Indifference (2 min vid + text)

She screamed and no one helped.

The first five minutes of Boondock Saints says it all.

Evil prospers when good is absent.

Watch our two minute video (full text below).

If I can be bad, good can’t originate with me.

Subscribe to “Truth in Two” videos from Comenius (here). Mark is President of The Comenius Institute (website). Dr. Eckel spends time with Christian young people in public university (1 minute video), hosts a weekly radio program with diverse groups of guests (1 minute video), and interprets culture from a Christian vantage point (1 minute video).

Picture Credit: Snappy Goat

FULL TEXT BELOW

At the beginning of the movie Boondock Saints, two young men are praying in church.  During the service they walk the middle aisle to kiss the feet of the Jesus statue.  The Catholic priest is telling the story of Kitty Genovese who, in 1964, was stabbed to death as neighbors heard her cries for help but did nothing. As the two Irishmen leave the auditorium, the Catholic priest is heard to say, “There is another kind of evil we should fear most and that is the indifference of good men.”  As they exit the building one man says to the other, “I do believe the monsignor gets it.”

Famed philosopher Edmund Burke said it this way, “Evil triumphs when good men do nothing.”

At the Comenius Institute, we agree. One of our mantras is based on the commands coming from the book of Titus, “Do good, do good, do good.”

There is one thing I know for sure: if I do bad things, good cannot come from inside of me.  I once served on a summer camp staff.  A favorite source for drinking water was a spring located on the property.  But, unbeknownst to anyone, an underground sewer leak poisoned the spring.  The camp was shut down for a week.  Everyone was deathly ill.  If I know that a water source is polluted, do I want to drink from it?  I don’t think so.  If I can be the source of bad things, I would have to question “Can good things can come from me?”

The question is often asked “Can We Be Good Without God?” If life has taught us anything the answer is “No.” Humans need a heavenly source of goodness.

We can paraphrase Edmund Burke this way:  Evil men will only be stopped when God’s goodness is applied through good men.

For Truth in Two, this is Dr. Mark Eckel, President of the Comenius Institute, personally seeking Truth wherever it’s found.