By Sylvia A. Bolls
Society can learn to combat evil by having people know the difference between making a good decision against a bad one, a minister from Campus Crusades for Christ said Monday.
Speaking to an estimated 125 people at Towson University’s West Village Commons, Rick James said he didn’t want to affirm people’s faith. Instead, James said that everything a person does or has done has some sort of evil and there are always two sides: the good and the bad.
“I wrote TV commercials on Madison Avenue until I grew up and grew a conscience,” James said jokingly.
James said humans don’t always make the right decisions but essentially learn from trial and error. People from the older generation are wiser, he said, because they have been through life-long experiences.
“Older people are a respected source of truth because they’ve seen a lot,” James said. “The problem is our world has no value for wisdom.”
James gave an example from the Harry Potter series, which he said has challenges and parallels that can be compared to everyday life. He said there is always a choice between making the right decision versus the wrong one, adding that Harry Potter represented the good while Lord Voldemort emphasized the bad.
“Every aspect of our world is divided into what is good or what is evil,” James said. “Evil is the argument against God and the good will always prevail. Wisdom, moral intuition, personal experience, aesthetics and sacred text are what makes us good and the good is the reliable knowledge of how the world works.”
James said that everyone has a purpose in life. He said to determine what is considered morally good can help people determine what is bad.
“A world containing creatures who are significantly free and freely perform more good than evil actions is more valuable than a world containing no free creatures at all,” James said. “For God to create creatures of moral good, he must create creatures capable of moral evil.”
Treating the audience as a classroom, James interacted with the audience asking rhetorical questions, using vivid hand motions and pacing around the front of the room.
The event was sponsored by Towson Cru, a Christian organization bringing Towson students together to learn, grow and stay connected with their faith.
Larry Kelly, an advisor of Towson Cru and an affiliate staff member of Towson’s minister, said James was invited because the organization wanted to bring someone with a different perspective to speak about the problems in society.
“I’ve known Rick James since 1991 all the way back to when I was a student at Rutgers and he was the school’s minister,” Kelly said. “He is the reason why I am a Christian today.”
James currently works for Campus Crusade for Christ as an adjunct to research and development. James writes, produces, and markets ministry resources to both staff and students in Campus Crusade.
James has written several books, including Jesus Without Religion, Porn Nation and Postcards from Corinth and Flesh: An Unbreakable Habit of Purity in a Pornographic World.He has also written articles for Relevant magazine.
“It really got me thinking of the impact our world has between good and evil,” said Jasmine Butler, a junior at Towson.“I never thought about flipping it around and thinking about what’s actually evil and not right with our world.”
James speaks to Christian believers, non-believers, and students questioning philosophy or the ideals of other faiths to help everyone better themselves.
“This event is different from others we’ve hosted before in the past because it made all of us start to ask questions about what’s going on around us, including the actions we make and how they can affect us later on in the future,” said Ashley Foss, the treasurer and three-year member of Towson Cru.
As Rick opened his speech with a joke, he closed his speech by giving a prayer.
“At the end of the day, wisdom matters,” he said.