Commentators have long argued about whether to read Paul's personification of Sin in Romans literally or figuratively. Matthew Croasmun suggests both that the cosmic power Sin is nothing more than an emergent feature of a vast network of human transgression and that this power is nevertheless a real person. The book is replete with his assiduous engagements with several important figures in modern emergentism, including Philip Clayton and Andy Clark. The natural corollary to this is that Christian theological discourse (in this case what he calls 'an emergent hamartiology') can be a potentially fruitful interlocutor for many non-theological disciplines... I have benefited much from Croasmun's work, and suspect that many others will find this book helpful as well.