Sermon No. 4

Is God As Mad?

Boy, is God mad! He is so mad, because man is so bad! And to think, he created us the way we are! So why should he get mad at us?

Is man really bad? Is God really mad -- angry? Like we get angry?

Is man really bad? (I obviously use the word "man" generically -- women are not excluded!) And if we are indeed bad, how did we get that way? Were we born bad -- original sin? Augustine thought so. Or were we born good, as Rousseau taught, and we somehow went bad? Or were we born neutral -- tabula rasa, a "blank slate"? That's what John Locke believed.

I believe the latter, that we were born neither good nor bad, but that "all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." Whether we were born bad, or chose to go bad, I'm sure we all agree, we are bad!

Remember Susan Smith? For nine days we were torn by our sympathy for Susan Smith on one hand, and our anger at the black man who stole her car and her two children, on the other hand. Poor young mother. What could be more devastating than to have your children snatched away?

But then we learned the truth -- she killed them! She murdered her own children! Can you imagine that? What evil lurked within her mind, her heart? How could anyone do such a thing? But she did it. She confessed to doing it! Whatever was in her heart and mind, we don't know. We do know she murdered her own children, and tried to blame someone else.

For Diane Downs, sitting in a prison cell, the news was deja vu. A few years ago she told police that someone had shot her children to death. But the 8-year old survived -- to say, "Mommy did it."

Deja Vu for Lawrence De Lisle, too, who drove his station wagon into the Detroit River, drowning his four children. He also told several versions of what happened before he finally confessed.

And do you remember, some 15 years ago, when Diane Flytag, not far from here, was convicted of killing her child, after claiming she knew nothing about it?

We remember the 27-year old man in Novi who murdered his own grandmother for a few dollars. We don't know what influenced him to become a violent person. We do know he killed his own grandmother for a few paltry dollars!

If you have read this morning's paper you know they caught 3 teenagers who murdered that young man in the pizza parlor last week

We all remember the minister who murdered a physician and his bodyguard because the physician performed abortions. The minister was sentenced to die. (You know what the "death penalty" is -- that is when we kill people to prove that killing people is wrong!)

Add to that the fact that a priest and a number of so-called "right-to-life" people applauded his action!

What motivates people to kill their children? or to kill anyone? to abuse their children or their spouses? or to abuse anyone? Isn't it because of evil? Then we want to know why people become evil.

Surely we must agree that man is bad. However we got that way, we are evil in our minds and our hearts.

And God is mad. Boy, is he mad! He is so mad at homosexuals he sent AIDS to get even with them. He is so mad at Californians he sent earthquakes to punish them. He is so mad at people in Georgia he sent a flood. And he sent forest fires all over the western United States last spring. So I guess they must really be bad! All those "acts of God," as the insurance companies say!

Does God indeed get mad? The Bible speaks of his wrath and his anger. But what does that mean?

I was told by my Hebrew professor that the word for "anger" comes from a Hebrew word which means "nose." He said the verb means "to breathe heavily thru the nose."

What do you do when your child is disobedient? Do you beat him? I hope not. No, you stand with your hands on your hips and "breathe heavily thru the nose"! Don't you? You sigh, as tho to say, "Is that the best you can do? After all I've done for you . . ." That, in fact, is exactly what God said to the Israelites. In Isaiah 5 we read how God describes his people as a vineyard which he planted and tended, but which bore only wild grapes.

So God said, "I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I am going to remove the protecting fence I had built, and then you will be vulnerable. In fact, you will be devoured." (Isaiah 5:5)

Disappointment! Discouragement! Disgust! Breathing heavily thru the nose! Now, that makes sense, doesn't it? That is an acceptable description of "anger," isn't it? That is consonant with the whole tenor of the Bible.

"When tempted, no one should say, 'God is tempting me.' For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone." (James 1:13)

Scottish theologian William Barclay was interviewed on British Broadcasting and took a stand on some controversial issue. In the interview, he also told how God sustained him after his 21-year old daughter had drowned.

Someone wrote an anonymous letter to him: "Dear Dr. Barclay, I know now why God killed your daughter. It was to save her from being corrupted by your heresies."

The problem of evil is an enigma which has plagued serious thinkers for as long as there have been serious thinkers. It is an especially challenging problem for theologians, even more for ordinary Christians like us.

The theological study of sin is hamartiology. There are many facets to hamartiology. Did God create evil? When it appeared on the scene, why didn't he obliterate it?

Is the Bible story of Sodom and Gomorrah an actual, historical incident? Even if it is just a legend, does it explain God's attitude toward evil? Maybe God can take about so much, and then -- as Steve Brown says, "Boy, is God ticked!" Does that not attribute human weakness to the Almighty?

Does God in fact destroy people? Did he send AIDS to punish homosexuals? Are natural disasters really "acts of God"? Is there really a hell, either now or in the furture, a place of eternal torment for those who disobey God here on earth?

Let me remind you that many of our religious traditions come more from pagan religions than from the Bible. Many of our Christmas and Easter activities are derived from pagan practices.

Let me now quickly add that my participation in Christmas and Easter should be evidence that I don't believe such participation is in itself pagan, or that it precludes God's blessing on our worship.

The most errant and gruesome and deplorable and atrocious and sinister and wretched and noxious and damnable and accursed and diabolic and -- well, if I could think of some more adjectives, I'd use them -- the most awful pagan heritage which Christians ever adopted, is the doctrine of an eternally burning hell.

I believe that doctrine has turned more people away from Christ than anything else. It is completely inconsistent with everything Jesus did and taught, and I am amazed that anyone believes it. And it's poor evangelism: we can't scare the hell out of people; but we should love heaven into them.

Back to the question at hand: Is God as mad as man is bad? Surely we agree that we are evil. So what is God's attitude toward us? Our attitude toward evil must be based on God's attitude toward evil. In all things we must ask, "What would Jesus say? What would Jesus do?"

I told you about the Buddhist priest who was asked the difference between Buddhism and Christianity. He answered, "Christianity offers forgiveness."

Each week we pray, "Forgive us our sins." Are we asking God to forgive just our selfishness, our pet sins? Or are we asking him to forgive Susan Smith, too? And Lawrence De Lisle? And Diane Downs?

To me, the most perplexing of all questions in regard to forgiveness is this: If Jesus died to forgive our sins; that is, if "without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness," (Hebrews 9:22) then what is forgiveness? If Jesus had to die to redeem us, to pay the penalty for our sins, then how can we call it forgiveness? Isn't it then a debt which has been paid? Does God in effect say, "You sinned and someone has to pay"? Then Jesus steps forth and says, "Alright, Father, I paid Felix's debt." If that is so, maybe the debt is paid, not forgiven. I think that is called substitutionary atonement. (That's a study for another time)

Without solving that dilemma, let's proceed with the assurance that God will forgive our sins.

Mother was getting Kevin ready for bed, and offered to hear his prayers. He said, "Mother, I'm not talking to you, I'm talking to God."
"Is there something you can't tell me?" asked Mother.

"Mother, if you stay here you'll just scold and scold. God said he will forgive and forget."

Every one of us is guilty of doing and saying things which were wrong. We know that. We are asking God to forgive those things, those evil acts and words, and tho'ts! We have said things which were unkind, maybe even untrue. We have ignored and ostracized people, treated them with contempt. Those sins need to be forgiven.

I told you that the study of sin is called hamartiology. Hamartia is one of several Greek words for sin. It derives from archery, and means to miss the mark, or the bull's eye.

You remember the parable of the talents. (Matthew 25) The lesson Jesus taught was that we are responsible for our talents. We cannot just hide them in the ground. We are to use them. To fail to use them is hamartia, to miss the mark -- sin! The one-talent man was not condemned for anything he did, but for what he did not do.

When we pray "forgive us our sins" we are asking God to forgive not only our sins of commission, the bad things we do, but also our sins of omission -- indolence, laziness, apathy, not getting involved in meeting the needs of people.

Edwin Muir wrote, "After a certain age, all of us, good and bad, are grief stricken because of powers within us which have never been realized: because, in other words, we are not what we should be."

If I am a "light of the world" I make a difference in the darkness of the world. If I am "salt of the earth" I add flavor to the world.

To fail to be light and salt is sin! To fail to love is sin!

We think of sin as murder and adultery, idol worship and thievery. Those evil actions are indeed sins. But then Jesus expanded and explained the meaning of those sins in his "You have heard, but I say to you . . ." proclamations. Murder is a sin, but hate is the sin behind the sin. Hate is the real sin. Will the real sinner please stand up!

"Sin is transgressing the law;" (I John 3:4) and "love is the fulfilling of the law." (Romans 13:10) Therefore sin is failing to love!

We tend to limit our love. I love my family. I love you. But to love Susan Smith? Diane Downs? Lawrence De Lisle? Must I love them? After all they've done?

To fail to love is to commit sin.

And to do less than I can do is sin! I struggle with this, dear saints. I have used all the excuses you ever heard, all the rationalizations for not doing things. I have used them all! I suspect you have, too! And every time we pray "forgive us our sins" we are asking God to overlook not just the things we have done or said which we ought not to have done or said. We are asking God to overlook the times when our personal pleasure or comfort was more important to us than serving the needs of others, letting our lights shine.

Now we get to the real difficult part of the Lord's Prayer: When we pray "as we forgive" we are setting a pretty scary stage!

Luke quotes Jesus, "as we forgive," but Matthew remembers Jesus saying, "as we have forgiven." Whichever Jesus said, it is plain that we are to forgive others.

That is not to say that God bases his willingness to forgive on our willingness to forgive; rather, if we are unforgiving, we are unchristian, out of the reach of God!

Forgiveness is no sweet, platonic ideal to be dispensed to the world like perfume sprayed from a fragrance bottle. Forgiveness is difficult. Long after you have forgiven, the wound lives on. Forgiveness is patently unfair. Forgiveness does not settle the questions of guilt, blame, injustice, unfairness. It evades these questions. But then it allows relationships to start over.

Solzhenitsyn said, "we differ from animals not in our capacity to think, but in our capacity to repent and to forgive. Only humans can perform that most unnatural act, and by doing so they develop relationships which transcend the relentless law of nature."

That, dear saints, is forgiveness, a most unnatural act which transcends the relentless law of nature: selfishness, self-centeredness.

Charles Williams said of the Lord's Prayer, "No word in the English language carries greater possibilities of terror than the little word 'as' in that clause 'as we forgive'!"

Forgiveness is the only way to break the cycle of blame and pain in a relationship. It is indeed unfair.

Some Hindu scholars estimate that for punishment in other lives to balance out my wrongs in this life, 6,800,000 reincarnations should suffice. Maybe "hell" would be better than that, after all?

Forgiveness, in a most strange and wonderful way, breaks the cycle of blame, and loosens the stranglehold of guilt. Forgiving yourself (actually accepting God's forgiveness) is an essential part of salvation -- accepting the acceptance of Jesus.

Floyd Bruse tells the story of Tom, who caused the death of a fellow student at a fraternity initiation. Responsibility and guilt haunted him. His marriage lasted only six years. He couldn't hold a job.

Finally, the mother of the boy who died confronted him. "Tom, I forgave you long ago. Your friends have forgiven you. God has forgiven you. Who are you to be the only one who refuses forgiveness?"

What should be our attitude toward those bad people who killed their children? And all the other vicious criminals? Just forgive and forget?

That brings up the whole matter of punishment. Bible punishment must be restoration, not retribution. How we do that is a subject for serious study. Our present criminal justics system obviously is not working. We need to think that over.

We now have more than a million people in U. S. prisons, twice as many as we had just 10 years ago! More than any other Western nation. Has it made our streets more safe? Has it reduced crime?

We must understand that the people who persist in doing evil things are sick. Sick, sick, sick! A physician doesn't lock up a cancer patient because of the evil in his body! He seeks to find the cause, and a cure.

We must address the basis for the evil. Why do people do the evil things they do? Why is there violence and evil in our world? We need look for causes, then find cures. Just locking up the sick people doesn't cure society. We have seen that it hasn't helped.

To be true Christians, we must base our attitudes on what we perceive to be God's attitudes, made manifest in the life and teachings of Jesus. How would he react to today's society? WWJD? What would Jesus do?

Isn't our attitude toward sinners more Christian now, by the way, than it was in the days of our forefathers? We no longer hang witches, after all. Let's be honest. The reason we no longer hang witches is not that we are more humane. It is because we no longer believe in witches!

We do believe in evil, and in its consequences. Those people who killed their children were obviously evil.

If you want to know what kinds of things people are capable of doing against each other, just spend a few nights in Cass Corridor, or come along on a police patrol some night.

As Christians, we are responsible to do what we can to make this a better, safer world.

The whole matter of evil, sin, came to the surface again for me last week as we saw the play, "The Diary of Anne Frank." When I remember what the Nazis did, I almost want to believe in a literal hell, where Hitler and his henchman can burn in pain forever and ever!

That's when forgiveness becomes a real problem for me. I'm sure it does for you, too. That's when we need to remember that forgiveness is not a negotiable virtue; it is a mandate.

The father of a murdered boy was interviewed. "You did everything for your son."

His answer was, "I forgot one thing. I forgot my responsibility to help rear the other kids!"

My prayer today is that we will learn to be Christian Christians, that we will confront and conquer the evil in our own hearts and minds. That will take prayer and concentrated effort. Then we can learn to forgive, and we can help rear "the other kids."

Let us pray . . .



		Is God As Mad?
		Boy, is God mad! He is so mad, because man is so bad! And to think, he created us the way we are! So why should he get mad at us? Is man really bad? Is God really mad -- angry? Like we get angry? Is man really bad? (I obviously use the word "man" generically -- women are not excluded!) And if we are indeed bad, how did we get that way? Were we born bad -- original sin? Augustine thought so. Or were we born good, as Rousseau taught, and we somehow went bad? Or were we born neutral -- tabula rasa, a "blank slate"? That's what John Locke believed. I believe the latter, that we were born neither good nor bad, but that "all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." Whether we were born bad, or chose to go bad, I'm sure we all agree, we are bad! Remember Susan Smith? For nine days we were torn by our sympathy for Susan Smith on one hand, and our anger at the black man who stole her car and her two children, on the other hand. Poor young mother. What could be more devastating than to have your children snatched away? But then we learned the truth -- she killed them! She murdered her own children! Can you imagine that? What evil lurked within her mind, her heart? How could anyone do such a thing? But she did it. She confessed to doing it! Whatever was in her heart and mind, we don't know. We do know she murdered her own children, and tried to blame someone else. For Diane Downs, sitting in a prison cell, the news was deja vu. A few years ago she told police that someone had shot her children to death. But the 8-year old survived -- to say, "Mommy did it." Deja Vu for Lawrence De Lisle, too, who drove his station wagon into the Detroit River, drowning his four children. He also told several versions of what happened before he finally confessed. And do you remember, some 15 years ago, when Diane Flytag, not far from here, was convicted of killing her child, after claiming she knew nothing about it? We remember the 27-year old man in Novi who murdered his own grandmother for a few dollars. We don't know what influenced him to become a violent person. We do know he killed his own grandmother for a few paltry dollars! If you have read this morning's paper you know they caught 3 teenagers who murdered that young man in the pizza parlor last week We all remember the minister who murdered a physician and his bodyguard because the physician performed abortions. The minister was sentenced to die. (You know what the "death penalty" is -- that is when we kill people to prove that killing people is wrong!) Add to that the fact that a priest and a number of so-called "right-to-life" people applauded his action! What motivates people to kill their children? or to kill anyone? to abuse their children or their spouses? or to abuse anyone? Isn't it because of evil? Then we want to know why people become evil. Surely we must agree that man is bad. However we got that way, we are evil in our minds and our hearts. And God is mad. Boy, is he mad! He is so mad at homosexuals he sent AIDS to get even with them. He is so mad at Californians he sent earthquakes to punish them. He is so mad at people in Georgia he sent a flood. And he sent forest fires all over the western United States last spring. So I guess they must really be bad! All those "acts of God," as the insurance companies say! Does God indeed get mad? The Bible speaks of his wrath and his anger. But what does that mean? I was told by my Hebrew professor that the word for "anger" comes from a Hebrew word which means "nose." He said the verb means "to breathe heavily thru the nose." What do you do when your child is disobedient? Do you beat him? I hope not. No, you stand with your hands on your hips and "breathe heavily thru the nose"! Don't you? You sigh, as tho to say, "Is that the best you can do? After all I've done for you . . ." That, in fact, is exactly what God said to the Israelites. In Isaiah 5 we read how God describes his people as a vineyard which he planted and tended, but which bore only wild grapes. So God said, "I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I am going to remove the protecting fence I had built, and then you will be vulnerable. In fact, you will be devoured." (Isaiah 5:5) Disappointment! Discouragement! Disgust! Breathing heavily thru the nose! Now, that makes sense, doesn't it? That is an acceptable description of "anger," isn't it? That is consonant with the whole tenor of the Bible. "When tempted, no one should say, 'God is tempting me.' For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone." (James 1:13) Scottish theologian William Barclay was interviewed on British Broadcasting and took a stand on some controversial issue. In the interview, he also told how God sustained him after his 21-year old daughter had drowned. Someone wrote an anonymous letter to him: "Dear Dr. Barclay, I know now why God killed your daughter. It was to save her from being corrupted by your heresies." The problem of evil is an enigma which has plagued serious thinkers for as long as there have been serious thinkers. It is an especially challenging problem for theologians, even more for ordinary Christians like us. The theological study of sin is hamartiology. There are many facets to hamartiology. Did God create evil? When it appeared on the scene, why didn't he obliterate it? Is the Bible story of Sodom and Gomorrah an actual, historical incident? Even if it is just a legend, does it explain God's attitude toward evil? Maybe God can take about so much, and then -- as Steve Brown says, "Boy, is God ticked!" Does that not attribute human weakness to the Almighty? Does God in fact destroy people? Did he send AIDS to punish homosexuals? Are natural disasters really "acts of God"? Is there really a hell, either now or in the furture, a place of eternal torment for those who disobey God here on earth? Let me remind you that many of our religious traditions come more from pagan religions than from the Bible. Many of our Christmas and Easter activities are derived from pagan practices. Let me now quickly add that my participation in Christmas and Easter should be evidence that I don't believe such participation is in itself pagan, or that it precludes God's blessing on our worship. The most errant and gruesome and deplorable and atrocious and sinister and wretched and noxious and damnable and accursed and diabolic and -- well, if I could think of some more adjectives, I'd use them -- the most awful pagan heritage which Christians ever adopted, is the doctrine of an eternally burning hell. I believe that doctrine has turned more people away from Christ than anything else. It is completely inconsistent with everything Jesus did and taught, and I am amazed that anyone believes it. And it's poor evangelism: we can't scare the hell out of people; but we should love heaven into them. Back to the question at hand: Is God as mad as man is bad? Surely we agree that we are evil. So what is God's attitude toward us? Our attitude toward evil must be based on God's attitude toward evil. In all things we must ask, "What would Jesus say? What would Jesus do?" I told you about the Buddhist priest who was asked the difference between Buddhism and Christianity. He answered, "Christianity offers forgiveness." Each week we pray, "Forgive us our sins." Are we asking God to forgive just our selfishness, our pet sins? Or are we asking him to forgive Susan Smith, too? And Lawrence De Lisle? And Diane Downs? To me, the most perplexing of all questions in regard to forgiveness is this: If Jesus died to forgive our sins; that is, if "without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness," (Hebrews 9:22) then what is forgiveness? If Jesus had to die to redeem us, to pay the penalty for our sins, then how can we call it forgiveness? Isn't it then a debt which has been paid? Does God in effect say, "You sinned and someone has to pay"? Then Jesus steps forth and says, "Alright, Father, I paid Felix's debt." If that is so, maybe the debt is paid, not forgiven. I think that is called substitutionary atonement. (That's a study for another time) Without solving that dilemma, let's proceed with the assurance that God will forgive our sins. Mother was getting Kevin ready for bed, and offered to hear his prayers. He said, "Mother, I'm not talking to you, I'm talking to God." "Is there something you can't tell me?" asked Mother. "Mother, if you stay here you'll just scold and scold. God said he will forgive and forget." Every one of us is guilty of doing and saying things which were wrong. We know that. We are asking God to forgive those things, those evil acts and words, and tho'ts! We have said things which were unkind, maybe even untrue. We have ignored and ostracized people, treated them with contempt. Those sins need to be forgiven. I told you that the study of sin is called hamartiology. Hamartia is one of several Greek words for sin. It derives from archery, and means to miss the mark, or the bull's eye. You remember the parable of the talents. (Matthew 25) The lesson Jesus taught was that we are responsible for our talents. We cannot just hide them in the ground. We are to use them. To fail to use them is hamartia, to miss the mark -- sin! The one-talent man was not condemned for anything he did, but for what he did not do. When we pray "forgive us our sins" we are asking God to forgive not only our sins of commission, the bad things we do, but also our sins of omission -- indolence, laziness, apathy, not getting involved in meeting the needs of people. Edwin Muir wrote, "After a certain age, all of us, good and bad, are grief stricken because of powers within us which have never been realized: because, in other words, we are not what we should be." If I am a "light of the world" I make a difference in the darkness of the world. If I am "salt of the earth" I add flavor to the world. To fail to be light and salt is sin! To fail to love is sin! We think of sin as murder and adultery, idol worship and thievery. Those evil actions are indeed sins. But then Jesus expanded and explained the meaning of those sins in his "You have heard, but I say to you . . ." proclamations. Murder is a sin, but hate is the sin behind the sin. Hate is the real sin. Will the real sinner please stand up! "Sin is transgressing the law;" (I John 3:4) and "love is the fulfilling of the law." (Romans 13:10) Therefore sin is failing to love! We tend to limit our love. I love my family. I love you. But to love Susan Smith? Diane Downs? Lawrence De Lisle? Must I love them? After all they've done? To fail to love is to commit sin. And to do less than I can do is sin! I struggle with this, dear saints. I have used all the excuses you ever heard, all the rationalizations for not doing things. I have used them all! I suspect you have, too! And every time we pray "forgive us our sins" we are asking God to overlook not just the things we have done or said which we ought not to have done or said. We are asking God to overlook the times when our personal pleasure or comfort was more important to us than serving the needs of others, letting our lights shine. Now we get to the real difficult part of the Lord's Prayer: When we pray "as we forgive" we are setting a pretty scary stage! Luke quotes Jesus, "as we forgive," but Matthew remembers Jesus saying, "as we have forgiven." Whichever Jesus said, it is plain that we are to forgive others. That is not to say that God bases his willingness to forgive on our willingness to forgive; rather, if we are unforgiving, we are unchristian, out of the reach of God! Forgiveness is no sweet, platonic ideal to be dispensed to the world like perfume sprayed from a fragrance bottle. Forgiveness is difficult. Long after you have forgiven, the wound lives on. Forgiveness is patently unfair. Forgiveness does not settle the questions of guilt, blame, injustice, unfairness. It evades these questions. But then it allows relationships to start over. Solzhenitsyn said, "we differ from animals not in our capacity to think, but in our capacity to repent and to forgive. Only humans can perform that most unnatural act, and by doing so they develop relationships which transcend the relentless law of nature." That, dear saints, is forgiveness, a most unnatural act which transcends the relentless law of nature: selfishness, self-centeredness. Charles Williams said of the Lord's Prayer, "No word in the English language carries greater possibilities of terror than the little word 'as' in that clause 'as we forgive'!" Forgiveness is the only way to break the cycle of blame and pain in a relationship. It is indeed unfair. Some Hindu scholars estimate that for punishment in other lives to balance out my wrongs in this life, 6,800,000 reincarnations should suffice. Maybe "hell" would be better than that, after all? Forgiveness, in a most strange and wonderful way, breaks the cycle of blame, and loosens the stranglehold of guilt. Forgiving yourself (actually accepting God's forgiveness) is an essential part of salvation -- accepting the acceptance of Jesus. Floyd Bruse tells the story of Tom, who caused the death of a fellow student at a fraternity initiation. Responsibility and guilt haunted him. His marriage lasted only six years. He couldn't hold a job. Finally, the mother of the boy who died confronted him. "Tom, I forgave you long ago. Your friends have forgiven you. God has forgiven you. Who are you to be the only one who refuses forgiveness?" What should be our attitude toward those bad people who killed their children? And all the other vicious criminals? Just forgive and forget? That brings up the whole matter of punishment. Bible punishment must be restoration, not retribution. How we do that is a subject for serious study. Our present criminal justics system obviously is not working. We need to think that over. We now have more than a million people in U. S. prisons, twice as many as we had just 10 years ago! More than any other Western nation. Has it made our streets more safe? Has it reduced crime? We must understand that the people who persist in doing evil things are sick. Sick, sick, sick! A physician doesn't lock up a cancer patient because of the evil in his body! He seeks to find the cause, and a cure. We must address the basis for the evil. Why do people do the evil things they do? Why is there violence and evil in our world? We need look for causes, then find cures. Just locking up the sick people doesn't cure society. We have seen that it hasn't helped. To be true Christians, we must base our attitudes on what we perceive to be God's attitudes, made manifest in the life and teachings of Jesus. How would he react to today's society? WWJD? What would Jesus do? Isn't our attitude toward sinners more Christian now, by the way, than it was in the days of our forefathers? We no longer hang witches, after all. Let's be honest. The reason we no longer hang witches is not that we are more humane. It is because we no longer believe in witches! We do believe in evil, and in its consequences. Those people who killed their children were obviously evil. If you want to know what kinds of things people are capable of doing against each other, just spend a few nights in Cass Corridor, or come along on a police patrol some night. As Christians, we are responsible to do what we can to make this a better, safer world. The whole matter of evil, sin, came to the surface again for me last week as we saw the play, "The Diary of Anne Frank." When I remember what the Nazis did, I almost want to believe in a literal hell, where Hitler and his henchman can burn in pain forever and ever! That's when forgiveness becomes a real problem for me. I'm sure it does for you, too. That's when we need to remember that forgiveness is not a negotiable virtue; it is a mandate. The father of a murdered boy was interviewed. "You did everything for your son." His answer was, "I forgot one thing. I forgot my responsibility to help rear the other kids!" My prayer today is that we will learn to be Christian Christians, that we will confront and conquer the evil in our own hearts and minds. That will take prayer and concentrated effort. Then we can learn to forgive, and we can help rear "the other kids." Let us pray . . .