Why We Refuse to Fight, by John Zmirak

The best book I’ve worked on, out of a dozen I’ve written, co-written, or edited, was The Bad Catholic’s Guide to the Seven Deadly Sins. Hands down. Not because it’s funnier, or more politically pointed. No, I like it the most because I’ve been told that it’s the most useful. It does something that nobody’s done, at least not in English and not for a very long time, so far as I’ve seen. Let me explain.

Every book I’ve seen on the Seven Deadly Sins lists the sins, and then the virtues they mock or miss. For instance Lust vs. Chastity, Wrath vs. Patience, etc. But that’s only part of the picture, and presenting the moral life that way gravely misleads people. Because the moral life is not about looking at one sin, and overreacting to it to the greatest degree imaginable.

Instead, it’s about finding the Golden Mean between two opposing vices or sins. That’s where virtue lies, between the two. Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, and Dante recognized this. Too few Christians writing books on morality have seen this in recent decades. …