By Rev. Todd R. Lattig
Read Romans 3:9–26
ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“For if you listen to the word and don’t obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror. You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like.” (James 1:23–24 NLT)“If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth.” (1 John 1:8 NLT).
Back in May, my dear friend and I went to a Marilyn Manson concert. This was not my first time, though it always shocks some to see a pastor at “that evil man’s” shows. The irony is missed on them. We know. Manson knows. And he has made a career out of holding up a mirror—grotesque as it may be—and showing people their own reflection. He did so most provocatively in his Antichrist Superstar album, where he painted a portrait of a world that had sold out its “holy” principles for marriage to politics, power, and oppression. As theatrical as he is, behind the facade is a philosopher, poet, and artist who observes and critiques the world around him with unsettling clarity.
Then comes my favorite song on Antichrist Superstar: Kinderfeld. The word itself is German—kinder meaning “children,” feld meaning “field.” It is often used for the part of a cemetery where children are buried—a “field of children.” In the song, Manson drags us into that grim space of lost innocence, abuse, and twisted formation. The verses are haunted nursery rhymes of power and corruption, childhood scars and poisoned inheritance, all of it climaxing in the chilling mantra: “This is what you should fear. You are what you should fear.”
What if the greatest danger isn’t the devil we imagine but the reflection we avoid? Manson’s lyric cuts deep: “This is what you should fear. You are what you should fear.” Paul echoes it in Romans: no one is righteous, not even one. Before grace, there’s the mirror.
Paul doesn’t let us off the hook. In Romans 3, he dismantles the illusion that some people are worse sinners than others, that our “us versus them” narratives can keep us safe from judgment. “All have turned away; all have become useless. No one does good, not a single one.” It’s a brutal mirror—but it’s also the truth. The evil we fear in others runs through us too. We don’t like to face it. So we distract, project, or scapegoat. We point to the “devil out there” and ignore the one inside. But denial doesn’t save us.
This is why James warns that faith without obedience is like forgetting your reflection, and John tells us that claiming to be without sin only proves we’re living in a lie. To be human is to stand guilty before God’s mirror. And yet—Romans 3 doesn’t leave us in despair. After the reckoning comes the revelation: “But now God has shown us a way to be made right with him… We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are.”
Manson ends Kinderfeld with: “This is what you should fear. You are what you should fear.” Paul would agree—but then he would add: this is also why you should hope. For the mirror that exposes us is the same place Christ meets us. Grace doesn’t come to the righteous but to sinners. We are what we should fear, yes—but in Christ, we become what God redeems.
THOUGHT OF THE DAY
The devil you fear might be closer than you think. But so is the grace that saves you.PRAYER
God of truth, hold the mirror steady before me. Strip away my excuses, projections, and denials. Help me see the sin that lives within me—not to despair, but to remember that Christ came for sinners like me. Redeem my reflection, Lord, until what I fear becomes what you transform. Amen.
Devotion written by Rev. Todd R. Lattig with the assistance of ChatGPT (OpenAI).