Church Voices

If anyone thinks that Christians regard unchastity as the supreme vice, he is quite wrong. The sins of the flesh are bad, but they are the least bad of all sins. All the worst pleasures are purely spiritual: the pleasure of putting other people in the wrong, of bossing and patronising and spoiling sport, and backbiting; the pleasures of power, of hatred….That is why a cold, self-righteous prig who goes to church may be far nearer to hell than a prostitute. But, of course, it is better to be neither (Mere Christianity [New York: MacMillian, 1967], 94-95).