James Alison

"Sin is resistance, in the name of God, to the creative work of God which seeks to include us all."

"The 'I', the 'self' of the child of God, is born in the midst of the ruins of repented idolatry."

"Sin ceases to be a defect which excludes, and comes to be participation in the mechanism of exclusion."

"Being good can never do without the effort to learn, step by step, and in real circumstances of life, how to separate religious and moral words from an expelling mechanism, one which demands human sac…"

"The moment I realised that I was dealing with a mechanism whose participants were its prisoners, at that moment I was able to take distance from what had happened, and forgiveness started to become po…"

"In fact, for those who feel themselves excluded, or treated as defective, by the reigning social and moral order, it is of incalculable importance to discover that this feeling of being excluded or de…"

"In one case as in the other, the question which gives away the sacrificial mentality underlying group belonging is the same: are you for us, or are you one of them? It is the question which reveals th…"

"But as we become stronger, more capable of words, happier in our discovery that God does indeed love us, then might it not be important that we learn to withhold the excessive tribute of our resentmen…"