What do we make of Josef Fritzl ( http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10562205 )? He's the guy who locked up his daughter downstairs for years, raping her and fathering her children while deceiving his wife and raising some of her children. His behaviour is evil. What causes such monstrous evil? It brings in the wider question of evil. What is it that makes Robert Mugabe treat his nation and citizens as pawns in his power game? What led Adolph Hitler and other meglamaniacs in their lunacy? Such people demonstrate that there are forces at work in this world that lie behind what we see and experience. The notion of Satan and demons are out of vogue in the western world. Some Christian thinkgers have sought to explain the biblical material on such things as remnants of an ancient world view and/or imports from other religious perspectives. Others see Satan and demons not as personal beings but as human evil individual and corporate. For me, before my ...
The blog of Mark Keown, New Testament lecturer at Laidlaw College, Auckland, New Zealand. It involves comments on theology, life, sport and whatever comes into Mark's random mind.