Quotes about Sin

grace is found at the depths and in the death of everything. After these smaller deaths, we know that the only "deadly sin" is to swim on the surface of things, where we never see, find, or desire God and love.

The significance of Jesus' wounded body is his deliberate and conscious holding of the pain of the world and refusing to send it elsewhere. The wounds were not necessary to convince God that we were loveable; the wounds are to convince us of the path and price of transformation. They are what will happen to you if you face and hold sin in compassion instead of projecting it in hatred.

Grace is just the natural loving flow of things when we allow it, instead of resisting it. Sin is any cutting or limiting of that circuit.

the Twelve Steps, however, believes that sin and failure are, in fact, the setting and opportunity for the transformation and enlightenment of the offender

What we call Original Sin in Genesis perhaps could, in a sense, be better called Original Shame, because Adam and Eve describe themselves as feeling naked. Some of the first words of God to these newly created people are, "Who told you that you were naked?" (Genesis 3:11). Next, in a lovely maternal image, God as seamstress sews leather garments for them (3:21). The first thing God does after creation itself is cover the shame of these new creatures.

Did you ever notice that Jesus himself was not really that upset at the bad behavior that most of us call sin? Instead, he directed his critical attention toward people who did not think they were sinners, who could not see their own shadows or dark sides, or acknowledge their complicity in the world's domination systems.

Salvation is not sin perfectly avoided, as the ego would prefer; but in fact, salvation is sin turned on its head and used in our favor.

Before transformation, sin is any kind of moral mistake; afterward, sin is a mistake about who you are and whose you are.

Christians shrunk our image of both Jesus and Christ, and our "Savior" became a mere Johnny-come-lately "answer" to the problem of sin, a problem that we had largely created ourselves.

You cannot avoid sin or mistake anyway (Romans 5:12), but if you try too fervently, it often creates even worse problems.

Thus we are strongly warned against such negativity in every way, and such things are called "sin" or even the state of "hell," which is not really a geographical place but a very real state of consciousness. All rewards and punishments must primarily be seen as first of all now—and inherent in good and bad behavior.

The lone individual is far too small and insecure to carry either the "weight of glory" or the "burden of sin" on his or her own. Yet that is the impossible task we gave the individual. It will never work. It creates well-disguised religious egocentricity, because we are forced to take our single and isolated selves far too seriously—both our wonderfulness and our terribleness—which are both their own kinds of ego trips, I am afraid.