Evil

Tuesday

Ben Domenech

The poor health of America

From our US edition

This week, the nation focused on the deaths of two men in New York City. In one case, a mentally stable man confronted a mentally unstable man on the F train. Out of an intentional drive to protect the lives of those around him, the stable man — a twenty-five-year-old Marine from Long Island — put the unstable man in a chokehold that resulted, directly or indirectly, in his death. In the other case, a mentally unstable man targeted a mentally stable man as a consequence of his job leading one of the largest health insurance companies — shooting him in the back as he walked down the street.

health

Thursday

Amelia Butler-Gallie

Devil in the detail

From our US edition

When I was offered the chance to review two new books about the Devil, I thought, “what fun!” I wouldn’t describe myself as a particularly diabolical person, but as someone whose deep love of Paradise Lost has made me, as good old William Blake didn’t quite put it, “of the devil’s party while very much knowing it,” I rubbed my hands together in glee at the prospect of getting down and dirty with Old Nick. Not, you understand, that my purely literary interest can begin to compare to the “Satanic Panic” outbreak that gripped the imaginations of middle America in the late 1980s and 1990s. “Satanic cults! Every hour, every day, their ranks are growing!

devil

Thursday

James Delingpole

Profound and original and unashamedly religious: Midnight Mass reviewed

I was turned on to Midnight Mass by Ricky Gervais who raved about it in one of his social media chats: ‘I absolutely loved it, and it got better and better. It’s like all the themes like love and death, regret, second chances, but it’s about good and evil in a biblical sense.’ Yes. Midnight Mass is very unusual in that (so far, at least; I’m only two and a bit episodes in) it seems to take Christianity at its own estimation. God is real, miracles do happen, even (or especially) the most miserable sinners can find redemption through repentance. Watching it is quite unsettling because you keep expecting the rug to be pulled from under your feet and, say, the hero priest Father Paul Hill (Hamish Linklater) suddenly to be revealed as a secret agent of Satan.

Thursday

Jeremy Clarke

Was I the picture of evil incarnate?

Not long after Catriona and I first met, her husband painted my head and shoulders portrait in oils as I sat next to an open window in Provence with my shirt off. The result was an astonishing and rather brilliant study of spiritual depravity. But I was too amazed and humbled to have my portrait painted in oils by a professional artist of international repute to much care about the result. Nor had I expected a photographic likeness. And at the same time I was genuinely delighted that at least I didn’t look like a bourgeois. Later the painting arrived in Devon in the post, beautifully and expensively framed, and I hung it in pride of place above the mantelpiece. But the image of a man so obviously rejoicing in evil had a universally disquieting effect on those who saw it.