Surely the German people were aware of what was happening? Surely somebody must have said something? How could so many people willing participate in and turn a blind eye towards such evil? As word about the Holocaust began to spread throughout the world, people began looking for answers to a very simple question, “How could this have happened?” In 1953, after Watson and Crick unlocked the key to our genetic identity, the scientific community applied this discovery to Nazi Germany, wondering if the German people possessed a gene that made them more evil than other human beings.

To test this theory, a psychologist at Yale named Stanley Milgram devised an experiment in 1961 to determine whether some people are genetically predisposed to be more evil than others. Here’s how the experiment worked: two volunteers would be brought into the lab and told that they were going to be conducting a memory test. One person would be a teacher and the other would be a learner. The volunteers would draw slips to determine who would serve each function. They would then be escorted into separate rooms by the scientist conducting the experiment.

The learner was strapped to a chair and connected to a device that provided an electrical shock. The teacher was escorted into a separate room where he could ask questions of the learner. If the learner got a question wrong, then the teacher was asked to administer an electric shock. With each wrong question, the teacher was supposed increase the voltage.

What the teacher didn’t know is that the learner and the scientist were both actors. The learner was not actually being shocked, but only acting as if that were the case. The actor playing the scientist was instructed to watch the teacher and if the teacher protested going forward with the experiment, the scientist was supposed to give four responses in this order: 1) Please continue. 2) The experiment requires that you continue. 3) It is absolutely essential that you continue. 4) You have no other choice, you must go on. If the subject still protested after these four verbal responses, then the experiment was stopped.

Only 35 percent of the volunteers made it past the fourth question. The remaining 65 percent of the people who participated in the study were halted after providing three consecutive electrical shocks of 450 volts. 450 volts is enough electricity to kill a person. That means 65 percent of the subjects in this study were willing to shock their fellow participants to death.

Milgram’s experiment demonstrated that under certain circumstances the average person is capable of doing very evil things. Indeed, his experiment revealed that our propensity to act in evil ways depends very much on the conditions in our environment. Let’s use the Milgram Experiment as a guide to help us understand how our environment can influence our actions. Remember, in the Milgram Experiment, these are just average people, almost all of whom we would not consider to have violent tendencies. But when they were placed in a situation where they had the discretion to hurt someone, 65 percent of them were willing to shock to the death. Why?

Well, what you may not realize is that the key to this experiment is the scientist. As long as there was an authority figure in the room stating that the actions of the volunteer were acceptable, then most people were willing to continue with the experiment. The presence of the authority figure overrode and outweighed the moral compass that normally dictates our behavior. In other words, the environment of having someone tell us that our actions are acceptable, even when we clearly know they are not acceptable, compels most people to act contrary to their natural behavior.

Milgram’s study presented evidence that there is no such thing as an evil gene. The holocaust occurred not because German’s are more evil than other human beings, but because it is hard for humans to resist and speak out against evil when it is the dominate way of thinking. The reason why the German military machine carried out Hitler’s demands is because the highest members of Hitler’s cabinet believed so strongly in his ideology that it trickled down into the rest of the military. Whether they believed in Hitler’s cause or not, the soldiers of the military never questioned the orders of their superiors and Milgram’s experiment explains why.

You could apply the same logic to the larger German population. As long as they were free from harm, they did not want to risk placing their own safety in jeopardy by challenging the morality of those tasked with executing Hitler’s plans.

Many of us would like to think that we would be different; that we would stand up against such blatant injustice and say something regardless of the consequences. But Milgram’s study proves that the majority of us would be no different from the Germans. We too would have been complicit in these crimes either by our own inaction, refusing to stand up against the majority opinion, or by being part of the machine and committing these crimes ourselves.

So what does all this say about human nature? If ordinary people are capable of such extreme evil, does that mean we are evil to our core? Are we like ticking time bombs, just waiting to go off at any moment? Milgram’s experiment suggests that all you have to do is put us in the right situation, the right environment and our true colors will quickly show. But honestly, I don’t think Milgram’s experiment shows us what human nature is really all about and to explain why, I want to turn to our scriptures for today.

We began this morning by reading from Genesis chapter 3, the story of Adam and Eve eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. For Christians this story has always been one of the most prominent examples in the Bible of the natural human inclination towards evil. In the Garden of Eden, God tells Adam and Eve that there is only one rule in the garden – don’t eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Unfortunately, the serpent is able to persuade Eve to eat from tree, which, in turn, causes Eve to convince Adam to eat from the tree as well.

Now, I’ve told you all in the past and I’ll tell you again that I don’t believe this story is literally true. I don’t believe that Adam and Eve are the first two humans ever created. I don’t believe the earth is only 6,000 years old and this should come as no shock given how much I talk about evolution. But this story, even if it’s not true, is important because it sets the stage for how Christians think about human nature.

The story of Adam and Eve eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil is considered to be the first sin ever committed by human beings in the Bible. This event is referred to by theologians as original sin. The doctrine of original sin states that when God created human beings, we were perfect. There was no flaw or evil to be found within us. However, after eating the fruit and disobeying God, our nature was permanently corrupted. Furthermore, this corrupted nature was passed from one generation to the next because, according to the story, we are all descendants of Adam and Eve.

So you, me and everyone else you know, we are inherently evil because Adam and Eve were hungry and took a bite of fruit. Now, when you think about it like that it sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? But this notion that human beings are these inherently evil creatures has been infused in Christianity for centuries. And we’ve never questioned whether or not this assumption is accurate. I will say that, empirically, it makes sense. All you need to do is pick up a newspaper or watch the evening news for evidence that humans are capable of some pretty horrific acts of evil. And Milgrim’s experiment seemingly backs this up because Milgrim showed that in the course of 30 minutes, just about anyone can transition from law abiding citizen to murderer.

So the solution provided by these theologians as to how we overcome this inherently sinful nature is by turning to God and following Jesus. Through our belief in Jesus, God’s Spirit will help us to overcome the evil inclinations that we inherited from Adam and Eve so we are capable of performing acts of love in the world. It’s a beautiful notion, isn’t? Simple to follow, easy to understand. Indeed, it’s been the motivation for why so many people throughout the last two millennia have dedicated their lives to following Jesus. But unfortunately, this notion doesn’t add up in the real world.

First of all, according to this way of thinking, Christians should be the only ones performing acts of generosity and love in the world. But we know that’s not true. There are lots of people in the world who perform amazing acts of charity and kindness, and yet, they have nothing to do with Christianity. A good example of this would be the story of the famous atheist Tina Strobos. As a young psychiatry student living in Denmark, she joined the underground resistance movement when the Nazi’s invaded in April of 1940. She joined the branch of the resistance dedicated to hiding Jews who were seeking safe passage out of the country.

During the course of the war, Strobos helped more than 100 Jews escape from Denmark. She did this assuming great personal risk for herself. During the occupation, Strobos was arrested by the S.S. nine times because they suspected she was helping Jews obtain safe passage out of the country, but they could never find any evidence. The reason why is because a carpenter, loyal to the resistance, had built a fake wall in her mother’s attic. This wall created a gable big enough to hold four people. The wall was so well built that even after eight searches, the Nazis had no idea that it existed. Strobos is famous for saying, “I never believed in God, but I believed in the sacredness of life.”

Secondly, when we look at the atrocities that have been committed throughout the centuries, Christians are right up there as some of the worst perpetrators. The vast majority of the Germans who perpetrated the holocaust during World War II (which, by the way, is still the singular greatest episode of genocide in the history of humanity), those people predominately identified as Christian. Clearly, their belief in Jesus had little to no impact on their actions in being part of the war machine that systematically claimed the lives of 6 million Jews.

Therefore, when we step back and look objectively at this notion that all humans are sinful and that only the followers of Jesus can overcome this evil nature, I think we have to admit that it doesn’t make sense. What does make sense are the statistics we found in Milgram’s study. Remember, 65 percent were willing to shock to the death, but that means the remaining 35 percent stopped, even when they were encouraged to continue. So what’s the difference between the 65 percent and the 35 percent? Well it’s certainly not religion because almost everybody who did that experiment was religious and it has nothing to do with genetics, which we determined earlier. The difference comes down to belief.

What did Tina Strobos say? She said, “I never believed in God, but I believed in the sacredness of life.” Her belief in the sacredness of life is what compelled her to make the decision to risk her own life and hide Jews in her home. So if she was in Milgrim’s experiment, more than likely she would have been part of the 35 percent who stopped. But here’s where things get complicated. If we went around the room and I asked, “How many of you all believe in the sacredness of life?” All of you would raise your hand. But the truth is 65 percent of the people in this room would shock to the death, clearly contradicting that stated belief.

So what’s the difference between saying you believe in the sacredness of life and actually believing it? The difference is that you have lived out that belief. Let me give you an example. Back in 2013, right before I began here, I went on a mission trip to Haiti. On one of the nights, we were supposed to have an outdoor worship service with the local community. Just as the service was about to begin, it started pouring rain, causing all the Americans to run inside the church. Now there was an agreement between the Haitian leaders and the organization with whom we were working that under no circumstances were the Haitians to go inside the church while we were there.

So once it started raining, all the Americans ran inside the church and the Haitians were left outside in the pouring rain, even though it was their church. But not everybody from our group ran inside the church. Some remained outside with the Haitians and one in particular, a young man who identified himself as an atheist, came up to the barred window and said to me, “You claim to believe in a loving God, but you’re sitting in there all dry while these people are outside shivering and cold. I have to tell you, I think that’s wrong.” And then he walked away.

My entire life I talked about the idea that all life was sacred, but when it came down to it, my actions did not reflect my beliefs. I was too worried about my own needs to stand up for the justice of others. After he walked away, I thought about what he said and I realized I was being a coward. I talked to the leaders and they said, “No, you can’t let them in.” I did it a second time and again, they said “No.” The third time I didn’t ask. I walked to the gate where 30 Haitian children were all huddled together trying to avoid the rain. I opened the door and said, “Come on in. It’s your church.”

What that young atheist taught me and what I realized on that day is that if you want to get rid of the evil in the world, then you have to put your beliefs into action. You have stand up for what is right. If you want to be one of the 35 percent in Milgrim’s study who said, “No, this is wrong and I will do this no more,” then you have to practice fighting that evil. Saying you believe in justice means nothing. The only thing that matters is action. So the more you practice standing up for what is right, the easier it becomes to stand your ground.

So I end this morning by encouraging you not to see yourself as flawed or inherently evil, but rather as person who has a choice. You can take what Jesus teaches and say, “Yes, I believe that too!” or you can take what Jesus teaches and put it into action. The difference between those two things is the difference between a world where evil roams unchecked and a world where love, goodness and mercy reign supreme. May your faith in God and Jesus Christ guide you to be a person of action; a person who stands up and says, “I believe that all life is sacred and I am going to ensure that it remains that way!” Amen.