{"id":902,"date":"2011-07-22T23:26:37","date_gmt":"2011-07-23T03:26:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/danielharper.org\/yauu\/?p=902"},"modified":"2022-12-01T13:35:20","modified_gmt":"2022-12-01T18:35:20","slug":"on-wickedness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/2011\/07\/on-wickedness\/","title":{"rendered":"On wickedness"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m preparing to write a sermon on the Unitarian Universalist Association’s purposes and principles, titled “Why the Seven Principles Must Change.” I’m thinking of using one of several passages from Agatha Christie’s murder mystery A Pocketful of Rye<\/em> as one of the texts on which the sermon will be based; Christie, whatever her faults may be, is fairly sound on the topic of wickedness. At this point, I think the second passage below best captures what I’m trying to say in the sermon. If you have any similar quotes that could serve as a necessary corrective to the excessive optimism of the “Seven Principles,” I’d love it if you left them in the comments.<\/p>\n

———<\/p>\n

1.<\/strong> Calming himself, [Inspector Neele] said, “Oh, there are other possibilities, other people who had a perfectly good motive.”<\/p>\n

“Mr. Dubois, of course,” said Mis Marple sharply. “And that young Mr. Wright. I do so agree with you, Inspector. Wherever there is a question of gain, one has to be very suspicious. The great thing to avoid is having in any way a trustful mind.”<\/p>\n

In spite of himself, Neele smiled.<\/p>\n

“Always think the worst, eh?” he asked. It seemed a curious doctrine to be proceeding from this charming and fragile-looking old lady.<\/p>\n

“Oh yes,” said Miss Marple fervently. “I always believe the worst. What is so sad is that one is usually justified in doing so.”<\/p>\n

———<\/p>\n

2.<\/strong> “It sounds rather cruel,” said Pat.<\/p>\n

“Yes, my dear,” said Miss Marple, “life is cruel, I’m afraid….”<\/p>\n

———<\/p>\n

3.<\/strong> “…It’s very wicked, you know, to affront human dignity….”<\/p>\n

———<\/p>\n

4.<\/strong> “…One needs a great deal of courage to get through life….”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m preparing to write a sermon on the Unitarian Universalist Association’s purposes and principles, titled “Why the Seven Principles Must Change.” I’m thinking of using one of several passages from Agatha Christie’s murder mystery A Pocketful of Rye as one of the texts on which the sermon will be based; Christie, whatever her faults may … Continue reading “On wickedness”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[118,324],"class_list":["post-902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-theology","tag-agatha-christie","tag-seven-principles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=902"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/902\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9711,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/902\/revisions\/9711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}