The mission of Issues in Perspective is to provide thoughtful, historical and biblically-centered perspectives on current ethical and cultural issues.

The Bible reminds us that at the core of the human condition is sin.  And, if we are intellectually honest, the evidence is abundantly pervasive and compelling.  The Bible defines sin as “lawlessness” [anomia] (1 John 3:4).  Sin is defiant, intentional, deliberate disobedience of God’s revelation to humanity (be it in creation, conscience, His moral law, or Jesus).  There has always been a clearly understood standard against which sin is committed.  Two further comments:

• Sin is inherited: In Ephesians 2:3 Paul says we are “by nature children of wrath.”  In Romans 5:12 we read: “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.”  Adam’s sin is imputed, i.e., charged to the account of every human being.  Thus, every human being is born with the guilt and corruption (nature) of Adam.  [This is also sometimes called total depravity.  There is nothing in the human condition that can merit God’s favor.]
• The sinful corruption of the human being is comprehensive:

1. Intellect (2 Corinthians 4:4; Romans 1:28)
2. Conscience (1 Timothy 4:2)
3. Will (Romans 1:28)
4. Heart (Ephesians 4:18)
5. The totality of what it means to be human (Romans 1:18-3:20).

Placing one’s faith in Jesus Christ and appropriating His death, burial, and resurrection to our lives by faith is the solution that God provides for this fallen world.  One of the glorious consequences of the salvation God provides is the pursuit of His truth.  As George Grant so eloquently puts it:  “God’s unchanging truth is sure, certain and objective and is displayed in either the natural revelation of His created order or the special revelation of His inspired Word.”  For that reason, we can honestly declare that all truth is God’s truth.

Grant adds that “In the midst of the fractiousness and brokenness of our world, where evil is pitted against love for the hearts, minds, and affections of all men everywhere, truth is an essential weapon in the arsenal of the good.  Integrity, honor, and courage depend on it.  Indeed, apart from it, a civil society cannot long survive . . . Unhampered and unfettered truth is the only ground on which honest, open, and free relationships may be built—whether in families and communities or among societies and nations.”

But are Christians in America pursuing these practical applications in the pursuit of truth?  Or, is the evangelical church joining the dark forces of this world in the pursuit of what are often called “dark passions?”  Through increased involvement in and the enthusiastic pursuit of politics, are evangelicals reinforcing these “dark passions?”

David Brooks has introduced me to an important new book by William A. Galston, Anger, Fear, Domination: Dark Passions and the Power of Political Speech.   “A core challenge in life is how do you motivate people to do things—to vote in a certain way, to take a certain kind of action. Good leaders motivate people through what you might call the bright passions—hope, aspiration, an inspiring vision of a better life. But these days . . . leaders across the political spectrum have found that dark passions are much easier to arouse.”

What are these “dark passions,” Brooks asks?  He itemizes them:

1.  Anger. Anger rises when somebody has damaged something you care about. Anger can be noble when directed at injustice. But the seductive thing about anger is that it feels perversely good. It makes you feel strong, self-respecting and in control. Expressing anger is a dense form of communication. It lets people know, quite clearly, that you want something to change. The problem is that these days we don’t have just bursts of anger in our public life. Anger has become a permanent condition in many of our lives.
2. Hatred. You can be angry at someone you love. Hatred, on the other hand, is pervasive. As Galston writes, “We feel anger because of what someone has done, hatred because of who someone is.” The person who hates you wants to destroy you. Antisemites hate Jews. During the Rwandan genocide, the Hutus hated the Tutsis. “Hatred cannot be appeased,” Galston continues, “it can only be opposed.”
3. Resentment. Resentment is about social standing. Someone makes you feel inferior to them. Someone doesn’t offer you recognition and respect. Resentful people are curled in on themselves. They can’t stop thinking about and resenting the people who are so lofty that those other people may not even know they exist. Anger is often expressed, but resentment is often bottled up because the person in its grip feels powerless, socially inferior.
4. Fear. Fear is healthy when it alerts you to some real threat. But as the sociologist Zygmunt Bauman has noted, “Fear is at its most fearsome when it is diffuse, scattered, unclear, unattached, unanchored, free-floating, with no clear address or cause.” When that happens fear turns into a feeling of existential menace that doesn’t lead to any clear course of action. When fear turns into terror, it makes rational deliberation almost impossible. When people can’t locate the source of their fear, you never know who they will lash out at and blame; you just know that a scapegoat will be found.
5. The Urge to Dominate. This is the one we talk about least, but it is the darkest of the dark passions, the most omnipresent and the most destructive. St. Augustine called it libido dominandi. It’s the urge to control, to wield power over someone, to make yourself into a god. It is often driven by repressed anxiety, insecurity and a fear of abandonment that causes people to want to establish their power in every situation. It exists in personal life and causes some people to try to manipulate you, interrupt and talk over you. In families, it leads to overbearing parenting, conditional love, boundary violations and isolation tactics—cutting someone off.

Correctly, Brooks observes that “Today American politics is driven by dueling fears, hatreds, resentments. If liberal democracy fails, it will be because a variety of forces have undermined the emotional foundations on which liberalism depends. Dark passions lead to heartlessness, cruelty, violence, and distrust. Sticks and stones can break your bones, but words that arouse the dark passions can kill you.  America’s founding fathers spent a lot of time thinking about dark passions. Samuel Adams declared that humans are driven by “ambitions and lust for power.” Patrick Henry confessed that he had come to “dread the depravity of human nature.” John Jay declared, ‘The mass of men are neither wise nor good.’  They preferred democracy because they didn’t trust one man or one small group of people to hold power. They thought it more prudent to spread power around, and then in the Constitution, imposed all sorts of ways to check human desire.”

How should evangelical Christians use their influence and widespread presence to counter these “dark passions?”  One way to lead is to cite powerful examples from history.  Brooks: “History provides clear examples of how to halt the dark passion doom loop. It starts when a leader, or a group of people, who have every right to feel humiliated, who have every right to resort to the dark motivations, decide to interrupt the process. They simply refuse to be swallowed by the bitterness, and they work—laboriously over years or decades—to cultivate the bright passions in themselves—to be motivated by hope, care and some brighter vision of the good, and to show those passions to others, especially their enemies.” A few examples: “Abraham Lincoln did this in his second Inaugural Address. Alfred Dreyfus did this after his false conviction and Viktor Frankl did this after the Holocaust . . . These leaders displayed astounding forbearance. They did not seek payback and revenge.”

• Obviously, Martin Luther King Jr. comes to mind: “To our most bitter opponents we say: We shall match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering. We shall meet your physical force with soul force. Do to us what you will, and we shall continue to love you. We cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws, because noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. Throw us in jail, and we shall still love you.”
• Obviously, Nelson Mandela comes to mind. Far from succumbing to dark passions, he oriented his life toward a vision of the good. “During my lifetime,” he said near the beginning of his imprisonment, “I have dedicated my life to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against Black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons will live together in harmony and with equal opportunities.”

“The dark passions look backward toward some wrong committed in the past and render people hardhearted. The bright passions look forward toward some better life and render people tough-minded but tenderhearted.”

I just completed teaching on the Old Testament prophets.  They give us an insight into how we as evangelicals honesty face the truth about human sin and the concomitant “dark passions” with a pronouncement of hope for the future.

By the eighth century BC, the role of the prophet had changed.  From 1000 to about 750 B.C., there had been a series on non-writing prophets (e.g., Samuel, Elijah and Elisha, as well as numerous unnamed ones).  But by about 750 B.C. the writing prophets came on the prophetic scene.  They were not in the center of the religion or politics of their day; rather, they stood outside the circles of influence as counselors.  The Old Testament Prophet had three characteristics: (1) Each was conscious of a call from Yahweh to speak oracles of judgment, repentance and salvation to the nation.  They served Him and Him alone.  (2)  Each was an instrument of Yahweh to reveal His plans and His purposes, never their own.  (3)  Each was solely responsible to Yahweh alone.  Through their oracles, they proclaimed God’s moral law, His righteousness and His coming kingdom.  Theologian Willem Van Gemeren captures the mission of the prophets:

By the eighth century the prophetic function was enlarged to that of a preacher, whose inspired message was cast into distinct forms of prophetic speech.  The prophet was a covenant prosecutor, commissioned by the Lord to indict [the nation], declare it guilty, and forewarn it of the coming judgments of the Lord.  The prophet was also a visionary, speaking of a new age.  This message of another day was marked by comfort, hope, and a call for an individual response to love for the Lord, with whom is mercy and forgiveness. 

Instead of fostering the “dark passions” of the sinful human condition, we as Christinas should be indicting the nation for its sin but also providing the hope so central to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

See Daivd Brooks, in the New York Times (19 September 2025) and Geroge Grant in Tabletalk (October 2025), pp. 72-75.