In 1967, actor Dudley Moore wrote "Bedazzled," a movie featuring the Seven Deadly Sins in which he portrayed Sloth, a lawyer who dozes all day long and ignores his wife, Lust, portrayed by the then-young and beautiful Raquel Welch.
Despite her beauty, her husband never opens his eyes. He doesn't notice his gorgeous wife.
According to many theologians, this is why sloth is the worst of the seven sins.
While the other sins grab at life and gobble it up, sloth just doesn't care.
What could be more sinful than apathy, religious leaders ask. What's worse than ignoring God's amazing world? What's worse than being ungrateful? Than not making the most of the life you've been given?· · · · ·
"This is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it." — Psalm 118
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At first, sloth seems to be a straightforward kind of sin — sloth equals laziness, nothing more, it seems.
But when you talk to religious leaders, when you hear the philosophers, you realize that sloth takes many forms.
In modern times, when religious leaders talk of sloth, they usually refer to "lack of spiritual discipline," says Steve Goodier, pastor of Christ United Methodist Church in Salt Lake City. By spiritual discipline, Goodier means prayer and church attendance. He also counts service as a spiritual discipline. After all, God tells us to help each other.
But let's say you are an atheist and don't feel an obligation to pray or go to church. You can still fall into sloth. Because you do feel compelled to help other people, you too are vulnerable.
At the Islamic Society of Greater Salt Lake, Imam Shuaib Din says prayer is an obligation and "the point is to fulfill the obligation."
If you feel lazy and aren't concentrating when you begin your prayers then one of two things will happen. First, you may draw closer to God anyway and become rejuvenated. On the other hand, you may pray the entire time without concentrating and feel no closer to God than you did when you started.
But still it is better to have prayed, the imam says, because praying is the right thing. "Not praying is a victory for the devil."
The early Christians also saw prayer as an obligation. They used the Greek word "acedia" or "lack of care" to describe the soul too sleepy to bother.
In the fourth century A.D., when the monk Evagrius made up his list of deadly sins, he actually had eight sins on the list. He listed "acedia" and also "tristia" or sadness. Evagrius called acedia "the most oppressive sin of all."
Several hundred years after Evagrius, Pope Gregory trimmed the list of sins down to seven and left off acedia. Some historians say he left it off because it is similar to tristia.
Other historians say Gregory did not list sloth as a sin because he understood it to be depression — and he understood that depression was beyond man's control and, therefore, not a sin at all.
Yet many of today's religious leaders — and some psychologists, too — separate depression from sloth. It is possible to have a slothful soul without being depressed, they explain. Depression can't be cured by prayer, but sloth can.
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"One thing is certain. If you only do what you feel like doing, your life will be miserable and you will be a failure." — Matthew Kelly, "The Rhythm of Life"
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In the final analysis, apathy can be a symptom of sloth or depression. But sloth also implies a certain amount of disdain.
A British psychologist, Anne Maguire, wrote a book called "The Seven Deadly Sins," and says this about sloth, "At first it may not be obvious why sloth is regarded with such gravity. It is described as a thankless distaste for life or a general feeling of apathy. . . . It becomes clear, however, that even more than a coarse excess or an outbreak of passion, sloth may be the result of a deep-seated selfishness, which is at base a sullen rebellion against, and an alienation from God. Sloth is generally an unconscious sin, insidious and pernicious and extremely dangerous for the health of the soul."
Sloth can also be defined as being apathetic about government, says Robert Solomon in his book "Wicked Pleasures." Solomon says the failure of public will allows fascists to take over. He urges involvement, saying, "Occasions for good present themselves every day, and every day we pass them by."
Ghulam Hasnan, a Salt Lake man who is a Shiite Muslim, also talks about involvement. He talks of the bravery of Husayn, the grandson of Muhammad, who stood up for his religious beliefs even when he knew he would be killed. Hasnan also mentions Job, the Old Testament prophet who suffered deeply but never stopped being grateful to God.
How easy are our lives in comparison? Hasnan asks. Can't we fight for justice? Can't we be grateful?
Wendy Wasserstein's book called "Sloth" came out in 2005, shortly before the award-winning playwright passed away. She called to task those who, to the untrained eye, don't appear to be slothful at all. People who exercise faithfully and have full schedules didn't impress Wasserstein very much.
"Their hyperactivity is no different than your or my slothfulness," Wasserstein wrote.
They may be riding their stationary bikes at 70 mph, but they are going nowhere, she said. They are creatively and spiritually void. Wasserstein saw the irony — that the cure for sloth may actually involve taking time off from work so as to develop a more creative and spiritual life; so as to have time to experience gratitude.
At the Newman Center at the University of Utah, the Rev. Peter Rogers says he sees many students who struggle with sloth, or what they perceive as sloth. "For example," Father Peter says, "one student sort of confessed to me that she had hoped to use spring break for studying and she didn't and was feeling guilty.
"So I told her, 'Spring break is called spring break because it is supposed to be a break. It needs to be a time of rest and refreshment,' " he told her.
He told her she is not a sloth.
E-mail: susan@desnews.com