Book excerpt: Sin isn't relevant anymore. Alan Mann takes seriously this often-heard assertion and instead goes in search of the real plight at the heart of contemporary western society. What he finds there is a personal, pervasive, and self-diminishing diseaseimpacting the lives of millions of people: shame. With this insight, Atonement for a Sinless Society seeks a fresh encounter with the biblical narrative, building a more meaningful understanding of the story of Jesus and his disciples for the world in which we live and, in doing so, bringing the Christian understanding of atonement into the twenty-first century.