This blog is hit or miss for me (though always interesting) but this quote is a definite “hit.”
“The line between good and evil does not lie between ‘us’ and ‘them,’ between the West and the rest, between Left and Right, between rich and poor. That fateful line runs down the middle of each of us, every human society, every individual. This is not to say that all humans, and all societies, are equally good or bad; far from it. Merely that we are all infected and that all easy attempts to see the problem in terms of ‘us’ and ‘them’ are fatally flawed.”
– N. T. Wright, Surprised by Scripture
jubilare 
June 30th, 2014 at 7:30 am
What a great quotation. I did my thesis on the “us and them” idea in Scripture. It took me a lot of words to communicate what Tom here does so simply and elegantly.
June 30th, 2014 at 7:33 am
It makes me think I need to read “Surprised by Scripture.” :)
June 30th, 2014 at 8:07 am
Perhaps!
June 30th, 2014 at 9:00 am
Pogo: we have met the enemy is us
June 30th, 2014 at 9:47 am
I go Pogo! Though you left out a couple of words. “We have met the enemy, and he is us.” ;)
June 30th, 2014 at 11:43 am
N.T. Wright is one of my go-to theologians. I’ve read several of his books and hope to read a lot more. Great quote!
Be well and have a good week!
June 30th, 2014 at 11:57 am
I’ve heard of him, but have yet to read anything of his. Obviously, this is something I should remedy. :)
Thank you, and may yours be good as well!
June 30th, 2014 at 12:44 pm
Sounds like a paraphrase of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn:
“It was only when I lay there on rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every human heart, and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. Even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained; and even in the best of all hearts, there remains a small corner of evil. …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?”
June 30th, 2014 at 1:27 pm
Ah, you remind me that it has been too long since I read that. Far too long.
July 16th, 2014 at 9:30 pm
Ahhh, you beat me to it. I had just pulled up Solzhenitsyn’s quote and everything. I was just typing, “sounds like he lifted this from Solzhenitsyn”….
:)
July 17th, 2014 at 7:54 am
It’s a wonderful paragraph from a fantastic book.