Muddling Toward Maturity Blog

KIRSTEN POWERS - FORGIVENESS IN CHARLESTON STAGGERS THE WORLD

I appreciate greatly Kirsten Powers' reflections on the power of Christian faith to affect radical change in the believer's heart attitude towards those who murder beloved family members.  She writes:

When Christians are in the news, it's usually because they have done something wrong — they've gotten on the wrong side of a culture war or cheated on their wife, or worse. What the world rarely gets to see is the powerful grace that flows from a deep faith predicated on the belief that we are all sinners in need of forgiveness.

The family members of those slain at Charleston's Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church bore witness to this central tenet of Christianity last week as the nation gasped in awe. "I forgive you," one after another told the stone-faced and unrepentant alleged killer, Dylann Roof, at his bond hearing.

Tweeting about the incredible scene, National Review writer Charles C. W. Cooke noted, "I am a non-Christian, and I must say: This is a remarkable advertisement for Christianity." Thankfully, the circumstances requiring forgiveness don't always involve the murder of a loved one. But sometimes they do.

HAS NEUROSCIENCE RELEGATED "EVIL" TO AN OUTDATED CONCEPT?

Ron Rosenbaum write a noteworthy article in "Slate" -  The End of Evil?  Neuroscientists suggest there is no such thing.  Are they right?

Rosenbaum surveys current thinking, pro and con, and then offers an observation of his own:

Evil does not necessarily inhere in some wiring diagram within the brain. Evil may inhere in bad ideas, particularly when they're dressed up as scientific (as Hitler did with his "scientific racism").

I think that's partly on the right track.  For my money, the struggle between good and evil (sin) best explains human life and reality.  As I read Rosenbaum's article (which quotes scientists who deny free will), my mind went to Alan Jacobs' Original Sin: A Cultural History.  No explanation of human behavior can stand that ignores our "bent" condition.  Only those with a marked ignorance of their own interior self can deny the reality of sin and evil.

PAUL COPAN VIDEO DISCUSSES EVIL AND SUFFERING IN 18 MINUTES

Video here.  I got this link from Wintery Knight who prizes Copan as one of his favorite Christian apologists.  He especially recommends two books edited by Copan and William Lane Craig:  Passionate Conviction and Contending with Christianity's Critics.

 

Recognizing the Evil That is In Us - Prof. Jan Gross's book "Neighbors"

I recently read one of the most chilling accounts of murderous human behavior I have ever read.  It demolishes the "man is naturally good" mantra which we all would like to believe.  George Will tells the story of July 10, 10941, in Jedwabne Poland as recounted by Prof. Jan Gross of New York University in his book Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland.  If you and I don't have time to read the book, we need at least to meditate on Will's review  in order to grapple with Eric Voegelin's statement concerning "the simple man, who is a decent man as long as the society as a whole is in order, but who then goes wild, without knowing what he is doing, when disorder arises somewhere and the society is no longer holding together."

George F. Will's concludes his article  asking, "Why in Jedwabne did neighbors murder their neighbors?  Because it was permitted. Because they could."  In a rapidly declining America, where social bonds are in increasing jeopardy, this account of human evil should be all the more sobering.

Dennis Prager: Iraqi "Insurgency" Represents a New, Undreamed of, Form of Evil

Click here.

THE NAZI HOLOCAUST, J.R.R. TOLKEIN, IRAN'S AHMADINEJAD

The Colossus blog offers useful reflections on the relevance of Tolkein, the history of Naziism, and the face of evil in Iran's Ahmadinejad.   (HT: Hugh Hewitt)