Corporate yet personal

Sin is much more than personal misdeeds for which we feel sorrow. Sin has to do with the values and orientation by which we live—the powers wiich control our lives like materialism, feudalism, and greed. Before we can be liberated and before we can build the social structures of liberation we need to be freed from the control of these forces and the structures which embody them and keep them alive. This view of the atonement reinforces our discussion above about the need for both inner change and the change of structures which express and promote sin and oppression.— Shalom, page 61

<idle musing>
Good thoughts. In the Evangelical subculture, there is a tendency to minimize the corporate nature of sin. Yet, that is where it hides the most easily—and where it has the most subtle influence. To paraphrase Jesus, "we need to attack the one without neglecting the other..."
</idle musing>