The problem with human beings is not just our dull heads but also our hard hearts, which have not changed.

Further, the idea that prejudice and discrimination are all that is wrong with the world and is confined to one group is absurd; the distribution of human evil is far deeper and wider.

As Tim Keller explains, the song’s sentiment is a good example of expressive individualism. Identity is not realized, as in traditional societies, by sublimating our individual desires for the good of our family and people. Instead, we become ourselves only by asserting our individual desires against society, by expressing our feelings and

The humble, although thinking less about themselves, know themselves more accurately than do those who are proud. Or as Jesus put it, those who risk losing themselves know themselves better than those who seek to find themselves.

Second, in one sense, the bad behavior of God’s people, along with the good, should not surprise us, since the Bible itself does not hide the fact that religious people can behave badly.

As Peter Leithart notes, if humans have always worn “masks,” “with the arrival of postmodern communication technologies the masks have become thicker and more concealing.”10

We can know that God uses whatever happens in our lives to test our hearts, to provide for us and reassure us of his goodness, and to form us as his children as we wait in confidence for our promised future with him.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn famously wrote, If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.3

But at the most profound level, if you are a believer in Jesus Christ, what sets the course for your life and keeps it on track is your identification with Christ and imitation of him, and being known and loved by God as his child. Putting on that identity will determine the sort of man or woman, worker, friend, neighbor, father or mother, son or