Thursday, June 30, 2005
Naming Evil
Hugh Hewitt said something yesterday that I think has very deep spiritual implications
Why has the church abandoned the word? Yesterday we looked at the case of a Christian leader convicted of sexual assault on a minor. What he did was evil. Why did I not use that word in my post about it yesterday? Oh sure, I was condemning, but I fell short of the mark. God, through Jesus on the Cross, can redeem even evil -- by calling it what it is, I do not rob it of the opportunity for redemption, rather I point out its utter need for redemption. In fact, by failing to call evil as evil, I make it appear as if some other, lesser redemption is all that is needed rather than the self-denying, soul transforming, sin destroying redemption that only comes from Jesus.
When I examine myself, I rationalize in a similar fashion. "oh, that's not much of a sin," I say to myself -- when in fact it is nothing short of evil. That is the crux of the matter that Jesus drives at in the Sermon on the Mount. "You have heard that the ancients were told, 'You shall not commit murder' and 'Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.' But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court;" (Matt 5:21-22a) Jesus is not here tightening the behavioral restrictions -- he is illustrating that evil goes to our very core.
People avoid the concept of evil, the word itself, because evil must be destroyed. The beauty is that Jesus has unleashed the powers necessary to destroy it. But we live in the age of the "already, not yet." We live in the age where the power is available, but its job is not complete. On a personal level we avoid it because that power will in fact destroy us -- but it will also rebuild us. The transformation available to us in Christ Jesus is not magical -- it's not morphing. It is tearing down and building anew. We are not so much transformed as we are rebuilt.
That's why the point Hewitt makes on the Iraqi war is so relevent. War is not about destruction, it is and should be about rebuilding. It is exactly the same war we wage within ourselves. When we fail to name evil -- when we fail to allow the destruction of evil, whether by governments and armies or by the soul searching of the Holy Spirit, we prevent destruction -- but we also prevent the rebuilding.
This is the core problem: A horrific disfigurement of religious belief into a killing frenzy. It was the motivation behind 9/11, Bali, Madrid, and Beslan, and it is the motivation behind the terror is Iraq today. The only solution --the only solution-- is the creation of societies committed to religious pluralism. It takes a long, long time for such societies to develop, but a beginning has been made in Iraq, Lebanon and Afghanistan. The president's speech was an argument about why perseverance is not only necessary but in fact indispensable to survival of the West. The cut-and-run caucus led by Ted and MoveOn and Howard et al simply refuses to look the evil in its face and deal with it.How often do we refuse to look at and deal with evil? - Not just on the international/political level, but on the personal and interpersonal level. Heck, we're afraid of the word "evil," as if by uttering it we bring it into existence, when in fact we need to use the word to name it when it is appropriate. So much is written about moral relativism and it's consequences, but I want to look at this just on a church and personal level.
Why has the church abandoned the word? Yesterday we looked at the case of a Christian leader convicted of sexual assault on a minor. What he did was evil. Why did I not use that word in my post about it yesterday? Oh sure, I was condemning, but I fell short of the mark. God, through Jesus on the Cross, can redeem even evil -- by calling it what it is, I do not rob it of the opportunity for redemption, rather I point out its utter need for redemption. In fact, by failing to call evil as evil, I make it appear as if some other, lesser redemption is all that is needed rather than the self-denying, soul transforming, sin destroying redemption that only comes from Jesus.
When I examine myself, I rationalize in a similar fashion. "oh, that's not much of a sin," I say to myself -- when in fact it is nothing short of evil. That is the crux of the matter that Jesus drives at in the Sermon on the Mount. "You have heard that the ancients were told, 'You shall not commit murder' and 'Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.' But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court;" (Matt 5:21-22a) Jesus is not here tightening the behavioral restrictions -- he is illustrating that evil goes to our very core.
People avoid the concept of evil, the word itself, because evil must be destroyed. The beauty is that Jesus has unleashed the powers necessary to destroy it. But we live in the age of the "already, not yet." We live in the age where the power is available, but its job is not complete. On a personal level we avoid it because that power will in fact destroy us -- but it will also rebuild us. The transformation available to us in Christ Jesus is not magical -- it's not morphing. It is tearing down and building anew. We are not so much transformed as we are rebuilt.
That's why the point Hewitt makes on the Iraqi war is so relevent. War is not about destruction, it is and should be about rebuilding. It is exactly the same war we wage within ourselves. When we fail to name evil -- when we fail to allow the destruction of evil, whether by governments and armies or by the soul searching of the Holy Spirit, we prevent destruction -- but we also prevent the rebuilding.
