In the eary 1970's Stanford University near San Francisco conducted a unique experiment. The key question was could an evil environment change good people or would they triumph over this adversity?

In the basement, they set up a prison. They randomly selected a number of students who were divided into 2 teams. One group was sent home, the other was taken to the basement given uniforms and told they would be guards. They had 24hrs to get used to the place before the students from the other group were arrested wherever they were and forcibly taken to the "prison".

For the 1st 24hrs nothing really happened. These hippies did not really get into the spirit of it. Then, next day the prisoners revolted. The guards brutally put the riot down. From then on thre seemed to be no end to the abuse the guards heaped on the prisoners. They simulated sex with them, abused them, made them do tasks naked. After 5 days this month long experiment was abandoned due to the collapse of the society and the fact that the question was answered....the evil environment won.

The professor conducting the experiment is now an expert witness on behalf of the US troops accused of attrocities at Abu Grab prison in Iraq. He states the people must take responsibility for the evil they do BUT that the environment is key in giving them the best opportunity of being good! He defines heroes as ordinary people who do extraordinary acts. This is not simply removing themselves from evil BUT standing against it, this is bravery.

It does prove I think the fact that all Christians should know that people are NOT inherrantly good that unchecked evil will triumph.

So what will we do to stand against the rise of evil?