Letters

Sins and Commandments in Language

I was thinking that I was the only one bothered by the all-encompassing use of “inappropriate” to avoid an honest confession of sin. Even my pastor, a straight-talking preacher, succumbed to referring to a particular sinful action as an “inappropriate” one. Kevin D. Williamson wrote just about everything that I had been thinking with excellent examples (“The Inappropriate ‘Inappropriate,’” July 15). Part of this misuse is prompted by the modern humanist view that there is no such thing as sin — wickedness, evil words or actions prohibited by the Ten Commandments. But the Ten Commandments have themselves become inappropriate, and this is one reason for our moral decline.