The omnipotent God, primal power of the world, being himself supremely good, could not permit anything evil in his works, were he not so all-powerful and good as to be able to bring good even out of evil.

Editor's note: Though you might not be persuaded by the information below, it still has great illustrative potential. D'Souza's article might provide an intriguing way into a sermon that deals with why God allows bad things to happen. It might be something you want to contend with or elevate as a possibility. It might be a way to raise several other questions about why bad things happen. Or, taking ...

To triumph fully, evil needs two victories, not one. The first victory happens when an evil deed is perpetrated; the second victory, when evil is returned. After the first victory, evil would die if the second victory did not infuse it with new life.

—Miroslav Volf, Croation theologian (1956—)

The first time I visited Rwanda, I went looking for monsters, albeit a different category of monster—the kind that isn't relegated to B movies. I had heard about the 1994 genocide that had left one million people dead—tortured, raped, viciously murdered—and somehow I thought it would be easy to spot the perpetrators. I naïvely assumed I would be able to look men and women in the ...

In his book The Unexpected Journey, Thom Rainer shares the story of Kathi, a woman who left behind a life of witchcraft and Wiccan paganism to become a follower of Jesus Christ. Immediately after her decision to become a Christian, she describes to Thom how God delivered her from the powers of evil in her life, as well as her physical deafness (Kathi had been suffering progressive hearing loss for ...

In his book River out of Eden, renowned scientist and leading atheist Richard Dawkins recalls a bus crash in England that claimed the lives of several children. A London newspaper asked a priest to explain why God would allow such a thing to happen. The priest replied, "The simple answer is that we do not know why there should be a God who lets these awful things happen. But the horror of the crash, ...

The Power of Forgiveness is a collection of seven short stories that, taken together, reveal the limits, difficulties, healing qualities, and unforeseen effects an act of forgiveness can have in the lives of the people who give it—or in the lives of those who refuse to give it. One of the stories centers on acclaimed author and holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel.

This clip begins with footage of ...

In a sermon entitled "Courage," pastor and author Mark Buchanan shares a funny story that reminds us how our courage—or lack thereof—can cast God in a positive or negative light to others:

A few years ago at a Willow Creek Summit, Jack Groppel, who works with leaders to hone optimum performance, showed two video clips. The first video was of a group of NFL linebackers. When they showed ...

Jack Handey, known for his odd sense of humor frequently expressed in an old Saturday Night Live segment titled "Deep Thoughts," wrote an equally odd book entitled Fuzzy Memories. In it Handey relates the story of a bully who demanded his lunch money every day when he was a child. Because Handey was smaller than the bully, he simply gave the bully his money.

"Then I decided to fight back," Handey ...

Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic magazine and author of The Science of Good and Evil, writes:

I once had the opportunity to ask Thomas Keneally, author of Schindler's List, what he thought was the difference between Oskar Schindler, rescuer of Jews and hero of his story, and Amon Goeth, the Nazi commandant of the Plaszow concentration camp. His answer was revealing. Not much, he said. Had there ...