The Dilemma of Evil

Two weeks ago, I offered a sermon on the idea of God being love and that Christians are to bear witness to that love through our actions.  After the service, I was approached by several different people who asked how we respond in particular to persons such as the members of the Islamic State (or ISIS), terrorists, or others that we find ourselves truly despising.

Here is my response.  It doesn't answer it all, and there was plenty more I would like to have said, but in the context of a sermon and given particular time constraints, this was what I offered.

Evil.

Evil is a strange, versatile and dangerous word that can describe atrocities or cause them.  Evil, like art, is something we often believe we would know when it was seen.  But evil is an amorphous, shadowy idea that rarely manifests itself in obvious ways.  When it does, it comes to us in forms so horrific, so vile, that we wonder how we missed it.

We miss it because we think of evil in extreme terms and with extreme words: zealot, fanatic, extremist, terrorist.  When we talk of groups that traffic in, profit from, and seek to further hatred, we see – behind the words and images – evil.

Evil is often couched in terms of hatred, and hatred is often just the catalyst for true evil.  Because as much as we Christians talk about love, we have to acknowledge that hatred moves and works much quicker.  Destruction is always faster than creation and hatred is often a catalyst of destruction.  Yet destruction is a tool for change and change is value neutral – it is often needed, but whether it is good or evil depends on its usage.

Clearly it is a quagmire made the more confounding when we choose not to speak in absolutes – as in this is always good or that is always bad.  But this lack of absolute terminology comes from the fact that the world is far more gray than black or white.  To address situations in the world takes a recognition that most issues often have less than clear beginnings.

The difficulty many have with the United Methodist Church is the ironic stance we hold of an unwavering commitment to hearing multiple sides of an issue.  But we seek to make informed decisions, not reactionary ones.

Jesus asked the rhetorical question, “Who is my neighbor?”  As Archbishop Desmond Tutu explained, Jesus could have provided a list to answer the question, but he does not.  “Instead he tells a story.  It is as if Jesus wanted, among other things, to point out that life is a bit more complex; it has too many ambivalences and ambiguities to allow always for a straightforward and simplistic answer.”

So it is then that the witness of the church needs to be clear.  Not rigid, not intolerant, not violent or blind.  Clear.  And that witness begins and ends with love.

It is difficult to love as Paul speaks of love.  It is difficult to love in the terms of Jesus:

"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.'  But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you."  (Matthew 5:43-44)

It is difficult to follow Christ and those early Christian teachings of Paul because we do not appreciate their tone and conclusion:  we must rise above it.  We must strive to be better.

Especially in the face of such atrocities as Dachau, Chernobyl, Columbine, Enron, 9-11; especially in a world that seems to have fallen into the perpetual cycle of warfare with no end and no objectives; especially in the face of the cause and offspring of war: hatred.

Hatred is not only a means of unification, but also its product.  Because hatred pulls and whirls the individual into siding with those who hate as they do.  When we love we seek community, but when we hate we want allies.

When we hate, we de-humanize.  When we de-humanize we have no qualms killing the faceless, monstrous, evil creatures that have no redemptive value to us.  When we hate, whomever it is we hate becomes less than us, less than human, and deserves no pity or consideration.

We see this playing out in groups like ISIS.  If you aren't with them, you are a target.  Their atrocities are frightening and angering.  We have to admit that to eradicate their menace will mean violence, because there is no compromise with them; no rational discussion or diplomacy.

Sadly, our own Christian history is littered with bloodshed – from the unwavering, torturous zealotry of the Inquisition to the Protestant persecution of the early Anabaptist movement in colonial America.  We are not without sin.

Our approach to evil, therefore, must be tempered with the clarity of Christian convictions.  That begins with the hard truth that violence is not the way, teaching, or the method of operation of Jesus the Christ.  Jesus taught that our task is to strive to realize the Kingdom of God in such a way that it is made known to us and to the world by our actions.  And our actions must convey the love of God and the love of neighbor.  Everyone we see is someone who was created by God in the image of God and for whom Christ died.

Theologian Karl Barth wrote, “The decisive contribution which the Christian community can make to the up building and work and maintenance of the civil order consists in the witness which it has to give to all human societies […] that there is already on earth an order which is based on the great alteration of the human situation and directed towards its manifestation.” 

The church is to bear witness that there is a better way, a better society, and a better example to be found in the Kingdom of God.  We are to bear witness to the love of God in a broken world.  The fact that we world remains broken points to both the church’s failure to do that over the centuries and the need for a clear witness based on a desire to follow Christ first and to follow hatred never.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Christian martyr at the hands of the Nazis wrote, “In following Jesus, people are released from the hard yoke of their own laws to be under the gentle yoke of Jesus Christ.  Jesus’ commandment never wishes to destroy life, but rather to preserve, strengthen, and heal life.”

To oppose ISIS, or any fanatical group be they Muslim, Hindu, Jewish or even Christian, we first have to come to the mournful, grievous, and heart-breaking acknowledgment that we have allowed hatred to define us in terms of enemy or ally.  We have to acknowledge that there are those who only speak in terms of absolutes and can never tolerate any who are different.  We have to acknowledge the failure of the larger human community.

As St. Augustine wrote, “A good ruler will wager wars only if they are just,” and “[that ruler] will begin by bewailing the necessity of waging even a just war.” 

Recognizing the need to resort (not begin with but to resort) to violence is to admit that the forces of this world: greed, hubris, racism, covetous, and hatred have been walking so freely among us that we have allowed a situation to exist that has only exacerbated hatred and fostered warfare.

We also have to recognize that we do not go to violence out of hatred, but out of the love of neighbor that calls us to protect those who are falling into harm’s way.

In going to war, in opposing ISIS, in opposing atrocities, or simply speaking of those with whom we disagree, we have to remember that there is a difference between calling for justice and calling for vengeance.  One requires reflection, responsibility, and courage.  The other only requires anger and opportunity.

To resort to violence is to admit the failure of so many other potentials – including the Christian witness of the Kingdom of God where war is studied no more, where the wounded and the torturer forget their animosities and their allegiance to de-humanizing institutions and the wolf dwells with the lamb.

To resort to violence is to admit that there is more to be done.  Should we lose sight of Christ, should we hate our enemies, should we seek vengeance, should this be our motivation, then we will find ourselves fighting again and again, for we will only be perpetuating the evil we seek to overcome.

So may God have mercy on all of our souls, and may God hasten the day in which we study war no more and hear the voice of the angel standing in the sun cry out:

“The dwelling place of God is with humanity.  God will wipe away every tear form their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”