Dying and rising
For more commentary on this week's readings, see the Reflections on the Lectionary page, which includes Plantinga's current Living by the Word column as well as past magazine and blog content. For full-text access to all articles, subscribe to the Century.
Years ago, I wrote a book on sin. To estimate its breadth and depth, I studied biblical and theological sources. But as much as the standard sources taught me, I was surprised to discover that I could also learn a lot about sin and grace by reading storytellers, biographers, poets and journalists.
Such writers are always pondering good and evil, including the ways they twist and twine around each other. Robert Caro, for example, has completed four volumes of his definitive biography of Lyndon Baines Johnson, revealing along the way that Johnson was sinner and saint,—an opponent of civil rights legislation when opposition suited his political ambition, and a champion of it when his compassion and sense of fair play could at last run parallel to his ambition. Like every biographer’s dream subject, Johnson harbored in himself a boatload of warring instincts and impulses.
