The Irrevocables

In a throwaway, disposable culture, is there anything that is “irrevocable”? The question is raised because the apostle Paul uses this word in his letter to the Romans.

Have you ever said something and instantly wished you could take it back? Sometimes the mouth works faster than the brain and you want to hit “Pause,” rewind a bit, and say the whole thing differently. Do-overs.

In the Choose Your Own Adventure books (a series of children’s game-books first published by Bantam Books from 1979-1998), each story ends with two options: a narrative fork in the road where one choice usually continues well while one ends poorly. So if you chose to fight the three-headed space alien and met your death by his plasma ray-gun on page 83, you could just go back and choose to flee on your spaceship to Moonbase Alpha by turning to page 86. It was always “happily ever after.”

But nothing is forever. Nothing is irrevocable — the word that jumps out at us in this text. We love do-overs. Options, choices, second chances. In fact, it’s one of the marks of our culture. As a generous and forgiving society, we like to be able to give people a second opportunity, and on a...