Secondary: Current Assemblies

EXTERMINATE!!!

By Stuart Kerner


Suitable for Key Stage 3


Aim

To reflect on the nature of evil.

Preparation and materials

• You might like to project a photo of a Dalek. Some useful images  can be found here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/gallery/13gallery/index.shtml

Assembly

1. Begin by asking how many of your audience have been watching Doctor Who on television recently. The response will probably be quite high. This series has regularly attracted eight million viewers every Saturday night.
2. Of course, Doctor Who has been around since the early 1960s, and no doubt your parents probably watched it too when they were at school.
3. Unlike other TV shows, the main character has been played by ten different actors, and it has usually remained just as popular.
4. Perhaps it’s down to the amazing concepts in the programme: the TARDIS, a machine that’s bigger on the inside than on the outside that travels in time and space; a timelord who can regenerate into a completely new body twelve times; and a whole universe of weird-looking aliens, some good and others thoroughly evil.
5. The most evil of all the Doctor’s enemies are, of course, the Daleks, a race of mutants in battle armour who cry ‘EXTERMINATE!’ before wiping out anyone that happens to be different to them.
6. The Daleks are quite an interesting creation. They aren’t just a little bit naughty or occasionally bad. They are completely evil, with no positive characteristics whatsoever.
7. Now consider, can any human being ever be so completely evil, so utterly wicked, with not even a glimmer of goodness? We might consider murderers and tyrants to be so, but even the great dictators like Hitler and Saddam Hussein showed signs of emotion around some people.
8. Maybe it’s because the Daleks are so completely different to us – so utterly inhuman - that we can consider them to be so utterly evil. Perhaps this is where the answer lies. Only a half-robot, emotionless, mutant creature programmed for wickedness can be totally evil.
9. Human beings, no matter how bad, can still make choices. We can develop and change our ways. Nobody is beyond hope and everyone remains a child of God.
10. Unless we give people the benefit of the doubt, even when they have let us down in the past, we are no better than the   Daleks – programmed to treat others as inferior beings.

Time for reflection

Reflection:

In the story of the Creation we read: ‘ . . . And behold, it was very good.’ But, in the passage where Moses reprimands Israel, the verse says: ‘See, I have set before you this day life and good, and death and evil.’ Where did the evil come from?

Evil too is good. It is the lowest rung of perfect goodness. If you do good deeds, even evil will become good; but if you sin, evil will really become evil.

Martin Buber (1878–1965)

Prayer:

Almighty God,

Help us to guard against all forms of evil,

And to resist the temptation to do wrong.

We pray for all people who act wickedly in the world

That they may change their ways

And learn to respect others.

Amen.

Song

‘If I had a hammer’ (Come and Praise, 71)