19AR24-01

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AR 24:1 - The science and study of evil

In this issue:

RELIGIOUS PLURALISM - peaceably coexisting with "wildly varying truth claims"

SPIRITUAL DARKNESS - an evangelical theologian and a secular criminologist explore evil and its causes

Apologia Report 24:1 (1,409)

January 2, 2019

RELIGIOUS PLURALISM

Holy Envy: Finding God in the Faith of Others, by Barbara Brown Taylor [1] -- HarperCollins: In this autobiographical account, Taylor "contemplates the myriad ways other people and traditions encounter the Transcendent.... Troubled and inspired by what she learns, Taylor <www.bit.ly/2F2dAjy> returns to her own tradition for guidance, finding new meaning in old teachings that have too often been used to exclude religious strangers instead of embracing the divine challenges they present. Re-imagining some central stories from the religion she knows best, she takes heart in how often God chooses outsiders to teach insiders how out-of-bounds God really is. Throughout Holy Envy, Taylor weaves together stories from the classroom with reflections on how her own spiritual journey has been complicated and renewed by connecting with people of other traditions - even those whose truths are quite different from hers."

Booklist (Nov 15 '18): "While comparative religion's founding educator, Huston Smith, taught by conveying his world travels, Taylor, who approaches world religion as both teacher and explorer, reaches her students with experiential field trips to places of worship closer to home. She nudges them away from spiritual appropriation and comparison, moving them instead toward challenging discernment of their faith and the faith of others. ... One [example] is her distillation of the biblical account of Nicodemus, a Pharisee, who came to Jesus to learn about being born again. Taylor's novel interpretation of the story, and the way it gave her entrance into understanding the Holy Spirit, will get readers thinking."

Publishers Weekly (Nov 11 '18): The former Episcopal priest who teaches religion at Piedmont College in Athens, Ga., says "her real subject is 'divine diversity' - the attempt to live peaceably and with convictions in a world where differing religions make wildly varying truth claims."

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SPIRITUAL DARKNESS

Evil: A Guide for the Perplexed, by Chad V. Meister, Professor of Philosophy and Theology at Bethel College, Indiana [2] -- publisher McMillan Palgrave describes this as an "examination of the philosophical and theological problems raised by the existence of widespread evil. It explores classic debates around this problem and also engages with more recent ones, from new challenges posed by scientific advances in evolutionary theory, neuroscience, and cosmology, to concerns of climate change and environmental degradation, to questions raised by increasing religious and secular violence. This second edition also contains new chapters and topics such as Jewish, Christian, and Islamic responses to evil and skeptical theism. [It] covers what evil is; problems of evil; free-will and soul-making theodicies; a global theodicy of fulfillment; anti-theodicy, misotheism, and theodicy of protest; the problem of divine hiddenness; evil, atheism, and the problem of good; evil and suffering in Hinduism and Buddhism; and eternal good and triumph over evil."

Choice (Nov '18) adds that "from the outset it is clear that his authority lies in his work on Christian ideas. ... Meister explores religious and secular violence and concerns such as climate change and other environmental problems."

Evil: The Science Behind Humanity's Dark Side, by Julia Shaw, senior lecturer in criminology and psychology <www.bit.ly/2Qdt1GE> at University College London [3] -- from the publisher: "What is it about evil that we find so compelling? From our obsession with serial killers to violence in pop culture, we seem inescapably drawn to the stories of monstrous acts and the aberrant people who commit them. But evil, Dr. Julia Shaw argues, is all relative, rooted in our unique cultures. ... And if evil is only in the eye of the beholder, can it be said to exist at all? In Evil, Shaw uses case studies from academia, examples from and popular culture, and anecdotes from everyday life to break down complex information and concepts like the neuroscience of evil, the psychology of bloodlust, and workplace misbehavior."

Publishers Weekly (Dec 10 '18): "Emphasizing that her approach is not philosophical or religious, Shaw eschews deep philosophizing for social and neuroscientific research to discover why people engage in transgressions against moral norms, including murder, bestiality, and inaction in the face of others' transgressions. Her survey draws on the work of distinguished psychologists.... Shaw is careful to state that her intent is therapeutic, not moralistic - to discuss 'why we do terrible things to one another, not whether these things should happen or what the appropriate punishments for them are.' Arguing, like Friedrich Nietzsche, that what one calls 'evil' is relative to individual experience and culture, she nevertheless finds keen things to say about the subject, notably in her explanation of the psychological concept of the 'dark tetrad,' a cluster of personality traits associated with aggression, namely psychopathy, sadism, narcissism, and Machiavellianism."

Kirkus (Dec 1 '18) notes: Shaw "writes that 'heinous crimes are generally seen as more of a circus show than something we should try to understand,' [and] '[W]hile on the one hand we condemn murder, many of us also fantasize about it.'" The reviewer observes that "Curious readers will be riveted by Shaw's deliberate, rational discussions of such taboos as cyberbullying, homicide, pedophilia, and the ways money and power corrupt the souls of formerly good men and women. A monumental task for the less tolerant, she implores us not to 'dehumanize those who dehumanize others.' However, in situations such as that of the price-gouging pharmaceutical CEO Martin Shkreli, generating sympathy can be next to impossible. [WARNING] Readers acutely attuned to their own sexual self-expression may be especially intrigued by the chapter on an erotic smorgasbord of 'wildly aberrant' taboo paraphilia."

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SOURCES: Monographs

1 - Holy Envy: Finding God in the Faith of Others, Barbara Brown Taylor (HarperOne, March 2019, hardcover, 256 pages) <www.amzn.to/2BNudLv>

2 - Evil: A Guide for the Perplexed, by Chad V. Meister (Bloomsbury, February 2018, paperback, 224 pages) <www.amzn.to/2rZflFq>

3 - Evil: The Science Behind Humanity's Dark Side, by Julia Shaw (Abrams, February 2019, hardcover, 320 pages) <www.amzn.to/2TfOlwZ>

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