romans on Outrage

The political cartoonist and Op-Ed writer Tim Kreider has provided us with some insight into the “world of outrage” we currently inhabit. A world that has been amplified by the dawn of the Internet an...

"At the very moment of that vain-glorious thought, a qualm came over me, a horrid nausea and the most dreadful shuddering…I looked down…I was once more Edward Hyde."

A man is being tailgated by a woman who is in a hurry. He comes to an intersection, and when the light turns yellow, he hits the brakes. The woman behind him goes ballistic. She honks her horn at him;...

Do unto those downstream as you would have those upstream do unto you.

Just before Christmas, my whole family piled into our kid-moving vehicle and rushed to the nearest mall to grab some last minute Christmas presents before dashing to a holiday party. As usual, we were...

In the New Testament sin is not merely an individual, privatized transgression of a moral standard (sins is typically used for specific transgressions). It is far more radical than that. Sin is a mist...

Religion is like a knife: you can either use it to cut bread, or stick in someone’s back.

But what will not Ambition and Revenge Descend to? Who aspires must down as low As high he sor’d, obnoxious first or last To basest things.

In the New Testament sin is not merely an individual, privatized transgression of a moral standard (sins is typically used for specific transgressions). It is far more radical than that. Sin is a mist...

A person who suffers bitterly when slighted or insulted should recognize from this that he still harbors the ancient serpent in his breast. If he quietly endures the insult or responds with great humi...

In a famous Earth Day 1971 Pogo comic strip by Walt Kelly, the titular Pogo and his companion Porkypine are enjoying nature when they come upon a clearing filled with trash. Pogo says the iconic line,...

Sin not only alienates; it enslaves. It separates us from God and it also brings us into captivity. We need now to consider the ‘inwardness’ of sin. It is more than the wrong things we do; it is a dee...

People bind themselves into political teams that share moral narratives. Once they accept a particular narrative, they become blind to alternative moral worlds.

Sin is a deep interior dislocation of the soul. It's a desire to keep control of your life.

“Moral”…is an orientation toward understandings about what is right and wrong, just and unjust, that are not established by our own actual desires or preferences but instead are believed to exist apar...

Sin not only alienates; it enslaves. It separates us from God and it also brings us into captivity. We need now to consider the ‘inwardness’ of sin. It is more than the wrong things we do; it is a dee...

In Jeremiah it is clear that the excellence comes from a life of faith, from being more interested in God than in self, and has almost nothing to do with comfort or esteem or achievement. Here is a pe...

When my kids were little, I used to hang piñatas from our favorite tree in the backyard as often as possible. Sometimes we did it for their birthdays, but sometimes we did it because it was Saturday, ...

Almighty and merciful God, the fountain of all goodness, who knows the thoughts of our hearts: We confess that we have sinned against you. Wash us, we implore you, from the stains of our past sins...

A climber recently had to be airlifted off Japan’s Mount Fuji due to altitude sickness. That alone would have been a dramatic enough story. But four days later—still recovering—he climbed back up ...

Man’s nature, so to speak, is a perpetual factory of idols.

Its [Romans] message is not that ‘man was born free, and everywhere he is in chains’, as Rousseau put it at the beginning of The Social Contract (1762); it is rather that human beings are born in sin ...

If we acknowledge that our inclination to sin is part of our natures, and that we will never wholly eradicate it, there is at least something for us to do in our lives that will not in the end seem ju...

Humility is throwing oneself away in complete concentration on something or someone else.

The British poet Thomas Campbell, attending a horse race with some friends, bet one of them (Thomas Wilson) £50 that the horse Yellow Cap, would come in first place. After the race ended, Campbell, th...

These, then, are the two points I wanted to make. First, that human beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to behave in a certain way, and cannot really get rid of it. Seco...

Comparison can be a bad thing, but it can also be a good thing. I’m a millennial, so I would never tell you to shut down all your socials and go back to the Dark Ages. I love that I know you had sushi...

Social responsibility becomes an aspect not of Christian mission only, but also of Christian conversion. It is impossible to be truly converted to God without being thereby converted to our neighbor.

Holy God, we come before You in humility, for we do not live as we ought. We do not love You with our whole heart and mind and strength. We do not love our neighbor as ourselves. We are sinners in nee...

Sin is a suicidal action of the will upon itself. It is like taking an addicting drug. At first it may feel wonderful, but every time it gets harder to not do it again.