Having to prepare some lectures on a Christian understanding of sin has had me pondering the question of evil in the world recently. We see, hear and read each day of evil and its effects – in fact the mass media seems to dwell upon it! Bombs in Bombay, the massacre of people in Liberia, the death of innocents in Iraq, Palestine and Israel all greet us daily when we wake up.
Yet mostly this sort of evil is held at a distance from us. Not so for Christ as he walked in Judea and Galilee – the oppression of the poor and the injustice of the rich and powerful were always in his face. In our own worlds there is evil, though it often takes a variety of “hidden” forms – the futility of battling a government bureaucracy that reduces flesh-and-blood people to “clients” identifed by numbers is one example.
Today the first elections in Rwanda since the 1994 massacres have been held. Here is a page with links to three articles on evil written in response to those events in 1994. Even after seeing those atrocities have we learned anything?
Check out
“Know Your Enemy! 1” by Richard Bauckham, Walter Wink and Brice Avery.
“Know Your Enemy! 2” by Michael Taylor, Roger Forster, Andrew Walker and others.
“The Horror at the Door” by Ruth Etchells.
at Third Way’s Way Past.