I recently finished The Vanishing Conscience by John MaCarthur. I saw it on the bookshelf at Borders and bought it along with another of his books, The Gospel According to the Apostles. He seems to have an adequate grasp on the concept of sin and does a good job at reminding us of the vileness of sin (vileness, what a cool word). One of my favorite quotes is, "The weakness of the church is not that we're too uninvolved in the politics or administration of our society, but that we too easily absorb the false values of an unbelieving world. The problem is not too little activism, but too much assimilation."

He divides his book into three parts: A Sinful Society, The Nature of Sin, and Handling Sin. In A Sinful Society, he does a good job of showing how sin has thwarted our consciences to not care so much about sin. He also has some pretty convincing arguments showing how the American society has become numb to sin, and how the church itself has, in many ways, become numb to sin (though I'd say my own church has a hold on things). The Nature of Sin explores the biblical concept of humankind's total depravity, how the Cross of Christ has killed sin's power over us but not totally removed sin from us, and then he has a wonderful chapter on sanctification. Handling Sin is perhaps my favorite chapter; it deals with crucifying sin, handling temptation, keeping a pure conscience, and how sin relates to shame, psychology, the Church, the Christian, and God.

I recommend it. Four out of five stars, as it reads slowly at times. He has tackled the issue of sin wonderfully and biblically. His treatment of sin is something I haven't seen so well-done ever before. And these are my thoughts.