In the name of goodness.....

Another quote from Kingdom, Grace, Judgment: Paradox, Outrage, and Vindication in the Parables of Jesus:

The world's deepest problem is not badness as opposed to goodness; it is sin, the incurable human tendency to put self first, to trust number one and no one else. And that means that there is nothing - no right deed, however good, noble, lawful, thrifty, brave, clean, or reverent - that cannot be done for the wrong reason, that cannot be tainted and totally corrupted by sin. As I observed earlier, the greatest evils are, with alarming regularity, done in the name of goodness. When we finally fry this planet in a nuclear holocaust, it will not have been done by a bunch of naughty little boys and girls; it will have been done by grave, respectable types who loved their high ideals too much to lay them down for the mere preservation of life on earth. And lesser evils follow the same rule. When I crippled my children emotionally (or when my parents crippled me) it was not done out of meanness or spite, it was done out of love: genuine, deeply felt, endlessly pondered human love - flawed, alas, by a self-regard so profound that none of us ever noticed it.