Each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their
own evil desire and enticed (James 1:14).
In the 1996 Disney film The Hunchback of Notre Dame, loosely based on Victor Hugo’s 1831 French
novel, Archdeacon Frollo alternates between battling and embracing his feelings
of lust for the gypsy girl Esmeralda. The antagonist displays, if not virtue,
the virtuosity in excusing himself from blame, deftly pushing all
responsibility instead onto the girl.
Written by Stephen Schwartz and Alan Menken, the song Hellfire captures Frollo’s internal torment. Like
fire / hellfire / This fire in my skin/This burning / desire / Is turning my to
sin / It’s not my fault / I’m not to blame / It is the gypsy girl / The witch
who sent this flame [17].
It’s all her fault! Don’t look at me! If we could be believed, it’s never our
fault when we fall into sin. Someone else is always to blame. If only she
didn’t dress like that. If only the money wasn’t sitting right there in plain
sight. If only the Internet didn’t bring this stuff right into the privacy of
my own living room.
This is not to say others are not to blame for their own
choices, which sometimes play a part in leading us astray, or that we bear no
responsibility when we wrongly influence someone else to sinful ends, but we
won’t fool God by claiming, “The devil made me do it” [18]. Each person is tempted when they are dragged away by
their own evil desire and enticed. Or as Jerry Bridges writes in The
Pursuit of Holiness: “We sin
because we choose to sin” [19].
TODAY’S MEDITATION
Whose fault is it when you
sin?
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