 Participation in disinterested activities represents the ethical value of “devotion to a cause”. Anderson even offers a sociological interpretation of sin as a person’s sense of inadequacy to social movements, one’s inability to keep the flag flying, to devote oneself thoroughly to these kinds of activity. Sin appears then as a kind of backsliding and subjectivism: the individual setting him or herself up as the standard. Anderson was opposed to all forms of religious instruction and interference in educational practice, but he occasionally shocked his students with a quasi-theological appreciation of the existence of evil in the world. Passmore commented that forms of religion that emphasise that our life is not of our making and that it goes on independently of our plans, are far more preferable in Anderson’s view to any form of secular sentimental humanism (Passmore, Introduction to EMP).