For Lent 2026: Here begins  a series here on the seven deadly sins. First one is the one most forgotten or dismissed as unimportant: Sloth.

The common understanding of sloth is probably extreme laziness: the equivalent of couch potato.  Sloth is the teenaged slob of any age slouched out with a bowl of junk food to hand playing video games or napping or watching porn. This image of sloth is certainly vivid and reveals how the seven deadly sins are usually connected to each other. In this case it is not just sloth, but also gluttony and lust.

Sloth, however, if more pervasive and subtle than simply the common couch potato version. When put into the context of the spiritual life sloth is a kind of torpor, an indifference and carelessness about ones’ spiritual life, one’s destiny and one’s responsibility. Sloth in the spiritual life is not caring or being attentive to the precepts of the church, one’s spiritual duty to God and to one’s neighbor. In other words, the sins of omission more than the sins of commission–the sin of the good we failed to do rather than the evil we chose to do.

Because it is a sin of omission sloth is the most easily neglected of the deadly sins. By its very nature you don’t recognize it. See what I mean? If I am guilty of sloth which is indifference, then by definition I don’t recognize sloth itself. In that sense it is like pride. The truly prideful rarely see that they are proud. If they did they wouldn’t be proud. Same with sloth.

It is easy also to dismiss sloth as not being so bad. After all, you didn’t actually DO anything wrong did you? But sloth is a deadly sin because, well, it leads to death. Spiritual death. What does the Lord say to the church of Laodicea in the Book of Revelation? “Because you are lukewarm I will spew you out of my mouth.” Sloth is being lukewarm in the faith: doing the minimal to keep the fire insurance paid up. When the pastor asks for volunteers sloth sits still. Someone else will do it. When a voice needs to be heard and someone needs to take action to oppose injustice, fight poverty, assist the poor, house the homeless, visit the prisoners sloth lets somebody else do it. When one’s duty to spouse and children and community is demanded sloth opts out.

The gospel says our eternal destiny will be decided on how we responded to these commands, and if we are too lazy to climb the ladder to heaven why should we be surprised if we slide down into Gehenna?

Finally, from the point of view of one’s eternal destiny, there is another term for sloth.  It is called the sin of presumption. Presumption is the sin of assuming that one is A-OK spiritually and that one is confident that he is one of the elect. This sin is part of Calvinism and therefore part of popular American evangelical Protestantism (which theologically is sort of Calvinism-lite) The idea of “once saved always saved” and the false teaching that you cannot lose your salvation is a breeding ground for sloth. The misinformed evangelical concludes that because salvation is not by works and that he can’t do anything to earn his salvation that therefore he doesn’t really need to do anything. He can just float in his inner tube on the current of God’s grace and ride the river to heaven. The name for this heresy is Quietism. The older (and more punchy) term is SLOTH