Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Menninger on sin


In his 1973 book Whatever Became of Sin?, psychiatrist Karl Menninger wrote:

"The very word, 'sin,' which seems to have disappeared, was once a proud word. It was once a strong word, an ominous and serious word.... But the word went away. It has almost disappeared, along with the notion.

Why?

Doesn't anyone sin anymore? Doesn't anyone believe in sin?"

To reinforce his observations, Dr. Menninger noted that in the presidential proclamation for the annual National Day of Prayer, the last time the word sin was mentioned was in President Eisenhower's proclamation in 1953 - and those
words were borrowed from a call to national prayer by Abraham Lincoln in 1863!

So, as Dr. Menninger observed, "As a nation, we officially ceased 'sinning' some 50 years ago."

No comments:

Post a Comment