Bad people are bad, aren't they?

Because of a phenomenon called the Halo Effect ('The halo effect helps keep explanatory narratives simple and coherent by exaggerating the consistency of evaluations: good people do only good things and bad people are all bad.' Kahneman, Daniel. Thinking, Fast and Slow'), it's hard to hear about 'good people' doing 'bad things' or vice versa. A new piece of evidence about a person does not turn a good person bad or vice versa: it merely nuances the picture. Others, like ourselves, are mixtures of light and darkness.

Having a problem with formerly lionised figures turning out to have character defects or being reluctant to recognise the good acts of a person formerly demonised suggests this:

I'm denying my own dark side.

What does your reaction to such complexity in others tell you about you?

It's actually fairly easy to uncover the unconscious: bumps cast shadows. Whether you recognise the bump or not, a shadow it will cast, and the shadows are in plain sight. What does that mean in practice?

If I have an emotional reaction to something that is untimely, disproportionate, or inappropriate, I am not reacting to the stimulus but to something unresolved from the past, which has been denied, but is sitting there, bold as brass, in the mechanisms activated to process daily events.

When such a reaction occurs, the question I need to ask is, 'What am I frightened of?'

I can then ask, 'Is there anything from the past this reminds me of?'

Finally, I can ask, 'Who do I need to forgive, for what?'

I can then forgive.

And moving forward: 'I will now trust God in this area, and seek God's guidance. God will keep me safe.'