The Sin Inside

As I was preparing for this weeks class and our discussion of "Why is the World So Messed Up?", I came across this story about a Jewish man by the name of Yehiel Dinur who had survived the Nazi concentration camps and had testified against Eichmann (when he was tried in absentia) at the Nuremburg trials after World War II. Years later the Israeli special forces captured Eichmann in a daring raid in Argentina returned him to Israel to stand trial for his crimes. Dinur attended the 1961 trial as a witness. When he saw Eichmann in the courtroom Dinur began to sob uncontrollably. Soon he fainted and fell to the floor. Why? Was it hatred? Fear? Horrid memories? Speaking in an interview with Mike Wallace on the show “60 Minutes,” Dinur explained that during the war he had feared Eichmann because he saw him as someone fundamentally different than he was. But now, seeing him stripped of all his Nazi glory, Dinur saw Eichmann for what he really was—just an ordinary man. “I was afraid about myself,” Dinur explained, “I saw that I am capable to do this. I am . . . exactly like he.” That is why he collapsed on the floor. Mike Wallace summarized the truth in six terrifying words: “Eichmann is in all of us.” 

This is, in fact, the central truth about human nature. Sin is in us—not just the temptation to sin, not just the propensity to sin, but sin itself dwells in us.

G.K. Chesterton was once asked “What is wrong with the world?” He replied … “I am!”