Monday quote

“The post-industrialized self is sinned against, not sinner. They are the helpless victims of social structures, institutions and corporate bodies. It is with these perpetrators that responsibility lies, not with the 'innocent victims' of their distorted practices. Obligations and responsibilities lie fairly and squarely with institutions in the story the post-industrialized self tells. Therefore, there are no duties they have failed to fulfill, no forbidden acts about which they should feel guilty, no 'sins' that need confessing.

“...Though on occasion the storied-self (what we have said and done) may be sufficiently aware of the grammar of relating to consciously act in a way that damages relationship with 'Others' through our own deliberate fault, more often than not the storied-self is generated out of ignorance and weakness. To recall Jesus' own words once more, they do not know what they are doing for they are, socially and relationally, pre-moral. Their failing is an ontological one, beyond the ability of the self to act differently, living as they do in the absence of mutual, undistorted, unpolluted relating.
Atonement for a "Sinless" Society, p. 163-164