Black men shot in their cars for no apparent reason, innocent policemen mowed down by a sniper, scores of French citizens and visitors run over by a madman at the wheel of a huge refrigerated truck. Why?
Racism? Anger and hatred fueled by racism? Mental illness at the service of radical jihadism? Likely.
Yet there is something other at work here which must be named. Evil. Whether understood as stemming from satanic power, the “fallen” nature of humankind, or human nature not completely evolved from the survival-of-the-fittest mentality of our primitive ancestors, “red of tooth and claw,” there is Evil in this world.
And this Evil is greater than the sum total of all the individual evil acts committed by men and women. There is the power of Evil. Evil with a capital “E.”
We are at war with that Evil, make no mistake about it. Unfortunately, when people realize that they are at war, their first thought is to use the weapons of war — violence, killing, conquest, imprisonment, torture, deportation and exile. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
This will never work. Using Evil’s tools against it only slakes its bloody thirst.
The only power able to overcome Evil is the power of Love. Blessing those who curse you, turning the other cheek, not returning evil for evil, loving your enemies not hating them.
Why will this ultimately work? Because God is love, and those who love align themselves with the power which holds the universe together, from galaxies far away to the quarks and gluons of beyond-microscopic atomic reality.
In the Face of such Power, Evil must eventually bow.
Wait for it with confidence.
That We All May Be One 
July 20, 2016 at 9:24 pm |
Thank you for this, Chris. You continue to have the gift of being able to say so much in so little space!