In Romans 1:29 it is translated as “wickedness”. The old Western movies talked about “cussedness”? It is the perverse wickedness of a man, who delights in injuring another, without any advantage to himself. Those cameras set up in some of our cities that catch healthy young people simply punching old people as they casually walk by is poneria. Another great word is “obliquity”. Deviating from a straight line in conduct or deliberately confusing speech is an example of poneria. Remember the Boy Scouts pledged to keep themselves morally straight. “Walking the line”, being in the straight and narrow, is following a moral compass or path. When we “get sideways” of the path it is poneria. In our day there is an effort to deny that there is a morally correct path at all.
Talking straight is important as well. When we use words to obfuscate or create a separate reality and basically lie it is wickedness. Everyday we face forces that lie and veer from the truth, and when we notice we are shamed and called names and attacked, that is wickedness.
It is maliciouness. Go on twitter for a few moments and you will see real malice. It is not righteous indignation, it is malice. Luther wrote in the “Bondage if the Will” -“A man without the Spirit of God does not do evil against his will, under pressure, as though he were taken by the scruff of the neck and dragged into it, like a thief or footpad being dragged off against his will to punishment; but he does it spontaneously and voluntarily. And his willingness or volition is something which he cannot in his own strength eliminate, restrain or alter. He goes on willing and desiring to do evil; and if external pressure forces him to act otherwise, nevertheless his will within remains averse to so doing and chafes under such constraint and opposition.”
