Yet Another Face of Evil

To paraphrase the late, great Isaac Hayes: they say this D's a bad mother...

So what do you see in this face? It's the face of a guy who means well, or likes to think that he means well. The man who occupies this face is a sinner -- too quick to anger, often thoughtless and careless. He is a bright fellow and can use his intellect well, but he can be intellectually lazy. He can be dismissive of the heartfelt opinions of those who disagree with him, and equally dismissive of the well-reasoned ones, too. This man values charity and public service but falls short of his ideals all too often. If you are reading this feature it is likely you know this guy personally and you might even know him well. Does evil reside in this human being? Yes.

Although we are often quick to identify evil in others, we are slow to acknowledge evil in ourselves and the social structures we occupy. It's a universal human tendency. And even if we face the evil in ourselves, we are usually slow to recognize the damage that it does and try to rationalize it. And we especially don't like it when we feel our noses are being rubbed into our sins, especially when those who would rub our noses in our sins are sinners themselves. That's a universal human tendency, too. And we're going to talk about that next.