts to be what we regard as 'spiritual'. Normally, overcoming temptation will be easier if we are basically happy in our lives. To cut off the joys and pleasures associated with our bodily and social existence as 'unspiritual', then, can actually ahve the effect of weakening us in our efforts to do what is right."
Dallas Willard, 'the Spirit of the Disciplines' p81
this is no less true if the failure is caused by our efforts to be what we regard as 'spiritual'. Normally, overcoming temptation will be easier if we are basically happy in our lives. To cut off the joys and pleasures associated with our bodily and social existence as 'unspiritual', then, can actually ahve the effect of weakening us in our efforts to do what is right."
Dallas Willard, 'the Spirit of the Disciplines' p81
Tuesday, September 01, 2009
The 'Doesn't Count List'
Came across this on 'Stuff Christians Like', very challenging:
I think every Christian has a “Doesn’t Count List” (DCL), a collection of small things we do that might not be completely in God’s will for our life, but they’re so tiny they don’t really matter. If you say you don’t have a DCL, apparently lying is one of the items on yours because that’s just what you did.
.........You could easily read my Doesn’t Count List and think, “Everybody does that. We can’t be perfect, what’s the big deal?” And you’d be right, we can’t be perfect, but what I’ve found in my own life is that the DCL is never satisfied with staying small and insignificant. It’s a hungry little list. It always wants more of your life. It always wants you to add new things to it. To grow and stretch until it’s a mile long.
If you can cope with a good hard look in the mirror, then it's worth reading the whole post. And if you read it all without being challenged, then you're either a saint or in serious trouble.
'Stuff Christians Like' is not to be confused with 'Stuff Christian Culture Likes', but both are a pretty good reality check.
I think every Christian has a “Doesn’t Count List” (DCL), a collection of small things we do that might not be completely in God’s will for our life, but they’re so tiny they don’t really matter. If you say you don’t have a DCL, apparently lying is one of the items on yours because that’s just what you did.
.........You could easily read my Doesn’t Count List and think, “Everybody does that. We can’t be perfect, what’s the big deal?” And you’d be right, we can’t be perfect, but what I’ve found in my own life is that the DCL is never satisfied with staying small and insignificant. It’s a hungry little list. It always wants more of your life. It always wants you to add new things to it. To grow and stretch until it’s a mile long.
If you can cope with a good hard look in the mirror, then it's worth reading the whole post. And if you read it all without being challenged, then you're either a saint or in serious trouble.
'Stuff Christians Like' is not to be confused with 'Stuff Christian Culture Likes', but both are a pretty good reality check.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Does bad Theology empty the Church?
Found this 2 minute snippet very thought-provoking. What do you think?
From Man of Depravity, who argues from this that we need to be a church which takes human sin and confession more seriously. Ht Tyler Braun on twitter.
From Man of Depravity, who argues from this that we need to be a church which takes human sin and confession more seriously. Ht Tyler Braun on twitter.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Is the Crunch a Catholic? The Seven Deadly Sins and the Credit Crunch
Though the Catholic church seems to have recently mislaid its moral compass, it was not always so. Long before they were linked to the churches own financial scandal, the Seven Deadly Sins were commended as a medieval precursor of PSHE. Since nothing else seems to be working, gimme some old time religion....
Greed is the desire for material wealth or gain, ignoring the realm of the spiritual. It is also called Avarice or Covetousness.
Gluttony is an inordinate desire to consume more than that which one requires.
Envy is the desire for others' traits, status, abilities, or situation.
Hang on, I thought these were drafted in the 4th century? It all sounds strangely familiar. All you need to do is add 'marketing' to link Envy to the other two, and you have consumer capitalism. You could draw other lines from Gluttony to the obesity problem, or global warming, and one from Greed to Thatcherism.
Lust is an inordinate craving for the pleasures of the body.
Mmm......now where were we? Oh yes. That makes 4 sins which are about having stuff we don't currently possess, which is the engine room of consumerism. When this instinct spills over into relationships you get affairs, rape, and a whole load of stuff which stems from seeing people no longer as people, but as means to satisfy our own desires. Meanwhile the tabloids print pictures of naked women opposite a story on a sex offender and never do the maths.
Pride is excessive belief in one's own abilities, that interferes with the individual's recognition of
the grace of God. It has been called the sin from which all others arise. Pride is also known as Vanity.
I don't know if phrases like "we have abolished boom and bust" would count, or a consistent habit of blaming our economic woes on the USA (whatever happened to the special relationship?). One of the many troubles with pride is that, because you never admit to any mistakes, you never learn from them. So much energy is put into maintaining a public facade of competence that we tie ourselves, and others, in knots.
And before we point the finger (oops, too late), it's not just politicians who do this. When did you last read a blog post where, after the comments, the author writes "sorry everyone, I'm obviously talking complete nonsense, you are right and I was wrong."
Anger is manifested in the individual who spurns love and opts instead for fury. It is also known as Wrath.
Seeing the protests around Europe in the last few days, I wonder if we could do with a bit more anger. We've probably got enough going around, but we misdirect it - the middle classes at Jonathan Ross, the young at each other. Anger is a great agent for change if it's directed at the right things, but much of ours is blind fury, a catharsis of our own feelings rather than moved by compassion and a sense of justice.
Sloth is the avoidance of physical or spiritual work.
At last! A sin recognised by the government. Unfortunately this is one we're going to have to get used to. The recession is good news for the slothful, as it's much easier to blend in with the rest of us. Not the best time to launch a welfare-to-work push, though I guess if it fails nobody will notice (see Pride).
The avoidance of spiritual work is perhaps the more serious. Who we are - as individuals and as a society - is to a large extent what we have decided to be, or what we have let ourselves become. We can be proud, greedy and angry, or we can be humble, generous and kind. We have a choice, daily, over which way to go. The path of least resistance leads to all of the above, the road less travelled goes to that old place of myth and legend, Virtue.
And here are the 7 virtues: Faith, Hope, Love/Charity, Courage, Restraint, Justice, and, um, Prudence. It would be interesting to sit down with this list and Obama's inauguration speech and tick them off, one by one, but that's another post. (Meanwhile if you'd rather just have a giggle, go here.) Plenty of money is currently being thrown around to fix our sputtering economies, but we also need to address the questionable morality which got us here. If the debt crunch is at root a moral problem, then how do we fix that?
this is a cross post from Touching Base, a weekly column hosted by the Wardman Wire.
Greed is the desire for material wealth or gain, ignoring the realm of the spiritual. It is also called Avarice or Covetousness.
Gluttony is an inordinate desire to consume more than that which one requires.
Envy is the desire for others' traits, status, abilities, or situation.
Hang on, I thought these were drafted in the 4th century? It all sounds strangely familiar. All you need to do is add 'marketing' to link Envy to the other two, and you have consumer capitalism. You could draw other lines from Gluttony to the obesity problem, or global warming, and one from Greed to Thatcherism.
Lust is an inordinate craving for the pleasures of the body.
Mmm......now where were we? Oh yes. That makes 4 sins which are about having stuff we don't currently possess, which is the engine room of consumerism. When this instinct spills over into relationships you get affairs, rape, and a whole load of stuff which stems from seeing people no longer as people, but as means to satisfy our own desires. Meanwhile the tabloids print pictures of naked women opposite a story on a sex offender and never do the maths.
Pride is excessive belief in one's own abilities, that interferes with the individual's recognition of
the grace of God. It has been called the sin from which all others arise. Pride is also known as Vanity.
I don't know if phrases like "we have abolished boom and bust" would count, or a consistent habit of blaming our economic woes on the USA (whatever happened to the special relationship?). One of the many troubles with pride is that, because you never admit to any mistakes, you never learn from them. So much energy is put into maintaining a public facade of competence that we tie ourselves, and others, in knots.
And before we point the finger (oops, too late), it's not just politicians who do this. When did you last read a blog post where, after the comments, the author writes "sorry everyone, I'm obviously talking complete nonsense, you are right and I was wrong."
Anger is manifested in the individual who spurns love and opts instead for fury. It is also known as Wrath.
Seeing the protests around Europe in the last few days, I wonder if we could do with a bit more anger. We've probably got enough going around, but we misdirect it - the middle classes at Jonathan Ross, the young at each other. Anger is a great agent for change if it's directed at the right things, but much of ours is blind fury, a catharsis of our own feelings rather than moved by compassion and a sense of justice.
Sloth is the avoidance of physical or spiritual work.
At last! A sin recognised by the government. Unfortunately this is one we're going to have to get used to. The recession is good news for the slothful, as it's much easier to blend in with the rest of us. Not the best time to launch a welfare-to-work push, though I guess if it fails nobody will notice (see Pride).
The avoidance of spiritual work is perhaps the more serious. Who we are - as individuals and as a society - is to a large extent what we have decided to be, or what we have let ourselves become. We can be proud, greedy and angry, or we can be humble, generous and kind. We have a choice, daily, over which way to go. The path of least resistance leads to all of the above, the road less travelled goes to that old place of myth and legend, Virtue.
And here are the 7 virtues: Faith, Hope, Love/Charity, Courage, Restraint, Justice, and, um, Prudence. It would be interesting to sit down with this list and Obama's inauguration speech and tick them off, one by one, but that's another post. (Meanwhile if you'd rather just have a giggle, go here.) Plenty of money is currently being thrown around to fix our sputtering economies, but we also need to address the questionable morality which got us here. If the debt crunch is at root a moral problem, then how do we fix that?
this is a cross post from Touching Base, a weekly column hosted by the Wardman Wire.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Touching Base: Confession and the AA 12 Steps
The latest 'touching base' column is now online at the Wardman Wire (link should work now!). Here's a snippet:
As a spotty youth I worked in East London with alcoholics, and realised that the (Alcoholics Anonymous) 12 steps were more than a recovery programme. They made a great rule of life. If you lived by these principles, then there wasn’t a much better path to personal maturity and character.
It’s a tough path, with no short cuts, and requires a level of honesty and stickability that might look frighteningly high. But most alcoholics are desperate enough to have a go, and the 12 steps have yet to be bettered as a recovery programme.
And here’s the sticking point: though we’d all become better people if we followed the 12 Steps, most of us wouldn’t even think about it unless we became desperate. As with climate change, so with personal change - we need to be right on the brink before we’re motivated enough to do anything.
and for the rest go here.
As a spotty youth I worked in East London with alcoholics, and realised that the (Alcoholics Anonymous) 12 steps were more than a recovery programme. They made a great rule of life. If you lived by these principles, then there wasn’t a much better path to personal maturity and character.
It’s a tough path, with no short cuts, and requires a level of honesty and stickability that might look frighteningly high. But most alcoholics are desperate enough to have a go, and the 12 steps have yet to be bettered as a recovery programme.
And here’s the sticking point: though we’d all become better people if we followed the 12 Steps, most of us wouldn’t even think about it unless we became desperate. As with climate change, so with personal change - we need to be right on the brink before we’re motivated enough to do anything.
and for the rest go here.
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
Limp it or Lump it?
Just came across something so perceptive I had to post it:
It's not easy not to be put off the truth by the very persons seeking to bring it about — and the churches have no monopoly on compromise and double standards here.
What's the answer? If every concrete enfleshment of church, morality, truth, justice, politics, family and aesthetics is flawed by inadequacy, dysfunction, infidelity, self-interest, ignorance and abuse, does this give us the right to absent ourselves from commitment?
We have a choice. However, that choice is not between what's perfect (a pure church, social justice that's completely non-compromised, art without ego or arrogance, family life without dysfunction, politics without bias, morality without narrowness, feminism without imbalance, religion without flaw or bad history) and what's bad.
The choice is rather between involvement with the limping, stained and compromised or no involvement at all. (Ron Rolheiser, Ht Bishop Alan)
And of course our choices themselves are just as vulnerable to the effects of sin as the things we are making choices about.
It's not easy not to be put off the truth by the very persons seeking to bring it about — and the churches have no monopoly on compromise and double standards here.
What's the answer? If every concrete enfleshment of church, morality, truth, justice, politics, family and aesthetics is flawed by inadequacy, dysfunction, infidelity, self-interest, ignorance and abuse, does this give us the right to absent ourselves from commitment?
We have a choice. However, that choice is not between what's perfect (a pure church, social justice that's completely non-compromised, art without ego or arrogance, family life without dysfunction, politics without bias, morality without narrowness, feminism without imbalance, religion without flaw or bad history) and what's bad.
The choice is rather between involvement with the limping, stained and compromised or no involvement at all. (Ron Rolheiser, Ht Bishop Alan)
And of course our choices themselves are just as vulnerable to the effects of sin as the things we are making choices about.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
A Bit More Sin
An excerpt from my Touching Base column, going out on the Wardman Wire later today:
The language of sin, at it's best, is diagnosis of dis-ease. The original '7 deadly sins' tried to diagnose the most common motivations for wrong behaviour, and the classical list of pride, lust, greed, laziness, envy, gluttony and anger does cover a multitude of sins. Fr Girottis interview was an attempt to apply these to specific situations, and to social sins in particular.
Unfortunately, when you talk about sin people get all defensive. We don't like being accused of stuff. We don't like being in the wrong.
But unless we discover that we are in the wrong, and deal with it, sin will never go away, and other people will suffer. A leader with no sense of sin, and his own fallibility, is a curse upon his people (ask a Zimbabwean). A parent with no sense of sin and fallibility is a curse upon their family. We may not like the language - maybe it's our cultural aversion to guilt - but we can't escape the reality.
John Ortberg writes (with a bit of paraphrasing):
"Some time ago I became painfully aware that I had lied to a good friend. This had several consequences:
- I walked around under a cloud of guilt
- a silent breach opened up in our relationship because I had placed a barrier of untruth between us
- I was a bit more inclined to tell a lie next time
- I found myself avoiding God.
When I recognised all this, I knew I had to confess to my friend. Even then it took me some time to face my embarrassment. However, when I'd looked at the results of my actions as honestly as I could, a wonderful thing happened: I found myself not wanting to lie again. Unravelling the knots of the motives and consequences of our sin requires a patient, quiet spirit. But what price wouldn't we pay to be free?"
As Easter week starts, we're reminded again of how desperately God wants to forgive sins, to the extent of his own suffering and death. The journey to the Cross is not a guilt trip. It is both a mirror on the human soul - that the best man who ever lived is condemned by his peers and executed by his own rulers - and a mirror on the soul of God. When Jesus is tortured and killed and still prays 'Father forgive them', that shows us a God who is always, relentlessly, looking for a way to inject grace. Sin is not about feeling guilty, it is about getting better, and opening ourselves up to God's help to do so.
I'm told that the rug makers of North Africa deliberately put a mistake into every item they make. It's a spiritual act, to remind them that 'only God is perfect'. It's ok to be a sinner. God knows you are already, and can cope with it. Can you?
And a more pressing question: does putting this as a post on my own blog, when I've written it for another, count as sloth? All these moral dilemmas make me glad to be a Protestant...
The language of sin, at it's best, is diagnosis of dis-ease. The original '7 deadly sins' tried to diagnose the most common motivations for wrong behaviour, and the classical list of pride, lust, greed, laziness, envy, gluttony and anger does cover a multitude of sins. Fr Girottis interview was an attempt to apply these to specific situations, and to social sins in particular.
Unfortunately, when you talk about sin people get all defensive. We don't like being accused of stuff. We don't like being in the wrong.
But unless we discover that we are in the wrong, and deal with it, sin will never go away, and other people will suffer. A leader with no sense of sin, and his own fallibility, is a curse upon his people (ask a Zimbabwean). A parent with no sense of sin and fallibility is a curse upon their family. We may not like the language - maybe it's our cultural aversion to guilt - but we can't escape the reality.
John Ortberg writes (with a bit of paraphrasing):
"Some time ago I became painfully aware that I had lied to a good friend. This had several consequences:
- I walked around under a cloud of guilt
- a silent breach opened up in our relationship because I had placed a barrier of untruth between us
- I was a bit more inclined to tell a lie next time
- I found myself avoiding God.
When I recognised all this, I knew I had to confess to my friend. Even then it took me some time to face my embarrassment. However, when I'd looked at the results of my actions as honestly as I could, a wonderful thing happened: I found myself not wanting to lie again. Unravelling the knots of the motives and consequences of our sin requires a patient, quiet spirit. But what price wouldn't we pay to be free?"
As Easter week starts, we're reminded again of how desperately God wants to forgive sins, to the extent of his own suffering and death. The journey to the Cross is not a guilt trip. It is both a mirror on the human soul - that the best man who ever lived is condemned by his peers and executed by his own rulers - and a mirror on the soul of God. When Jesus is tortured and killed and still prays 'Father forgive them', that shows us a God who is always, relentlessly, looking for a way to inject grace. Sin is not about feeling guilty, it is about getting better, and opening ourselves up to God's help to do so.
I'm told that the rug makers of North Africa deliberately put a mistake into every item they make. It's a spiritual act, to remind them that 'only God is perfect'. It's ok to be a sinner. God knows you are already, and can cope with it. Can you?
And a more pressing question: does putting this as a post on my own blog, when I've written it for another, count as sloth? All these moral dilemmas make me glad to be a Protestant...
Thursday, March 13, 2008
The New 7 Deadly Sins: A Chart
The marvellous Indexed has produced an updated chart following this weeks (non) announcement by the Vatican of 7 new deadly sins. Just to get this straight: When a second-tier Vatican official gives a newspaper interview, he is not proclaiming new Church doctrines. (from the link), but hey, who needs truth when you've got the blogosphere?Is that finger pointing at me......?
Monday, March 10, 2008
7 New Deadly Sins
The Roman Catholic church has issued an updated list of the 7 deadly sins. For those of you who weren't listening to Sister Agnes in Sunday school, the original list is:
The new list is:
- Pride
- Envy
- Lust
- Gluttony
- Envy
- Sloth
- Greed
The new list is:
- genetic modification,
- carrying out experiments on humans,
- polluting the environment,
- causing social injustice,
- causing poverty,
- becoming obscenely wealthy
- taking drugs.
All this is according to a key chappy at the Vatican, who has been leading a week of training for priests on how to do a good confession. I think the idea is to put more of a focus onto corporate and social sins, alongside just individual stuff.
The Telegraph has an interesting set of comments on this, offering alternative sins such as not looking where you're going whilst texting, and Morris Dancing. Fair enough. Some of the commenters point out that the Catholic church itself is guilty of several of the items on its own list.
Why do we need to identify sin anyway? To me it comes down to whether sin is crime or diagnosis. If it's simply a crime against God, then identifying lists of sins is a way of controlling or modifying behaviour, and holding a big stick over people (provided they're afraid of going to Hell, or of the disapproval of their priest). Seeing sin as diagnosis seems to be more fruitful: a diagnosis identifies disease so that something can be done about it. God's goal is that we should be healed, whole, fully human, not just good little boys and girls. It's a lot easier to point the finger than it is to change, but Jesus came not to point the finger but to change people.
The Vatican list is good in 1 way, in that it's more explicit about what gluttony and greed look like. But it's also too shallow - by naming sin as specific actions, rather than the motivations, social currents and character traits driving them, it doesn't actually diagnose at any depth. It focuses on the symptoms rather than the disease. Surely that sells the Gospel short?
Update: I spent, ooh, 5 minutes trying to find the original source for this and eventually gave up. Damian Thomson has found a comment from the RC church, explaining that this wasn't really what they meant at all. Too late chaps. If Rowan Williams can be misquoted online before he's even spoken, that might have been a learning experience for other communications bods in the church.
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