Is sin in?

Especially in the tradition of the monks, the list of vices became a teaching tool for organizing thought to fight the "evil within," which threatened advances in holiness and virtue, says Professor Grabowski.

Over the centuries, artists and authors have perpetuated the myth and meaning of the sins by depicting them in their works, including assigning them animal form. Today, Roman Catholics refer to them as "cardinal" sins because they are the ones that lead to all others. Still, everyone from James Bond's creator, Ian Fleming, to readers of the nondenominational website Beliefnet.com have suggested other vices for the list - including snobbery and narcissism. Ms. Prose jokes that there should also be an allowance for offenses like "grabbing a parking place you haven't actually been waiting for."

That would probably qualify as greed, the subject Phyllis Tickle is tackling in her installment in the series, due out next April. An author and expert on religion in America, Ms. Tickle argues only somewhat facetiously that her sin is the worst, "the mother of the sins." She explains that one idea she addresses in her book sounds at first like heresy: That without sin, there would be no faith. "Ultimately, sin is the thing that drives us back on the path to righteousness.... Without [sin] there is no human progress. Human life is dependent on sin," she argues.

What's compelling and perhaps most progressive about discussions of the deadly sins today is that they are not just from the perspective of the overtly religious. Mr. Epstein, for example, writes in "Envy," the first book in the series due out this month, that for those who don't embrace the notion of sin, "I would invite you instead to consider envy less as a sin than as very poor mental hygiene."

He recommends fighting it off, as it "clouds thought, clobbers generosity, precludes any hope of serenity, and ends in shriveling the heart."

Even those at the far end of the liberal spectrum, like controversial sex columnist and author Dan Savage, see a role for these moral guideposts in determining individual behavior.

His approach to researching the sins is perhaps not for everyone - he set out to commit all seven as a way to prove that there are ethical sinners for his 2002 book "Skipping Towards Gomorrah: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Pursuit of Happiness in America." But his view on how to apply them is not uncommon: "What matters is not that you have lust in your heart, it's what you do with that," he says.

Perhaps that approach is why the seven deadly sins are increasingly being suggested as a tool for psychologists. It's an idea that was explored in depth by Jewish scholar Solomon Schimmel in his recent book "The Seven Deadly Sins: Jewish, Christian and Classical Reflections on Human Psychology."

In an interview, he sums up his goal in writing the book as trying to "help people lead happier lives by using the wisdom of religious traditions." In the book, he argues that secular psychology needs to confront the role of values in everyday life if it hopes to ameliorate anxieties: "We need to reclaim the rich insights into human nature of earlier moral reflection if we want to lead more satisfying lives."

His modern approach - like that of the Oxford writers - offers up the development of the sins. As Grabowski describes it, it's clear that "maybe this isn't just an esoteric ancient religious concept, that it really has some ongoing contribution to make in terms of behavioral sciences, other sciences, and their investigation of the human person today."

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