Description: As a businessman, theology professor, and senior pastor, Randy Rowland brings an intimate understanding of worldly and spiritual matters to his investigation of what makes sins so difficult to overcome. Part of the spell sins cast is attributable to the immediate emotional or physical gratification they give. This pull can be as irrationally compelling as a siren's call: We know following it can separate us from God and the chance for abiding happiness, yet we go on. Sins persist, as well, because of our talent for rationalizing them. It's easy to provide ready-made excuses -- such as "Other people do worse things every day" or "This is nothing that hasn't been done before" -- for practically every sin we commit. Rowland illustrates how the first step to breaking free from sin, as with any other compulsion, is admitting that it is a force in everyone's life.

While admitting that we love to sin is necessary, so is understanding the many different sins we love. To this end, Rowland uses the Seven Deadly Sins (pride, envy, anger, sloth, greed, gluttony, and lust), first named and ordered by Gregory the Great in the late sixteenth century, as a map of our wanderings from God's path. Rowland also reminds us that though we sin, God forgives. The antidote to our sins comes in the form of virtues, gifts from God, which combat our sins and bring us closer to God.

Far from being a fire-and-brimstone sermon, "The Sins We Love", in a refreshingly original manner, uses the world's best-known categorization of human wrongdoing to cast a reassuring light into the dark corners of our souls.

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