The seven deadly sins are a well-known topic, but, surprisingly, not much has been written about them in recent years from a serious theological viewpoint. Will Willimon's engaging book, which takes an unflinching look at the meaning and substance of sin, will be of great interest to Christians. Study questions by the author are included. The "felt need" is an increasing dissatisfaction with shallow, feel-good Christianity―which does not attempt to grapple with our propensity, visible around us and in our own lives, to do evil. This edition includes a new introduction by the author. A recent study by the Pulpit and Pew Research Center found that Will Willimon is one of the most widely read authors among mainline Protestant pastors, and an international survey conducted by Baylor University named him one of the Twelve Most Effective Preachers in the English-speaking world. With over a million copies of more than sixty books sold, his popularity is undeniable. An unflinching look at the meaning and substance of sin. Will Willimon is a lifelong Methodist. He is Professor of the Practice of Christian Ministry at Duke University Divinity School and retired Bishop of the North Alabama Conference of The United Methodist Church, after serving for twenty years as faculty member and Dean of the Chapel at Duke University. As Bishop, he led North Alabama's 157,000 Methodists and 792 pastors. He has authored roughly a hundred books and is widely recognized as one of Methodism's most insightful, inspiring, and challenging voices. Sinning Like A Christian A New Look at the 7 Deadly Sins By William H. Willimon Abingdon Press Copyright © 2013 Abingdon Press All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-4267-5823-2 Contents Introduction, 1. Thinking About Sin, 2. Pride, 3. Envy, 4. Anger, 5. Sloth, 6. Greed, 7. Gluttony, 8. Lust, Postscript, Questions for Study and Reflection, Notes, CHAPTER 1 THINKING ABOUT SIN In the lurid film Seven, starring Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt, a maniacal killer roams the streets killing a string of victims in a series of gruesome murders. The detectives are stumped until they realize that the perpetrator is killing his victims as a sort of sick punishment for their having committed one of the Seven Deadly Sins. The murders are terrible, the crime scenes are horrible. The whole movie is dark, somber, and sinister. In other words, the movie is quite unlike the historical depictions of the Seven. If only it were true that these sins were the peculiar provenance of the maniac and the madman, a Hitler or a Mao. But the thing that first impresses us about the Seven is how utterly ordinary and unspectacular they are. These are the mundane, all-too-human foibles of the human race in general, not of the few utterly depraved. Perhaps there is something in us that wants to believe that "sin" must apply to someone other than ourselves. Thus we make a movie that depicts the Seven as lurid, bloody, and spectacularly bad. They are not. This is where we live, this is who we are. I wrote this book just after having undergone my church's rather laborious process of episcopal election. My experience of that process by which my church chooses its leaders gave me so many opportunities to observe sin in action—the sins of others and my own—that I became interested in this subject afresh. A process of election that leads to clerical exaltation, a process in which nominees are asked positively to present themselves before others while at the same time acting humble and self-effacing about the whole thing, and a process in which electors must make decisions about the suitability and spirituality of the nominees, is a process that is replete with opportunities for sin. Self-delusion is virtually unavoidable in such a situation. At least it was so for me. Shortly thereafter I watched the shenanigans of the candidates in both political parties during a presidential election—their false promises, self-deceit, and misrepresentation—and thought to myself, mea culpa, mea culpa. As a pastor and a Southerner, I've long been fascinated with sin, my own and that of my parishioners. When one sets out to do good things among good people in a good organization, sin is never far away. In my last parish, some years ago, I wrote a book about sin and evil. But that book depicted sin in a rather large, cosmic, systemic manner. I am now, after the election of bishops, more impressed with the rather mundane, ordinary, petty nature of our sin, just the sort of sin that is named in the Seven. One of the first curiosities about the Seven Deadly Sins is that there are so few sins on the list. Just as God graciously gave us only Ten Commandments, considering all that God might have commanded us, so the church Fathers stopped at a holy, complete number, Seven. They are pride, envy, wrath, sloth, avarice, gluttony, and lechery, or by their more elegant Latin names: superbia, invidia, ira, acedia, avaritia, gul