evil on Character Development

Ancient lens What’s the historical context? Wisdom Song It is not too far a stretch to imagine an eager young person sitting at the feet of a well-seasoned elder and receiving the words of thi...

Good and evil increase at compound interest. That's why the little decisions we make every day are of infinite importance.

Every one is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.

The character of human life, like the character of the human condition, like the character of all life, is "ambiguity": the inseparable mixture of good and evil, the true and false, the crea...

In imaginary works it is difficult to make virtuous characters as believable and attractive as bad characters. The villains of literature and screen–Captain Ahab, the boys who go bad in Lord of the Fl...

The whole course of human history may depend on a change of heart in one solitary and even humble individual - for it is in the solitary mind and soul of the individual that the battle between good an...

Leo Tolstoy, the writer of some of the most beautiful and complex stories in literature, had this to say on the topic of human nature and qualities that define us: One of the commonest and most gene...

When a man is getting better he understands more and more clearly the evil that is still left in him. When a man is getting worse he understands his own badness less and less.

While the illustration is somewhat dated, it brings up some of the crucial issues related to a modern approach to the subject of evil: Several television specials have been broadcast [on the subject...

The battleline between good and evil runs through the heart of every man.

Art is built on the deepest themes of human meaning: good and evil, beauty and ugliness, life and death, love and hate. No other story has incarnated those themes more than the story of Jesus.

"You must not change one thing, one pebble, one grain of sand, until you know what good and evil will follow on that act."

It is a world of magic and mystery, of deep darkness and flickering starlight. It is a world where terrible things happen and wonderful things too. It is a world where goodness is pitted against evil,...

When we observe evil, sinful behavior from a distance, the inclination is simply to see people as acting with malicious intent. We assume they are “bad people.” But often the motivations that lead to ...

When you pass beyond good and evil, you pass into the realm where might is right, and where anything that reminds you of the old moral values—for instance, a large Jewish community—stands in your way ...

I met a man who watches The Lord of the Rings movies every night. When he told me this I pushed back: “Every night?” He said that when he gets off work he goes home, fixes his dinner, turns on the m...

One of the most powerful illustrations of grace and mercy in all of western literature has to be the great scene between Monseigneur Bienvenu and Jean Valjean in the stirring epic Les Miserables by Vi...

A friend of mine who is a child psychologist told me about something one of her young patients said. It is common practice to give toys to children in the treatment room so they work out their conflic...

Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? The Books of the Psalms and David The Book of Psalms is divided into five books, like the five books of the Torah. While it is not obvi...

Dear Everybody, We have a serious problem: All of us think we’re good people. But Jesus says we’re not. Sincerely, Brant P. Hansen

Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? How did we get here? When relationships disintegrate and fall apart it is a fair question to ask. The question may come on the brink of...

A number of years ago I was discipling a young man who had recently been released from the state’s juvenile detention center. As a teenager he had been hooked on drugs, and he had resorted to stealing...

The psychotherapist M. Scott Peck spent many years of his practice as an agnostic. He, along with thousands upon thousands of his colleagues were taught that evil was a social construct, and therefore...

In a poignant tribute written after his son’s passing in a climbing accident, Nicholas Wolterstorff reflects: When we have overcome absence with phone calls, winglessness with airplanes, summer he...

How Do We Deal With Jesus? Our lectionary passage this week forces us to ask this question. Jesus’ own family asked the question. The Pharisees asked it as well. Both groups arrived at slightly diffe...

“But how am I to know the good side from the bad?” he asked, puzzled. “You will know,” Yoda answered. “When you are at peace . . . calm, passive.”

There is something in us, as storytellers and as listeners to stories, that demands the redemptive act, that demands that what falls at least be offered the chance to be restored. The reader of today ...

"Eomer said, 'How is a man to judge what to do in such times?' As he has ever judged,' said Aragorn. 'Good and evil have not changed since yesteryear, nor are they one thing among...

How Do We Deal With Jesus? Jesus’ own family asked the question. The Pharisees asked it as well. Both groups arrived at slightly different answers, but their aim was essentially the same⸺to shut Jesu...

While the language is a bit difficult, sociologist Lionel Tiger describes how different evil is interpreted in modern society. Evil used to be easily identifiable, now, it has “gone underground.” Mode...