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Evil and Our Response

Recently I have been re-reading N.T. Wright's excellent work entitled Evil and the Justice of God.  Wright has written a number of books for the larger public in the past five years that has dealt carefully and biblically with issues such as christian character, the resurrection, the christian life.  This book, however, focuses not on the philosophical questions regarding the problem of evil and its consequential questions concerning the nature of God, but focuses more acutely on the matter of evil in the world, how the bible deals with evil, and finally what we should do about it.  In the opening chapter of his book, Wright says, "The Christian belief, growing out of its Jewish roots, is that the God who made the world remains passionately and compassionately involved with it....No: for the Christian, the problem (evil) is how to understand and celebrate the goodness and God-givenness of creation and, at the same time, understand and face up to the reality and seriousness of evil" (40).
Many Christians and many people in our culture have either ignored evil or are so suprised by evil when it confronts them head that they do not know what to do (24-25).  The third kind of response is that we act in immature and dangerous ways towards evil coming our way (26-27).  Let me illustrate these three points to bring home the reality of the way we face evil.  Let's suppose a murder takes place in a small community.  The initial response is one of outrage and deep saddness.  Anger takes root in the lives of many who knew the victim against the one who killed him/her.  Yet, after a police search if nothing substantial is found the community members go back to life as it was before.  Measures such as grief classes, security locks, and safety information are not taken seriously.  In many ways, ignoring that evil could happen to you and being surprised at it go hand in hand.  If we ignore evil and believe it could not happen to us, then we most certainly will be surprised by evil when it comes our way. 
Lastly, people commonly offer knee jerk responses to evil that are both immature and many times unreliable.  If a great tragedy like 9/11 strikes, we commonly bring down the gauntlet of judgment by labeling those who did the act evil and call to attention those who are good.  By doing this, we distance ourselves from the possibility that we ourselves could engage in gross evil.  This type of dualistic thinking brings with it an Us v. Them mentatlity that is neither the reality of the situation nor is helpful for dealing squarely with evil  This is not to say that the bombing on the twin towers on 9/11 were evil acts, but we need a more nuanced approach to evil that regards both the possibility and actuality of evil residing within our own hearts. As Solzhenitsyn said so aptly, "The line between good and evil runs right through the heart of every man."

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