The topic of sin has received relatively little attention in popular discourse over the last couple of generations. Instead, sin has mostly been reinterpreted as a series of psychological and social conditions from which individuals suffer. Thus, the sin of gluttony is revisioned as an eating disorder. The sin of sloth becomes attention deficit disorder, and so on. The social dynamics underlying human failures have been emphasized over individual responsibility, as treatments and medications for individual behaviors once deemed “sinful” have risen to the fore. How do we read the New Testament’s many references to sin and sinful behavior in light of modern tendencies to play down sin as moral failure?
