Word: sinning
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...killer is a devouring dragon, and that dragon is sin. The hero, a wildlife biologist named Steve Benson, has fallen into adultery with a slinky local deputy who seduces him with wine. No God-fearing person--indeed no survivor--drinks liquor in these novels; the temptress has no potion that can protect her when she meets the dragon. But powered by a last-minute conversion to Jesus, Benson wrestles the beast and eventually kills...
...REMINDED OF SHAKESPEARE'S COMment on justice in King Lear: ''Through tattered clothes small vices do appear;/ Robes and furred gowns hide all./ Plate sin with gold,/ And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks;/ Arm it in rags, a pygmy's straw does pierce it." JANICE JOHNSON, San Gabriel, California...
...downside to this shedding of specific values is concisely identified by Andrew Delbanco in his new book The Death of Satan: How Americans Have Lost the Sense of Evil: "Americans once believed in God and in Satan; they were known to be obsessed with sin, and they pictured their own history as an epic struggle with evil. Today, however, while the repertoire of evil seems never to have been richer, as we daily encounter (and even relish) images of unimaginable horror, our grasp on the reality of evil nonetheless seems week and uncertain, our responses to it flustered and sometimes...
ATONEMENT IS AN ANCIENT AND ARTful tradition in Washington, when politicians kneel to confess their faults and promise to sin no more. Maybe it was the example of hundreds of thousands of men converging on the capital in a call to genuine repentance that inspired President Clinton and Bob Dole to do some penance themselves last week. But in their case, the gestures of apology wound up looking more shameful than the original sin...
...exceeds that of his own art? How could he expect to rival nature? Did Mondrian envy God? Or perhaps he meant something less Luciferian: that nature, to the artist, is like carnal desire to the saint. It is a trap, a lower substitute for higher ecstasy, an occasion of sin. He knows it is beautiful, but he must still banish it from his art (as Plato urged the banishment of the poet from the ideal republic) because it provokes irrational thoughts and undisciplined emotions...