Evil 1.2

Sam,

Thank you for these opening remarks; very insightful. First, to your comments on using the terms "evil" and "sin". Language develops in a culture and is used by people to point to the "thing" itself and the language is less important than the "thing" itself. The term "Becky" refers to your wife and the word "kind" or "gracious" might capture apart of her personality, but they are merely tools to communicate about your wife. The worst expressions of personal and/or systematic human activiy must have language assigned to it (of course there is some discussion on how to define the word "worst"). The way I see it, sin casts a broad net and evil is a sub-category of sin, the worst expressions of human sin. Cultural bias definitely plays apart in how we see what is good and what is bad, but I think that evil is transcultural even though the way we talk about it is culturally conditioned in many ways. We have to remember that evil is not just defined by the collective consiousness of a particular society. Some things are evil whether we regard them that way or not (in a similar way that God exists and is good whether anyone confesses it to be true or not). I see Morrow's use of the word "evil" as referring to the worst of human sin.

Elaborate more on your thoughts on "dogmatic conditioning". Dogmas are not always bad, but when they used for evil they can be utterly deadly. It sounds like you have more to say on this.

I too like Morrow's insight on evil as a force that infects people and societies at moments and times in history. But I would not go so far as to say that evil is "not defined by an action, but embodies an existence of its own." I don't think this is quite what Morrow is saying. I think he is saying that evil is manifest in the confluence of the "force" of evil and the subsequent action. Evil is manifest in the intention to do an evil act and the execution of that act. In a later chapter we'll see why this distinction might be important.

On page 17 I think there is a very interesting passage. Morrow talks about evil as opportunistic, an electrical current, wandering like an infection, taking up residence from time to time--all of which distances used to dampen, but not in a globalized world (globalization has contributed to the reunion of micro evil (e.g. rape, murder) and macro evil (e.g. genocide), personal and systemic evil). Morrow goes on to say that evil flows from place to place through channels of least resistance. I think this is a fascinating thought on how the forces of globalization (multilayered networks facilitating the mass movement of ideas, people, and goods at global distances) can change the manner in which evil shows itself. I think there is a lot of interesting speculation that could be done on this idea, but Morrow might be onto something.

Finally, in chapter 2 on page 25 Morrow talks about the "universal joke" in human communities around the world. The joke is always about the "other", making a caricature of them, making fun (at best) of those not in "our group". I just had one thought on this. The Gospel of the Kingdom of God (or said another way, the Gospel is the message of the Kingdom of God being at hand) says that there is no "other"--"Jew and Greek" are both invited to kneel at the foot of the Cross; Jesus made no distinction between people; the only people He condemned were the people who claimed that they were the "in-group" (pharisees) and that all others were the "other". The universal joke indicates a very real, though evil truth, about our world; people seem to gravitate towards dividing ourselves into "us" and the "other". Jesus radically abolishes this and calls His people to pay particular attention to those who are the worst victims of this vile pattern of human communities. This is one reason why His Church is meant to be particularly attentive to the poor and oppressed.

Let me know your thougts. I look forward chapters 3 and 4.

Blessings Brother,

Nathan