Persuasion 120: Is There Hope for Those on the Naughty List?

Everyone knows about Santa’s Naughty or Nice List. If you are Nice, you get presents. If you are Naughty, you get coal. This tale is repeated every Christmas without fail, woven into our movies and books. It’s even perpetuated by the Elf on the Shelf phenomena, which traps parents into 24 days of elaborate elf happenings (mostly on the Naughty side, I might add), all to convince their children that the elf is track Naughty and Nice behavior for Santa. But what happens to those on the Naughty List? Are you stuck there forever? Does the slate get cleared every Christmas so we can start anew?

Such questions form the basis of this episode Persuasion. Erin Straza and Hannah Anderson discuss their own childhood experiences with the Naughty/Nice List and then compare that to the truth of God’s grace that changes us from the inside out. We embrace this hope for change for ourselves, but often we struggle to allow those we deem Naughty the same space for transformation. Is it possible those we place on the Naughty List don’t deserve to be? NPR’s Invisibilia builds a case that our behavior and personality are highly regulated by situation, and since we interact with others in the same contexts, we presume to know which list to put them on. What if people can not only change but are also actually much more layered and complex than we allow them to be? What if we are putting people on the wrong list? Learn answers to all this and more, and then continue the conversation on Twitter @PersuasionCAPC or in the CAPC members-only community on Facebook.

Be sure to answer our question of the day: What changes have you seen in yourself in 2017?

Links from the Show:

Invisibilia: Is Your Personality Fixed, Or Can You Change Who You Are?, NPR

American parents are turning away from a ‘creepy’ and ‘disturbing’ Christmas tradition, Business Insider

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