More on Zimbardo and the Lucifer Effect

In his comment on my last post, Matt Langdon correctly points out that Zimbardo, in The Lucifer Effect, doesn’t just focus on evil. He also devotes some ink to the antidote: heroism. Zimbardo’s Lucifer Effect website has a section on heroism that goes into some detail explaining what he means. For Christians looking to see how this relates to Jesus and his sacrifice on the cross, Zimbardo’s definition of heroism sounds closer to  Peter Abelard’s moral theory of atonement than Anselm’s substitutionary theory. But whichever you prefer, I think it’s safe to say that for Christians, Jesus is the ultimate hero.

Speaking of theology, on taking a closer look at Zimbardo’s website I noticed that there is a link to a Lucifer Effect Theology Blog.

  

Zimbardo, Abu Ghraib, and evil

If you took Psych 101 in college, you learned about Philip Zimbardo’s famous Stanford prison experiment of 1971. A group of students were randomly divided into two groups: “guards” and “prisoners” and told to act accordingly. Within five days, the guards were committing morally repugnant acts and five of the prisoner group were on the verge of mental breakdown. The point of the exercise was that given certain circumstances, roles, and influences, people who seemed to be good, moral, and virtuous would act otherwise.

Zimbardo, author of The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil is speaking today at TED 2008, a  conference of “technology, entertainment, and design.” His topic: Abu Ghraib. In an interview on WIRED magazine’s website, Zimbardo says:

The situational forces that were going on in [Abu Ghraib] — the dehumanization, the lack of personal accountability, the lack of surveillance, the permission to get away with anti-social actions — it was like the Stanford prison study, but in spades.

Zimbardo was a defense witness for Chip Frederickson during his trial relating to Abu Ghraib. His argument was not that Frederickson wasn’t responsible for his own actions, but that the conditions Frederickson and others were put under created a perfect storm of conditions - the type of conditions under which good, moral people commit evil acts.

Evil is a fascinating topic - one that we tend to avoid in the mainline church or explain only in supernatural terms. And while I don’t think that science - behavioral or otherwise - can fully explain evil or tell us everything we need to know, studies like Zimbardo’s are worth paying attention to. Otherwise Christians are stuck wringing our hands over events that happened decades ago, exclaiming “never again!” yet not able to name it (or do anything about it) when it occurs in our own times.

Of course I have mixed feelings about throwing the term “evil” around too loosely - i.e. “Axis of Evil” pronouncements after 9/11 that were not helpful. But how do we in the mainline church find the language to talk about evil again?

Jeff Gill on the 30-day sex challenge

Some of you may have heard about this, or seen the AP article we posted on our website under “Offbeat News” about a church in Tampa, Florida encouraging married couples to have sex every day for 30 days, as part of Lent. They also challenged singles to do the opposite - abstain for 30 days. There’s much more to the story, and intrepid Ohio columnist, preacher and reporter Jeff Gill set out to investigate.

Jeff writes:

What the pastors are offering in their congregation, and to others who wish to participate over the internet, is a season that is clearly embedded in Lent, while not mentioning those 40 days and Sundays since their target audience is a largely unchurched bunch for whom Lent is something under the bed.

Read Jeff’’s blog posting, which includes links to the church website and its downloadable Lenten study guide, here. Or a slightly edited version that appeared in the Newark (OH) Advocate here.

The devil’s in the details…and the fine print

One of our regular writers, Rev. Gregg Brekke, is the pastor of a new church start called Nexus Church, a United Church of Christ congregation in Liberty Township, Ohio. This week, several local newspapers owned by Cox Publishing printed a nice story about Gregg’s congregation doing an outreach event for Lent.

Imagine Gregg’s surprise on Tuesday morning when he received several phone calls to let him know that one of the newspapers, the Middletown (OH) Journal, had identified Gregg’s denomination as the “United Church of Satan” in a photo caption.

The caption ran correctly in the other Cox publications, which means that most likely, someone at the Middletown Journal went into their publishing system and changed the caption. 

Gregg placed a call to both his writer and to his advertising rep at the paper. He says they are investigating the incident. To the newspaper’s credit, they ran an apology today. And Gregg, being a stand-up guy, isn’t upset. Bad publicity is still publicity, right?

New blog - “Ponderings”

We’ve added a new blog to our Disciples blogroll - “Ponderings,” written by Rev. John Park Winkler, a graduate of Georgia Tech and Lexington Theological Seminary who recently finished an interim ministry position in Ankeny, Iowa.

I like this entry from John’s blog, from last year. It’s an interesting reminder in this time of ‘doing less’ (Lent) that maybe what we really need is to do more - of what we’re passionate about.

Years ago, Dr. Dwight Stevenson, Dean at Lexington Theological Seminary, suggested to the seminary students a very simple solution to the problem of burnout. His solution was paradoxical and counter –intuitive. Nevertheless, it works.

“When you feel overwhelmed and it seems like you will never be able to get out from under the stress,” he said, “begin a brand new activity. make it something that you are interested in and have a passion but for doing and can do for the joy of the activity. Adding it to your schedule, will give you the energy and motivation you need to accomplish the important things that are making you feel overwhelmed.” Read more here…

Dan Mayes on “christian” businesses

Catching up on my Disciples blog reading, I came across a post on Dan Mayes’ blog called “Christian Feces.” Well naturally the title caught my attention. Dan offers his views on the idea of “Christian” businesses and the seperatist theology that they seem to imply.

An excerpt:

When told, “Shop there. They’re a ‘Christian’ business,” my response has usually been, “How are the prices?”

Are “Christian” businesses any less motivated by money? Does the appearance of a Jesus fish on someone’s dry cleaning business mean my shirts are going to come back any crisper or cleaner, or that I’m going to pay any less? Does the fish on the sign of the insurance agent mean I’m going to pay a lower premium or that my claims will be handled in a more honest manner?

Click here to read Dan’s whole post.