In archetypal “rebirth” plotlines, decisive change comes via a gift or agent external to the protagonist. (Think of folktales like Snow White or Sleeping Beauty.) However, secular western culture imagines the protagonist as a “solitary individual agent who must carry the entire weight of moral existence through the exercise of free choice.”518 This autonomous individual rebuffs the outside agent who offers the gift of a new narrative image of self. In other words, it’s hard for the secular western self to receive God’s grace. To overcome this hardness, argues Rossi, the autonomous self must be
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