[The second week of the Heidelberg Catechism explains the human predicament in the pithiest terms imaginable. Why are we in such a mess? Because of the law. What does the law say? That I should love God and love my neighbour. And do I? Not so much; in fact, my natural state is to hate them both. Human depravity in three short answers.

Given the clarity with which Jesus summed up the law, it is surprising how often we express human failure without using the word love. Expositions of human sinfulness, especially (and ironically) in Reformed contexts, can sound like a pettifogging list of crimes and misdemeanours, rather than (as Augustine saw so clearly) of misplaced loves. Heidelberg, quoting Christ directly, makes our "misery" all about our failure to love God and love people, and in doing so, puts the heart at the heart of things. Nobody, on reading these three answers, could cast God as a meddling killjoy and humans as the victims of a Victorian headmaster - and that is exactly as it should be.]