"Sisters! Brothers! Are you saved? Saved from your sins?" Oh, God! Here he goes. He'll be passing round the hat for a collection next, or squeezing our guilt to make us at least send a donation to our favourite charity.

No, hang on a minute. I mean do you think you are a sinner? Sin is not a nice word. It's an ugly word and right out of fashion - and we don't like ugly words when they are applied to us. Yet if we cannot own this word sin as belonging to our selves if it is a word we can only use about other people, then we disqualify ourselves from the human race, we put ourselves outside. The riddle is, if you think you are a sinner you are saved already, and if you don't think of yourself as a sinner, then you are lost.

The fact is that we are all sinners. We are all our own sin-bin. There is a great sense of solidarity about recognising that, and so of relief. If we can see that we are all in it together, then there is a chance that we can do something about it. But if we are forever pointing a finger at others, speaking in holier-than-thou words, judging others, then all we are doing is dividing and destroying all the time -us and them. Whoever They are. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

To be called a Sinner feels as if you are tainted. Well, I am. Sin? It's something bad in all of us, something quite rotten sometimes. Evil. It's indifference, passing by, putting people down when they get in our way, dismissing them, not noticing ("it's nothing to do with me") believing you're right and everybody else is wrong. The malicious wagging of tongues. That terrible phrase "/ couldn't care less.")

Hate against someone is often lurking not far beneath our surface, though we would hesitate to use so strong a word. After all, it's not nice to think of ourselves as full of hate. And when we do all these things, it's usually because there's something we cannot face in ourselves, so we push it out onto "Them." The wave of moral revulsion that swept the nation with the murder of James Bulger is typical. There we were, a nation too exposed as violent and in a mess. We couldn't bear it - so the violent reaction - we have got to do something, to blame someone. Let us hate someone self-righteously. Look somewhere else for the cause of evil. Former Yugoslavia where we used to go for our hols? Couldn't happen here! Who are we kidding? It's only a step away. And if you feel indignant when you read this and think, "It's all right, we're British," - that's a trap we all so often fall into. Undercover ethnic cleansing in all its subtle variations is alive and well in our green and pleasant land.

It's O.K. to admit to being a sinner. And to admit this smelly truth is to begin to "be saved'. For to look it in the face means we can do something about it and to start to climb up from there into the glory. For that is also part of the story. We all fall short of the glory of God, but it is in us all. When I look at anyone else, it means I can say they are just like me. What a relief! I am no worse - and no better - than they are. I can lift up their heads. They can lift up mine. It's a statement about the brotherhood and sisterhood of men and women. It's fundamental.

"/ was a revolutionary when I was young, and all my prayer to God was, "Lord, give me the energy to change the world."