Fox makes the point that religion has so often oversold the concept of “sin” that it has left us without language or power to combat evil. He compares the Eastern tradition of the 7 chakras to the Western tradition of the 7 capital sins. Fox allows us to think creatively about our capacity for personal and institutional evil and what we can do about them.  In Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh, visionary theologian and best-selling author Matthew Fox offers a new theology of evil that fundamentally changes the traditional perception of good and evil and points the way to a more enlightened treatment of ourselves, one another, and all of nature. Using today’s science to rediscover the sacred marriage of spirit and flesh, Fox sets forth a visionary but practical mysticism that lays out a blueprint for social transformation. In this book, Matthew Fox dissects the roots of our culture's spiritual malaise and offers "medicine" for our society's deep spiritual "wounds." He shows how, contrary to mainstream church teachings, flesh is the grounding of spirit, and how spirit and flesh are entwined with each other in a felicitous and spiritually nourishing bond. He outlines a Theology of Spirit, an approach to the fusing of spirit and flesh which has been underdeveloped in Western thought. His cosmology stresses the need for diversity, the revelatory power of Nature, and the imperative of cooperation.  Fox draws together the wisdom of East and West on the subject of human destructiveness by taking Thomas Aquinas's definition of sin as "misdirected love" and ushering us through parallels between the Eastern teachings of the seven chakras and the Western teachings of the seven capital sins. “A scholarly masterpiece embodying a better vision and depth of perception far beyond the grasp of any one single science.  A breathtaking analysis.”  –Diarmuid O Murchu, author of Reclaiming Spirituality