Grey World

1. I don’t know what to say about London. I don’t know what to say about Madrid or New York or Auschwitz or Darfur or Iraq. I can’t smile and pretend that they haven’t happened. I don’t want the “hug the terrorists” or “send them to therapy.” I also don’t think sending troops in to “eradicate the evil” works either. There is no theology of terrorists to my knowledge; there is only theodicy – the problem of evil.

All of humanity is abused by these acts of irresponsibility, both the initial acts and the consquential acts. Evil is not just a problem over there, but over here as well. This is what I struggle with, what are we meant to do with these acts theologically? What is the responsible response?

2. What may be the greatest evil of all is the belief that one has a lock on goodness. The second greatest, believing that there is a great gulf, divide, whatever between what is evil and what is good. Within each person lies the capability to do and be both evil and good. Therefore, no one person is one or the other. Instead each person simultaneously functions in both capacities, rendering all decisions thought to be black or white more of a gray muddled mess.

Granted, sometimes the gray is lighter and sometimes it is darker, but it is still gray; that is it still has some opacity to it that can be seen through to the opposite pole.

[via TheoSpora]