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“The world”

It seems to me that many people, coming of age in the middle of this extraordinary economic and military success, quite naturally assume the world is good, and evil a problem which does not confront them. Evil is an error, easily corrected and erased.

At some point the fatuousness of this world view becomes clear. They run into barriers, are forced to traverse obstacles, and their view gradually changes to a sense that the world is evil. Go look at the poster in Spencer’s to see what today’s kids are thinking about, or play some video games.

I would compare and contrast this with William James very interesting distinction between once-born and twice-born Christians. The first, in my terms, are naive. They think God will literally supply their wants and keep evil at bay. Evil does not concern them.

The twice-born, in contrast, have both a somewhat fatalistic world view which is quite accurate in terms of recognizing how fragile we and everything in our lives is; and a peace which comes from acceptance, from squaring what is, with Gods will. This belief is redemptive and absolutely safe, because it excludes nothing.

The issue today is that we have in the public domain no good redemptive practices and beliefs. Suffering has no meaning. A victim is permanently marked. It is not a transitional condition, but a part of public mythology.