I just finished a fascinating book by the social psychologist Philip Zimbardo, The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil. I highly recommend it. But I have to warn you: I feel like I plunged into the very heart of darkness while reading it. It examines the human heart’s capacity for evil. It concludes by encouraging us to see that the human heart also has the capacity for good. But even my wife and daughter pleaded with me to hurry up and finish the book so I could finally drag myself out of my serious and morose mood.
I don’t know if any of you remember the Stanford Prison Experiment that Zimbardo conducted in the 70s… an experiment where 8 healthy, normal male students were selected to be the guards and 8 healthy, normal male students were selected to be the prisoners. What was supposed to last 2 weeks had to be shut down in 5 days due to the escalating cruelty of the guards and the increasingly disturbing dehumanization of the prisoners. Zimbardo himself accepts guilt for allowing the prison experiment to deteriorate into such deplorable conditions. In 2004, Zimbardo became a key witness for “Chip” Frederick, a guard at the infamous Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, where shocking incidents of sustained abuse, torture and even murder hit the news accompanied by photos and videos. Zimbardo’s basic thrust is that:
ordinary people, even good ones, can be seduced, recruited, initiated into behaving in evil ways under the sway of powerful systemic and situational forces (p. 443)
I like to read these kinds of books once in a while because they substantiate my theological position that we are all, given the right situation, capable of monstrous evil. All our feet are swift to shed blood. Books like these help me reach a wiser perspective on the human condition and hopefully lead me to a deeper compassion for people. It reminds me, as a person entrusted with the responsibility and care of a community of people, that I must continually hold myself up to severe scrutiny in order to be a good pastor. I also have to teach people how to resist any powers that would coerce, manipulate, humiliate, dehumanize or abuse them.
After the SPE, Zimbardo made a commitment which allies with a commitment I made some years ago:
Then and there I vowed to use whatever power that I had for good and against evil, to promote what is best in people, to work to free people from their self-imposed prisons, and to work against systems that pervert the promise of human happiness and justice (p. 179).
This is why I blog and pastor the way I do. I believe that the Church is one of the most powerful systems in this world that has the capacity, and often uses it, to dehumanize people. I’ve cooperated with this dehumanization in the past and have also been a victim of it. The last time I witnessed and experienced severe abuse at the hands of the Christian religion and its ministers in 2002, I vowed that if ever I would go back into ministry again, I would work to resist this power, teach others to do the same, and work to free people from the dehumanizing oppression of religion and the Church. I believe in the Holy Catholic Church, and that is why I am committed to demanding that it devote itself to its humble call: the communion of saints.
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David Hayward is an artist trapped in a pastor's body, stripping to the essential.
It does lead one to have compassion on the particularly wicked. The whole “they know not what they do” thing, right?
I’ve argued for some time with my non-believing friends that the internet is the greatest mirror we have into the horrors of mankind. A man who can hide behind a pseudonym and spew hatred and filth is simply ordinary man without the protective coating of society. I love the internet for its freedom, but this freedom breeds a kind of moral lawlessness that exposes mankind for what he is: wretched, corrupt, and on the brink of self-consuming destruction.
And the scariest part of it all is that, for the most part, there is no “them.” It is us. Believers are not immune to wickedness.
I think I’m going to cry.
Nope, sorry, it was just a sneeze.
i’ve never confused crying with a sneeze
Great post, David. I can only comment with, “Amen.”
Yah, it was a first for me too.
I will give this book a try.
be prepared to be shocked and awed
Great post. I like it because I work in prisons but I also like it because I love the holy catholic church and find disunity and all that goes with it desperately sad. Sad’s not a strong enough word actually…
“No one is righteous,no, not one; no one understands, no one seeks for God. All have turned aside, together they have gone wrong; no one does good, not even one.”
(a few verses later) ” Their feet are swift to shed blood, in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they do not know.”
St. Paul in Romans 3:10-12 and then 3:15-17
This is you and I he’s speaking of. We are included in the word ‘ALL’.
This horrible mess looks like a job for…the Savior!
Thanks np!
– Steve
Hey David, I have just started “People of the Lie, The Hope for Healing Human Evil” by M. Scott Peck and he addresses this in such an interesting way. He hypothesizes that you will find more truly evil people in church than in prison because people in prison can admit their brokenness, while people in church are all trying to hide their’s. I think you’d find it a great read.
Lord haste the day when the seeds of our true selves, created in your image, bloom into beauty.
I hold up broken hallujeah’s and pray you keep us in your light.
Appreciate this post. In my stupid corner of the world I am in the middle of a season where I watch man of my friends fighting each other, and this is good insight into how such things can happen even among people with the same hopes and dreams. I’ve ordered the book.
If preaching about a Savior would help this mess I think we would have seen a change by now. And when we observe the church, the so called Savior center, we see, at least according to Scott Peck, a far greater concentration of evil.
What I think is healthy is individual rebellion against large concentrations of power. Large groups of people form these collectives as a way of avoiding personal responsibility. Church seems closer to nation building to me than to providing a vehicle for compassion and service.
And, at least for me, I feel much better when I act and speak to change what I can. It is a much better place for me than despair. I have also learned how to let go of outcomes most of the time. That gives me the freedom to be true to myself, without condemnation, which I think is essential for a healthy and happy life.
I have also learned that when this freedom is available there are deep motivations to connect with people in loving ways that I don’t have to work up based on the idea that I have to be a “good” person.
Unfortunately, in my experience, the church and other organizations use condemnation and shame as their primary motivators. Frankly that works well for the organization, but pretty much sucks for their members. I’m simply at a point in my life that I am not willing to go along with that program any longer and I am willing to take responsibility for what I have been given in my own heart.
M. Scott Peck: He hypothesizes that you will find more truly evil people in church than in prison because people in prison can admit their brokenness, while people in church are all trying to hide their’s.
——What a crock M. Scott Peck vomits.
——————————-What kind of empirical evidence does he base that on?
Can any one give me that answer?
——————————-How many prisons has he visited and made a studied?
——————————-How many churches has he visited and studied?
——————————-What is his defintion of “evil?”
——————————-It can’t be sin, because he already separates that with “you will
find more truly evil people….”
——————————-Jeffery Domer “Sinner”
——————————-Church lady gossip “Sinner”
——————————-Jeffery Domer “Evil”
——————————-Church lady gossip “?????”
Are there some truely evil people in churches? Absolutely!
Are there more truely evil people in churches than prison as Peck hypothesizes, according to Heidi? What a crock! That is pointed at Peck, no one else.
Admitting “your brokenness” is not the same as “repentance.”
Before some of you go off on me, remember, the operative word is “evil,” not sinner.
fisho
fishon,
http://www.mindful-things.com/Glossary/glossary_e.html lists some definitions related to the human mind. For evil it says “Evil – Scott Peck defines evil as that which kills, the body as well as the spirit.”
You’d have to do some research to see if the blog administrators have quoted M. Scott Peck accurately. I don’t have the time. (Although doing a quick google search with the locators “M. Scott Peck empirical evidence evil church prison”, I came across a rather thought provoking blogpost from Sept. of 2007 at the URL below.)
http://experimentaltheology.blogspot.com/2007/09/everyday-evil-part-3-obedience.html
However, if the above definition truly is Peck’s definition of evil, I would say that we can find “evil” people anywhere–prisons, schools, churches, homes, mirrors.
Heck!–”evil spirit killers” might even be here in our midst!! ;^)
Dearest Fishon,
The point the late Dr. Peck makes in his book is that ‘the lie’ evil is the bad that’s hidden (ie. serpent in the garden) and pretends to be good as opposed to the bad that’s obvious and everyone knows it’s bad. The book is really about ‘people of the lie’ and a sort of evil that is most destructive because it likes to dress up as and angel of light and try to seduce even the elect, if that were possible.
Dr. Peck was wrong about a lot of things, like me. He also had a number of valuable insights from his experiences and studies that we can all learn from on things like spirituality, the nature of evil and peacemaking.
Oh, and from what I hear you may be surprised the next time you see Mr. Dahmer….
Brrianmpei,
Now that first paragraph of your’s I understand. And I think I agree with it.
Your last sentence: Yes, I have heard the same thing. Just read an interesting article about that.
Thanks for correcting my spelling.
fishon
A friend and former life-sentence prisoner, now a Christian, says the two places in the world he thinks people wear masks most are church and prison. He has experience of both places. So do I, as a prison chaplain.
I see the consequences of sin being given full reign in people’s lives in jail – sometimes just being there among all that metaphorical “filth” can suck the life out of you – but I also see broken, sorry people, appalled by their own crime and honest about their fallenness. I see wonderful care and camaraderie and mutual support, among some prisoners. Among others I see manipulation, bullying and the results of brutality.
In church, well in a good church, I find love and mutual support, I find great kindness and social concern, I find tireless workers for the God they love. But of course I see some attention seekers, some bullies and some gossips (I hate gossip!).
Which place is worse? Well, the sins in jail are generally biggies, and the victims may even have died as a result of them. In church, though, they’re big in a different way. Small though they are in the great scheme of things, they’re bad for the simple reason that the Christian SHOULD KNOW BETTER.
Ax
Ax,
I could not agree more.
fishon
Great post!
for
we
all
have sinned.
can’t get plainer.
I’ve always known my own capacity for evil. It seems to be located just out of my view and just out of my reach all the time. I feel at one with David sometimes. He wanted God to tear people to pieces. He didn’t give much of a care for them as people with lives and feelings, with histories. He was pretty low on the compassion-o-meter. I’m so glad David’s story is in there. God is passionate. He made us passionate. For me, it puts the whole ‘love your neighbour’ and ‘love your enemies’ into context. God knows it’s not our first response to do that. It’s a choice we need to make, to keep making. We slip and fall and have to find forgiveness and remake the choices.
I’ve read the people of the lie and also the jigsaw man by paul britain (criminal psychologist). If anything, they both reassured me that I’m okay. Yeah, I have this capacity for evil and it stalks me. But that’s humanity. But my heart has changed and it is changing. My desires are more for good than they were. And it hurts me more than it used to when I cause other people pain.
Why? Because I’m loved. And love conquers all
Great post and a great journey I must admit – it is worth knowing and examining – evil. Sounds like a worthwhile read and I tend to agree with the assertions from the book about the capacity to do evil coming from the facelessness of structure – and personally would include any structure in that – including churches, prisons, companies, and gov’ts. Anything with any essence of power also has at it’s core the problem with abusing it for gain…we are humans that’s for sure.
I see the real problem is that structure contains a facelessness to it – a place to hide one’s responsibility for their actions – so as to not even acknowledge one committs this action. I watched a doc on Enron and how everyone ducked and dodged taking fault for the mass abuses of the company – which occured mainly due to greed and power. Why did they do it? They hid behind an entity called a company and no one could see how this was their fault. Same thing happens in all organized structure – or can happen.
As humans we do need to be held accountable for our actions – like children we will allow ourselves to get ‘out of hand’ without someone to help with that. I don’t think we ever outgrow child-hood – we think we do – but the obvious thing is even as adults we need someone to ‘keep us in line’ from time to time. I think we need to be merciful for the very fact – what happens to one person can happen to us – and we best be aware of our weaknesses also. I admire Jesus for those teachings on mercy and forgiveness – it is something we need for our own accountability also (and humility).
thanks for the recommendation david…i’ll check it out