August 26
Banal Goodness
Enemies disguise themselves with their lips,
but in their hearts they harbor deceit.
Though their speech is charming, do not believe them,
for seven abominations fill their hearts.
Their malice may be concealed by deception,
but their wickedness will be exposed in the assembly.
––Proverbs 26:24-26
ba·nal bə-ˈnal
: lacking originality, freshness, or novelty : trite
Adolf Eichmann was a key architect of the Holocaust and the man who organized the murder of more than six million Jews. In 1962, The New Yorker sent historian and philosopher Hannah Arendt to the Supreme Court of Israel to cover the trial of Eichmann. What she witnessed in the flesh led her to coin the phrase “the banality of evil.” Reflecting on Arendt’s experience of seeing Eichmann on trial and in the flesh, French Professor Marine Leibovici wrote,
Namely, [Eichmann] did not connect his activities to their eventual consequences. Arendt qualifies such a lack of imagination, pity, and the inability to adopt somebody else’s viewpoint as “a curious, quite authentic inability to think” (Arendt, 1971: 41), as if he perceived reality through a screen. Moreover, when Eichmann considered his activities, he saw them as irreproachable; all the more so since he had carried them out as duties.[1]
Naziism is an example of a system that was practiced on such a large scale involving so many people, that for many involved in it, the execution of evil became an everyday occurrence. In other words, even something as evil as Naziism can become mundane for those engaged in it.
Imagine the office worker in Berlin who never visited the death camps or saw the bodies being carried away. He sat at his desk organizing train transport from this city or that to places he’d never seen: Auschwitz, Triblinka, Dachau. But nonetheless, that office clerk was a part of the evil killing machine. That’s the banality of evil in action. Is it acceptable to say, “I didn’t know,” or “I was just following orders”? No, it’s not; ignorance is not an excuse for such evil.
As God’s men, we need to watch our six when it comes to the devil’s attempts to convince us that our own sins are normal and/or conventional. “Everyone else is doing the same exact thing,” or “I’m an adult and it’s not hurting anyone else” are poor excuses.
We need to step up and step into the responsibility God has given to us. Imagine if God’s men rose up and started a revolution of righteousness based on small, individual acts of goodness. Caring for the poor, helping the elderly, mentoring orphans. What if such a revolution became so commonplace that it became banal—common—and expected? Instead of Christian guys being stereotyped as judgmental or hypocritical, folks would see our “faith in action” by the righteous acts we committed each and every day.
Jesus’ ministry was a balance of word and deed. He preached, then he healed. He fed the poor, comforted the afflicted, and healed the sick. And then He preached and taught some more. Bold words backed up by miraculous and righteous actions. He is our gold standard for committed acts of “banal goodness.” And guess what? With the Holy Spirit in our corner, we are called to do the same.
Father, give me discernment to see the evil around me and to counter it with words of redemption backed up by acts of righteousness. Help me be a part of what You are doing in the world!
[1] “The Banality of Evil” by Martine Leibovici, SciencesPo.fr, November 3, 2007