Showing posts with label Evil. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Evil. Show all posts

1.14.2011

Is Suburbanization Evil?



In my mind, there is no question that it is.

It is only the conservative values ingrained on the mind of the evangelical church that blinds us to this. The suburbs were formed when technology gave people the ability to commute; and hence to choose to live apart from where they work. People were beholden to the cities for jobs and economic infrastructure, but did not want to live with the problems that such environments create. In moving to the suburbs they could have the benefits of the city without the problems. They could share in the resources of the City without taking responsibility for the City.

Were this all there was to suburbanization it would be bad enough...

Unfortunately there is an explicitly racial component to the entire structure as well. The suburban environment is vastly different than the urban one in terms of ethnicity. This means that our economic system treats people of different ethnicities vastly different. Conservatives argue that it is okay that we treat minorities worse than whites because we don't treat minorities bad because they are minorities; we only treat them bad because they are poor.

It is the same argument used to disenfranchise minorities historically. "We aren't preventing blacks from voting, only illiterates!" Intentionally ignoring that blacks largely couldn't read because our nation had set up the educational system to educate whites and not blacks...

The real question is, will we see that no matter what has caused the problems the poor face, whether that is the actions of evil men with power, or well-intentioned but ignorant men with power, or the apathy and sin of the poor themselves; as Christians it is our duty and our joy to be among them!?

6.27.2010

Combating Evil

"And Abraham’s a bit of a shaky character too in various ways, because the people who are called to be the bearers of the solution are also part of the problem."

N.T. Wright

4.27.2010

Evil

"If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?"

Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn (The Gulag Archipelago: 1918-1956)