BEACON: Chalice Circles
MAY 2012
Can UU's Talk about Evil?
This month’s suggested Chalice Circle topic is adapted from the session plans of the Eno River UU Fellowship in Durham, North Carolina. The original plan, as well as many other suggested plans, can be found at http://www.smallgroupministry.net/public/sessions/index.html
Opening Reading #1
Lois Fahs Timmins, daughter of the great Unitarian religious educator Sophia Lyon Fahs, once criticized her own liberal religious education for failing to address the reality of evil. "We spent 95 percent of our time studying good people doing good things, and skipped very lightly over the bad parts of humanity," she said in 1996. "I was taught not to be judgmental, not to observe or report on the bad behavior of others. Consequently, because of my education, I grew up ignorant about bad human behavior, incompetent to observe it accurately, unskilled in how to respond to it, and ashamed of talking about evil."
Opening Reading #2
“Even though it has underestimated humankind’s capacity for evil in the past, religious liberalism has something important to say about evil. We are called to balance the naming of evil in the world with the need to be humble and on guard for it—not as the dangerous ‘other’ that would try to trick us, but mingled right here with the best of ourselves.
“And we must call it when we see it. If we are in touch with reality, we must be willing to use the word evil. We need the word evil to describe parts of the human experience—out of respect for the people who are harmed, and also because only after we name it can we ask the theological question: Where is God or Grace in this?
And then, if we listen, we’ll hear the answer—because it’s implicit in the next question: ‘What can we do?’”
- Excerpted from UU World magazine, Winter, 2011, “Ten Years after 9/11, Can UUs Talk About Evil?” by Reverend Angela Herrera.
Discussion Questions
1. How do you make sense of evil acts?
2. Why do you think people commit hurtful crimes and acts of terror? Are they evil?
3. Do you agree that “We need the word evil to describe part of the human experience”? If so, why? If not, why not?
4. Can we really affirm our first UU Principle – that we believe in the inherent worth and dignity of every person - if we honestly acknowledge the reality of evil in our world?
Closing Reading
“People are almost equally capable of both good and evil, but most of the time—say, three times out of five—people choose the good. The seesaw tilts just a few degrees toward the good in this tentative world, but those few degrees are the difference between peace and Armageddon. The job of the church is to put the few stubborn ounces of our weight on the side of goodness, and press down for all we’re worth.” - Patrick O’Neill, extracted from UU Views of Evil, 2007, Unitarian Universalist Association.
