What, Seven Deadly Sins? You Can’t Be Serious!
“Sin” along with “wickedness” are words we don’t use much anymore. They are out of fashion, except as a label for what those terrible people in the news commit. Dorothy Sayers makes the caustic comment; “A man may be greedy and selfish; spiteful, cruel, jealous, and unjust; violent and brutal; grasping, unscrupulous, and a liar; stubborn and arrogant; stupid, morose, and dead to every noble instinct—and still we are ready to say of him that he is not an immoral man” (Sayers, p.75) Sayers may be overstating it a bit.
What might those seven deadly sins be that the church used to talk about? Oh, everyone can name one deadly sin, immorality or lust, but even that has disappeared under the banner of “freedom.” The media seeks to attract viewers by titillating the sensibilities of men and women. Adultery, fornication, promiscuity arouse little more than a ho hum from viewers. And with the pervasive presence of pornography, such “primitive” attitudes seem to most as passe.
But what of the other six? In her book of essays, Sayers classes three as “warm-hearted or disreputable sins and the remaining four as cold-hearted or respectable sins.” Like everything else, our cultural mores are upside down. Christ expressed real animosity toward the hypocrisy of those who indulged in the so-called respectable ones.
In the first category is wrath with its step-children, violence, rancor, revenge, brawling, brutality, and war. Bar brawls. Quarrels with neighbours. Family violence centering on the abuse of wives and children. Why is this so prevalent? Of especial astonishment is the historic and wide-spread unreasoning animosity toward the Jewish people. And why has there been so much violence committed against Christians in various parts of the world?
Then comes gluttony along with indulgence in alcohol and drugs. Sayers broadens this category to include the gluttonous consumption of goods. Discontent with what we have leads us to amass more and more. The state of garages throughout North America where there is not room for cars is a testament to this addiction to collection.
Aware of our human dissatisfaction, advertisers flatter and cajole consumers to create a greedy hankering about goods that are not really needed. Governments fan this lust in the view that healthy economies are built by fanning human dissatisfaction with one’s clothes, furniture, cars, and the size of our houses. Goods should be created that do not last too long so we’ll buy replacements or new styles.
Is addiction to our phone screens part of this failing? Just one more reel to enjoy. One more blog to read. One more post to tick off until the minutes wash into hours. And we wonder where did our time go. It’s a fear that we might miss something. This fear has become so pervasive that it has been labeled FOMO, fear of missing out.
Covetousness is incarnated in business corporations, stock companies, investment bankers—and us. It is labeled as enterprise. The genuine desire to prosper and succeed has been the impetus behind many laudable advances in society. It is only when it becoming a besetting drive that sacrifices moral and family values that it becomes harmful. Even some churches can succumb to this drive by coveting a larger sanctuary, more people, better music, or a more polished preacher to advance their reputation and fame rather than for the glory of God.
The Christian virtue that would deliver us from gluttony and covetous is contentment. Why not restrict purchases to what is really needed? Cultivating our relationship with God can provide a more fruitful satisfaction. Sayers has a thought here for the writer and artist. “If the artist lets his work be influenced by the consideration of marketing, he will discover that what he is producing is not art.”
Next comes envy which hates to see others happy. If one cannot possess whatever another has, the envious person longs to see that person’s enjoyment dashed to pieces. Sayers writes that “In love, envy is cruel, jealous, and possessive. My friend and my marriage partner must be wholly wrapped up in me …If we cannot be happy together, we will be unhappy together, but there must be no escape into pleasures that I cannot share.” (p. 93)
I wonder if the impetus behind so many scandal sheets and tell-all programs is a recognition that pandering to human envy can be very profitable. If we cannot have what our sports and TV heroes have, let’s hear the worst about them. Let’s destroy their reputations so we can feel good about what we have. It’s a war of the have-nots against the haves.
The sixth sin is sloth, a kind of tolerance of indolence. Sayers writes, “sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, loves nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and remains alive only because there is nothing it would die for.”
In our hyper-active western world, we pretend to flee sloth at any cost. But Sayers perceptively uncovers the deceit we use to hide our indifference. She claims that the other sins are but cloaks we use to disguise “the empty heart and the empty brain and the empty soul of acedia (sloth)” (p.98) We hide our emptiness beneath a gluttonous consumption of foods or drinks or screen addiction. Covetousness forces us out of bed to pursue business with great intensity so we can acquire what we don’t need. Envy provides a smokescreen of gossip that soothes our jealousy. Wrath enables us to hide behind indignation over the evils of this dark world. (See p. 98)
Finally, we come to the basic sin, pride. It’s all about me and mine, my race and my country, my brand, my political party. We don’t need God. We can do it. And because our imagination can harness our skills and gifts, we make considerable progress. Witness our cities, our technology, even our agriculture.
Pride promotes a belief in the perfectibility of man and in inevitable progress. We imagine utopias we can build. It’s all about the kingdom of man. It is hubris, ego, pious plans for our victory. We’re sure we can make robots in our own image that will lead us into the promised land. No need for God and his kingdom. Unfortunately, we discover instead broken families, broken governments, broken neighbourhoods and the almost endemic presence of wars.
So there we have it. Seven deadly sins; immorality, wrath, gluttony, covetousness, envy, sloth, and pride. Their conquest is only possible through the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit mediated through faith in Jesus Christ who died for our sins, to break their power over us and rose to conquer them in our lives. “For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that denying ungodliness and world lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world.; Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works” (Titus 2:11-14).
(This article is based on The Other Six Deadly Sins in Dorthy Sayers’ book, Letters to a Diminished Church – Passionate Arguments for the Relevance of Christian Doctrine, pp 75-101, Nelson, 2004)
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