Sloth: A Twenty First Century Take on an Ancient Vice
For those familiar with the 7 deadly sins, sloth ranks as one of them – the others being envy, vainglory, avarice, anger, gluttony and lust. I was recently interested to read Rebecca Konyndyk De Young’s take on sloth. Validly pointing out that while we tend to associate sloth with laziness, or lounging on the couch munching away at crisps and binge watching Brooklyn 99 yet again, this is not the historic understanding of sloth. The longer understanding of sloth has been that it is a failure to pay attention to what we are called to do. Medieval writers on spirituality warned monks (who were...
Read MoreQuotable: Glittering Vices – Rebecca Konyndyk De Young, Take 2
This is a second selection of snippets from Rebecca Konyndyk De Youngs intriguing 2009 book Glittering Vices: A New Look at the Seven Deadly Sins and their remedies. The title explains the book, which after an exploration of some of the historical understandings of the seven deadly sins (and the opposing virtues against which they were stacked), explores each in turn – envy (the bitterness that flows from believing others have it better), vainglory (believing that image rather than reality is all important), sloth (which rather than laziness, is seen as resistance to doing the work...
Read MoreQuotable: Glittering Vices – Rebecca Konyndyk De Young
This week our selection of quotes comes from Rebecca Konyndyk De Youngs intriguing 2009 book Glittering Vices: A New Look at the Seven Deadly Sins and their remedies. The title explains the book, which after an exploration of some of the historical understandings of the seven deadly sins (and the opposing virtues against which they were stacked), explores each in turn – envy (the bitterness that flows from believing others have it better), vainglory (believing that image rather than reality is all important), sloth (which rather than laziness, is seen as resistance to doing the work...
Read MoreQuotable: Brian Harris, The Big Picture – Take 2
Last week we looked at a few of the statements made in the opening chapters of my 2015 book, The Big Picture: Building Blocks of a Christian World View which people sometimes cite back at me. Here are a few more insights from the book which I hope you will enjoy pondering… Election is not about privilege but responsibility. We are blessed to bless. It is a biblical truth with challenging implications, but if we are to build a Christian world view we must repeatedly affirm that every God-given blessing is for the greater good of all. Brian Harris (p35) Moral instructions in the Bible...
Read MoreQuotable: Brian Harris, The Big Picture
I guess it was an inevitable question: “You have been quoting several different authors in your blog. When are you going to quote yourself?” A simple answer follows… “this week!” Here are a few of the statements made in the opening chapters of my 2015 book, The Big Picture: Building Blocks of a Christian World View which people sometimes cite back at me. I often have a sinking feeling that if Jesus were to revisit this planet, he would feel a need to birth something fairly different from the church as it currently exists. As I read the Gospels, I do not get the feeling that the Jesus...
Read More