Category Archives: Sin

Undressing pornography

Life

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Pornography is a $7 billion-a-year industry worldwide. Pornographic films outnumber other films by three to one, and gross $1 million a day in the USA alone. British pornographic magazines sell 20 million copies a year. One American man in 10 reads Playboy, Penthouse or Hustler each month. Italian men spend $640 million on pornography a year, with pornographic videos representing 30-50 per cent of all Italian video sales. All that pornography, yet no-one talks about it. It’s like an unacknowledged cancer that metastasizes best when no-one goes for x-rays or feels for lumps. What is pornography and is it anything to get steamed up about? David Miles reports.

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Loving the sinner but hating the sin

Thought

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A lot of the time, we explain our way through the world with a set of sayings. They tumble off our lips and seem to make sense, and they help us feel like we know what’s going on and how we should act. But often, when I think I am understanding or explaining the world, I am merely reassuring myself by using a safe but misleading label. It pays to ponder these everyday experiences, and look beyond the cliche.

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Heaven is for sinners

Thought

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I was talking to a group of students. “Good people go to hell”, I said. “The only people who go to Heaven are bad people.”

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Eastern Europe and the triumph of sin

Life, Sola Panel

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As the new decade dawns, there is a sense of optimism abroad. The recent cataclysms in Eastern Europe have led many commentators to suggest that a new era is upon us. Everything is changing—the old allegiances, the old enemies, the old arguments. They all seem to be shifting and maligning before our startled eyes.

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Where does responsibility end? The sins of Jimmy Swaggart II

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The problems of tele-evangelist Jimmy Swaggart have raised for us the difficulty of knowing where our responsibility ends. In our congregation, we know that if one part suffers, every part suffers, and if one part is honoured, every part rejoices. In our congregational life, we know that if we see a brother fall into sin, then we are responsible to “bear his burden”. (more…)

The Sins of Jimmy Swaggart I

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Part 1: A Bad Weekend

The tele-evangelist business is going through a particularly tough time. The scandals over Jimmy Bakker and Pat Robertson just seemed to be quietening down when news broke of the sins of Jimmy Swaggart. America’s best known television Christians have fallen into disrepute. (more…)