THE PEOPLE OF THE LIE
A powerful book that every minister should read is The People of the Lie: The Hope For Healing Human Evil by M. Scott Peck (Simon and Schuster, New York). In it he deals with a very specific kind of evil that is both chilling and fascinating. He describes the people he calls evil as follows (on page 75): Utterly dedicated to preserving their self-image of perfection, they are unceasingly engaged in the effort to maintain the appearance of moral purity. They worry about this a great deal. They are acutely sensitive to social norms and what others might think of them . . . they dress well, go to work on time, pay their taxes, and outwardly seem to live lives that are above reproach. The words “image,” “appearance,” and “outwardly” are crucial to understanding the morality of the evil. While they seem to lack any motivation to be good, they intensely desire to appear good. Their ‘goodness” is…
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