> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://mereorthodoxy.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# The Shape of Sin: Why We Paint the Vices (and the Virtues)
- URL: https://mereorthodoxy.com/the-shape-of-sin-why-we-paint-the-vices-and-the-virtues/
- Published: 2026-10-26T11:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-26T10:59:59.000Z
- Description: It’s good to know what sin is, so you can recognize it and cast it out. But you also need to fill your heart with good things, with abundant things, so that when sin knocks, it realizes someone strong is home, and it stays away.
- Author: Mere Orthodoxy
- Tags: Valerie Pavilonis, Culture, Formation

Early this past June, a friend took me to a gallery opening down in the Bowery of New York City. I don’t know what I expected—maybe some sort of weird work whose only impression was general unease—but what I got was unexpected indeed: A show on sin. 

More specifically, the seven deadly sins. People of all kinds are fascinated by this grouping; I think that taking sins, making them seven—an auspicious number everywhere—and raising them to the power of “deadly” is just too sexy to resist. In this particular art show, the sins were represented by vases in various states of disrepair, flaking or cracked or missing pieces or all three. My friend and I tried to match each vase with what sin we thought each represented; we did worse than we expected. But the paintings were beautiful, if haunting, and I came away feeling like I’d learned something about the depths to which sin can penetrate.

It was weird to me to see sin represented in a Bowery art gallery. Most small galleries I visit, when they’re not doing specific retrospectives, have some weird nonsense going on; in May I went to White Cube gallery on the Upper East Side and was praising the Lord that there was no cover fee, because the artwork I saw was so flat and pointless that I felt the stirrings of real anger. I also went to the Rubell Museum in D.C. recently, and what I saw there generally made me think of evil—that is, not the cautious representation of evil, but containing nihilistic evil itself. (Think a dark basement room with candles slowly rotating on dead branches.) We didn’t stay long. 

But it looks like sin might be in the zeitgeist. The Marxist writer Tyler Austin Harper [recently wrote a piece](https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026/06/pope-leo-ai-christian/687388/?ref=mereorthodoxy.com) on how “sin” is pretty much the only word to describe some of the unsettling, I-know-it’s-wrong-but-can’t-quite-say-why stuff that’s happening in AI. “The problem is, I don’t know what else to call it when companies market [digital girlfriends](https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2025-07-18/elon-musk-s-grok-chatbot-is-cashing-in-on-ai-romance?ref=mereorthodoxy.com) to the heartsick and young,” Harper writes. “Or when they hawk [robot companions](https://www.forbes.com/sites/cathyrubin/2025/05/16/ai-companions-are-redefining-elder-care-3-ways-they-fight-loneliness-boost-safety-and-scale-support/?ref=mereorthodoxy.com) to the lonely and old. Or when a billionaire explains that he intends to sell intelligence—trained on humanity’s stolen intellectual property—back to us [as a utility](https://www.businessinsider.com/sam-altman-ai-utility-electricity-water-openai-2026-3?ref=mereorthodoxy.com), like electricity or water. These developments are not just wrong. They feel to me like something deeper and darker.”

Perhaps less unexpectedly, the Catholic magazine *The Lamp* recently [released an issue](https://thelampmagazine.com/issues/issue-37?ref=mereorthodoxy.com) all about the sins, and its writers included not just theologians but mostly non-religious writers like Freddie deBoer and Otessa Moshfegh. And I think that makes sense: Most Americans, I would assume, have some understanding of sin even if they’re not practicing any religion. It’s a tidy little word, like the smear of soot Catholics wear on Ash Wednesday. It’s what rests on the heart after a wrongdoing or a moral snarl, growing bigger if you don’t address it. 

Why sin? There’s the general sense that religion is in the zeitgeist, particularly among Gen Z. I also think Harper is onto something when he uses “sin” to describe the actions of AI companies. But sin can be understood in a lot of ways. Harper’s interpretation, for example, seems to focus on sin on the corporate level, the actions companies take that are liable to put a dent in the souls of millions. This is indeed a type of sin. 

But I wonder if we’ll start taking individual sin more seriously. Recently I was talking to a Catholic priest for another article, and he said that Christianity, while not brimming with licensed psychologists, still has a pretty good idea of human nature—and human error—from 2,000 years of existence. Christianity, he said, can therefore help people mentally because it gives people language to describe the shapes of things sitting on their hearts, even if they don’t immediately think of them as sins. He gave the example of a woman who has a sexual experience she regrets, even if she can’t quite say why. Admitting to a sin might be a first step toward mental healing—and in the Catholic Church’s eyes, is a definite first step toward spiritual healing. 

Recently my Bible study and I were reading [Luke 11](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2011&version=RSV&ref=mereorthodoxy.com), in which Jesus says: 

> When the unclean spirit has gone out of a man, he passes through waterless places seeking rest; and finding none he says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when he comes he finds it swept and put in order.Then he goes and brings seven other spirits more evil than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first.”

We were somewhat tripped up by this. After debating a bit, we came to the conclusion that while the man succeeded in emptying himself of sin, he did not fill himself with its opposite, which let the demons come back, stronger than ever. It showed, quite starkly, the stickiness of sin. It’s good to know what sin is, so you can recognize it and cast it out. But you also need to fill your heart with good things, with abundant things, so that when sin knocks, it realizes someone strong is home, and it stays away. 

The exception to my general dislike of the Rubell Museum was some work by Genesis Tramaine, a Brooklyn-based artist whose Rubell work consisted of large portraits where the faces included swirls and many eyes instead of the usual features. It was jarring to read the inscriptions: Tramaine, along with listing acrylic and oil paints as her mediums, also listed the Holy Spirit. And in one inscription, she writes: “Hold On, I Am Following, is a portrait of Jacob. In the Bible, Jacob is said to have wrestled with God. When I was here in residency there were plenty of times when I wrestled with the Lord. I wrestled with the idea of success, with the idea of failure. I wrestled with the idea of family, of love, of loss. … I just want to be used by God.” And in a different inscription: “It is also said that when you go into a space, an unknown space, that it’s okay to ask God to cover you with the blood, and so the name of the work is Covered by the Blood, Self-Reflection.” Tramaine has also been described as a “[devotional painter](https://fsa.art/residencies/artist-in-residence-fall-2025-genesis-tramaine/?ref=mereorthodoxy.com),” and her presentations as “[testimony](https://www.seenandunseen.com/genesis-tramaine-painter-whose-faces-catch-spirit?ref=mereorthodoxy.com).” And while Tramaine’s art wasn’t really to my taste, it did feel fuller than the museum’s other paintings, like it contained something good.

Filling yourself with good things—and ultimately God—can be a tricky proposition. It can quickly become mindless, like when a lonely person tries to fill their life with people and later begins to see social engagements as boxes to check, not opportunities to know people. Filling yourself with prayer and church activities can do the same thing; you start going through the motions, or become overly scrupulous, while under the impression that you’re doing everything right. 

The best solution I’ve found so far is temperance—that is, one of the virtues opposite the deadly sins. It’s always tricky to define the virtues, since their spiritual meanings always tend to have more heft than their regular dictionary definitions. The best meaning I have is that temperance is control against mindless excess, even in one’s routine. So you pray and know people, without going on autopilot. 

Of course, the virtues all work in tandem, and temperance is helped by humility and faith. Humility, to keep one aware that people are proud (another deadly sin!), and this in turn tends to make our faults hard to see, especially when new ones are budding. And faith, which I think of as that warm core of a person, directed toward God and not totally of this world, reminds you to be temperate. You need all of the other virtues, of course. But I’ve found it helps to focus on a few at a time. Many artists of old, including [Giotto](https://www.wga.hu/html%5Fm/g/giotto/padova/7vicevir/?ref=mereorthodoxy.com), have painted the virtues. Maybe, in addition to sin, some artist will also paint contemporary versions of the virtues—familiar to us in this modern world, but still full of their rich spiritual meanings.