107 Sermon Illustrations on Evil

Barking At The Moon

Read: Mark 15:1-5

Let all . . . evil speaking be put away from you. --Ephesians 4:31

A certain judge was constantly annoyed by the sneering remarks and abusive language of an attorney. Instead of cracking down on the lawyer and silencing him, the judge would only smile and chew on his pencil. People wondered how he could be so patient.

At a dinner party someone asked him, "Why don't you do something about that wise-guy lawyer?" The judge laid down his fork, and resting his chin on his hands said, "Up in our town there lives a widow who has a dog. Whenever there is a full moon, that dog barks and barks all night."

Then the judge quietly resumed his eating. One person asked, "But Judge, what about the dog and the moon?"

He replied, "Well, the moon just keeps right on shining!"

Of all sins, there is perhaps none more insidious than slander. When we are misrepresented, the natural reaction is to return evil for evil. Yet the evidence of real Christlikeness is to be able to reward evil with good and go right on living for the Lord. We are to be like our Savior, who did not retaliate even when He was horribly mistreated and slandered and led to the cross (Mk. 15:3-5; 1 Pet. 2:21-23).

Oh, for grace today to keep on shining for God amid all the "barking dogs" around us. --M. R. De Haan, M.D.

I want the love that always sweetly bears

Whate'er my Father's hand may choose to send;

I want the love that patiently endures

The wrongs that come from enemy or friend. --Anon.

It's not always kind to respond in kind.

This is a brief except that appeared in the Jounal Sentenial - a very liberal newspaper in our area.

COLORADO SHOOTING VICTIM'S LEGACY WILL BE HIS STEADFAST BELIEF IN GOD.

“Maybe John Tomlin's death will save a soul, and maybe more than one.

The stirring spirit of John's life, so brutally punctuated by his death at Columbine High School, led his friend Brandon Sokol to announce Friday his conversion to Christ. Brandon spoke through tears at john's memorial service, the first for the victims of Tuesday's maassacre.

More conversions may follow, said Tomlin's girlfriend, Michelle Oetter, a 17-year-old who seems guided through this tragedy by uncommon grace and perception.

'I don't know why (John died) and I whish he was still here with me, but God knows what he is doing,' Oetter said. 'If this many people are going to find out what kind of person John was and the faith he had -- it changed Brandon's life -- I don't have to ask why.'“

As evil in our society becomes more radical, one is forced to ask, "What will the face of the future look like for our world?" Futurists who dabble in technology or science seem to love speculation about the material progress awaiting us in the future. Hardly a week goes by without someone boasting about the speeds at which we will be flying or the new contraptions we will be using in the future. With the ever-increasing rate of technological advancement, many in our world seem to be almost hypnotized in the aura of the new gadgets available to us - from cellular phones to the World Wide Web.

But as we human beings get caught up in these thrilling and, indeed, incredible possibilities, we cavalierly ignore the one element that has pockmarked the whole of the twentieth century - our chronic bent toward destruction.

The degree of lawlessness and the vulnerability that we all live with was underscored for me in two incidents which occurred just minutes apart on the streets of Moscow. In the first incident, my companions and I were casually walking to an engagement when, suddenly and without warning, a roving band of gypsies moved in to overpower us and ransack our pockets. One member of my group was knocked to the ground during the incident, but not one passerby stopped to help us. To watch yourself become a victim, unaided by onlookers while you’re being robbed and possibly injured, is one of the loneliest feelings in life.

The second incident occurred minutes later right outside McDonald’s - that great symbol of capitalism’s triumph in Moscow - as a crazy, shirtless man in the cold of winter came running down the sidewalk with a huge butcher knife, threatening anyone in his path. He stopped within inches of me and we just stared, eyeball to eyeball. The experience was terrifying and once again, no one stopped to help.

But the tragedy does not belong solely to Moscow. In most of our cities the streets at night present their own threats.

We must face up to these realities in our world. As the face of evil becomes more hideous, the face of the future becomes more fearsome.

The Bible talks about the future and about violence. And it tells us that the only hope is for us to bring our restless hearts to Christ, who transforms hate to love, agitation to peace and despair to hope. For such transformation, neither capitalism nor Marxism has the answer. Only God is big enough for that.

_________________________

Copyright © 2002 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM). Reprinted with permission. "A Slice of Infinity" is a radio ministry of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.

*

Few Christian thinkers today write with the penetration and boldness of Philip Yancey. His experience contemplating a beautiful young bride suddenly devastated by a fatal illness [brings up many important issues].

Claudia, a beautiful young bride only a year into a glorious marriage, is now suddenly confined to a hospital bed, her beauty rapidly fading, her body sinking into unexpected and yet certain death from Hodgkin's disease.

This we hear from Philip Yancey. But his (true) story only begins there.

Now six kinds of visitors show up.

One is a deacon. He solemnly and earnestly "reminds" Claudia that our God would not "do such a thing to her" unless He had some good reason, unless there was some sin, some lesson for her to learn. Search for that in faith, he said. But, in her weakness she could not think of anything she had done wrong. And, anyway, why such a violent punishment?

Another visitor is an ebullient, cheerful woman. She arrives with flowers and flowery words to cheer. She insists on changing the subject every time Claudia refers to her illness. She overflows with exciting stories. She does not come back. She has done her duty.

Another woman arrives with great confidence in the power of faith. When she learns about the first visitor, she reacts instantly with, "Sickness is never God's will! Haven't you read the Bible? The devil stalks like a roaring lion, but God will deliver you if you can muster up enough faith to believe you will be healed Simply name your promise, in faith, and then claim the victory." Claudia was exhausted and confused.

A fourth visitor "brought along some books about praising God for everything that happens." This very spiritual woman told Claudia, "You need to come to the place where you can say, 'God, I love you for making me suffer like this.'" This repulsed Claudia. Is God really like that? What kind of glory of God is that?

On and on. You must get Yancey's book -- Where Is God When It Hurts (Zondervan, 1990).

This is not just an intellectual problem. It has a great deal to do with Who and how we worship.

What is the connection between worship and a day-by-day deeper awareness of the true glory of God? If worship hinges on our sense of His "worth-ship" we can't go on singing again and again "Majesty, Worship His Majesty" and expect the mere repetition of those words alone to deepen our awareness of His Glory. Jack Hayford did not write that magnificent song so much to gain or procure a sense of God's majesty as to express his awareness of it -- and to allow us to do so along with him.

But the power of his marvelous song hinges on the degree of whatever true sense we have, what true awareness we have, of God's majesty. Otherwise those words can become no more than a Hindu mantra.

Thus, if our awareness of God's glory is confused or distorted by the puzzling issues of Claudia's visitors, our worship is going to be limited to our actual experience of that glory.

Yet we commonly hear people wondering out loud why would God have "done" this or that dastardly deed, as though there is no other power working to tear down His Glory.

I would not give you a dime for the idea that God's sovereignty is limited by His "inability" to know what choices His created beings will make in the future, or the reverse extreme that nothing really happens that is dead wrong or truly evil. Apparently a handful of "openness" theologians are being accused of the first extreme. And Christianity Today (April 23, p. 103) gives a whole page to let us hear them stoutly deny this.

But I would give you far more than a dime to know more about that "other" person in this world whose sole occupation is incessantly to pervert and despoil God's goodness and creation, and to twist our understanding of what in this world God does or doesn't do.

Yancey is right to bring this puzzle before us. Why are our usual hospital "visitors" so confused about the virtually omnipresent pain, suffering, premature death, and the myriad examples in our world of the distortion of God's intent -- in a word, evil? Or, why are we so illiterate -- so seldom discussing -- what precisely are "the works of the devil" which "the Son of God appeared to destroy" (1 John 3:8)?

As a matter of fact, how in this world of universal pain and violence, can anyone for a moment question the existence of a Satanic campaign to reduce and distort the true glory of God? How can we be content if we do not learn more of the details and how to fight back? [...]

How long will our pre-scientific theologies allow us to go on believing naively that if we will just "live right" and "eat the right thing" that we will not succumb to any of the virulent viruses, bacteria, parasites, and many other violences that pervade our sad world?

In other words, what may well be "all to the good" is definitely not always good enough. Urging sick and dying people to "praise the Lord" becomes much more inspirational if we and they understand that our faithful God is not only mindful of the nature of evil but He is, with our help, in the process of conquering it. Only in that process of conquest can the full meaning be glimpsed in John's brief statement that "the Son of God appeared for this purpose that He might destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8)."

We can ask, "Where were our theologians when one of the most outstanding theologians of all time, Jonathan Edwards, sought -- against theological opposition -- to do away with smallpox?" Massachusetts pastors back then condemned him for "interfering with Divine Providence." What kind of Satan-favoring, God-distorting theology is that?

Why did it take another 200 years for any concerted effort to eliminate smallpox from the face of the earth? And why, when it did happen, was it not any kind of direct result of Christian initiative?

Can we not better worship and glorify a God who is pleased by the ending of the horrible annual toll of two million people dying by smallpox, that most terrible of all deaths?

Why is our mission to this evil-ridden world not more strategically obedient to God's concern to triumph over that evil? Maybe it is, as my pastor (Gordon Kirk, Lake Avenue Church, Pasadena) put it, "Satan's greatest achievement is to cover his tracks."

What happens to the quality of our worship if we only go around the world making plain by "actions that speak louder than words" that the God we worship is able merely to offer malarial ridden sufferers a bed on which to die? Does this not mean He does not know or care, or even with our help is unable to do anything, to eliminate malaria once and for all?

Or, does it not affect our worship if we worship a God that does not ask us to do anything about the fact that four children die every sixty seconds from the work of that devious, ingenious, metamorphosing parasite called malaria? At the minimum, are we not shouting to the world that the God we worship has not enlisted us on His side in this endeavor?

Don't blame Calvin. He did not have the faintest idea about germs and he only faintly understood the evil intelligence embodied in the masses of parasites that inflict us. With greater knowledge comes new responsibility.

And, worse by far, it may very well be that Calvin, along with Thomas Aquinas, Luther, etc., were infected by an Augustinian pagan syncretism from neo-Platonism that conceived of God as actually orchestrating evil for good -- not after the fact, but in its very initiation! The idea is, we must not fight evil but simply resign ourselves to it, knowing that a good God would never have anything but good in mind for us in "doing these harmful things to us."

How much more logical to believe what the Bible clearly assures us, that God is able to use for good -- and with our help ultimately triumph over -- the evil deeds of Satan after they happen, but that He does not guide Satan or "put him up to" evil.

I personally don't put great stock in mere philosophizing, but I am very concerned that so very, very little of the vast energies of the world's millions upon millions of followers of Christ are so marginal and distantly related to the major matter of eliminatable evil. And I believe that to many intelligent observers of Christianity our integrity and credibility are at stake.

What makes a bomber strike, or a mom kill her kids?

Newsweek magazine asked that question recently for a cover story analyzing the nature and the root of evil. Its answer, though, fell short of a biblical definition of sin, R. Albert Mohler Jr. said during a nationwide broadcast of the radio program "Janet Parshall's America" May 18.

The Newsweek cover story analyzed the problem of evil and examined the life of Timothy McVeigh, who is scheduled to be executed next month for the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people. One article in the magazine, titled "In Search of the Roots of Evil," concluded that much evil can be traced to a person's childhood and upbringing. The article also pointed to possible biological factors.

But Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., said the problem is much more basic.

"The worst thing about it is the way it psychologizes sin," he said of the story. "It treats sin as some kind of warp in the human personality. But evil is deep within us."

Parshall quoted a Newsweek poll which found that only 31 percent of Americans believe that everyone has the capacity for evil. Thirty-three percent of respondents blamed poor parenting, while 53 percent said religious and moral training is the best way to fight evil.

Mohler, though, said that everyone has the capacity to do evil. He told a story of how he was in Arkansas in 1998 when a shooter killed five people in a Jonesboro middle school.

"One of the psychologists that was on television was called to speak and give an explanation," Mohler said. "I expected some kind of psychobabble or some kind of therapeutic answer, [but] he just looked squarely in the camera and quoted Jeremiah 17:9, 'The heart is desperately wicked. Who can understand it?'"

That, Mohler said, should be the Christians' response to questions about evil. He pointed out that every human being is corrupted with sin, and that everyone has the same sin nature as that of McVeigh.

"The fact is that we are all sinners," he said. "There is no one who is in need of lesser or greater atonement. We're all in need of absolute atonement through Jesus Christ, our Lord. The fact is that McVeigh and Adolf Hitler and Herman Goering ... their sin is demonstrable. It is awful, and in its effect it is greater than the sins of most other persons. In its effect it's greater, but in its heart it's the same. That's hard for us to realize."

The program touched on a host of theological questions concerning evil. One listener e-mailed a question to Parshall, asking, "How do we handle the fact that Mr. McVeigh could ask God for forgiveness and accept Jesus as his Son at any time in the future, and would be taken to heaven when he dies? For that matter, what if at one time he did do that and he's just lost his way?"

Mohler answered by saying, "I do not believe that a heart that has been regenerated by God -- that a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ -- could have done that crime. We need to make very clear that McVeigh has made no claim of such. But she raises a good question, and that is, if McVeigh came to Christ would he be forgiven of his sins? The answer is yes."

Parshall opened the program by asking if it is logical to conclude that God created evil, since he created all things.

"It is not fair to say that God created evil," Mohler responded. "As a matter of fact, we are told in the Scripture that God is light, He is love, He is perfection, [and] he is righteousness. All he has to do to be righteous is be consistent with himself. He is no way the author of evil. But God did create Satan. Satan is not some uncreated being. He was an angel who literally rebelled against God. So it's fair to say that God has allowed evil to exist, but it is not fair to assign him the blame for evil."

Parshall then asked Mohler if God knew that Satan would eventually rebel.

"Liberal theology tries to answer that by saying [that] God really isn't all that sovereign," Mohler said. "We know that that's just not biblically acceptable. God did know what was going to happen, and you can look not only to the fall of Satan but you can look to the fall of Adam, and the fact that God created us in [God's] image but knew also that we would sin. ... God is glorified supremely in overcoming evil. So, to some extent -- in a way that we can't understand with our finite minds -- God is more glorious for having allowed evil and then overcoming, than [for] having never allowed it at all."

Many people, Parshall said, wonder why an all-knowing, loving God would allow something like the Holocaust in Nazi Germany to take place.

"That is a very difficult question," Mohler answered. "The only thing we can do is to trust what Scripture says about God, and that is that his purposes are absolutely certain. And even in the most horrible of circumstances -- in the face of the most horrible and atrocious crimes -- he is still a just and loving God. ... On the other side of that, his justice is going to require all these sins to be judged, and they will be. There is a judgment that is coming, and it will be one that will exact due punishment out of Adolf Hitler and out of Pol Pot and out of Joseph Stalin. But each of us will be required to give an answer."

Sin, Mohler said, cannot simply be defined as the act of breaking God's commands. Rather, he said, "It is robbing God of his glory, and it is breaking God's law -- his command -- and refusing to come under submission to him."

Parshall noted that when Christ returns, good will triumph over evil.

"We're waiting for Christ's glorious return," Mohler said, "and we're waiting for the judgment that is to come, and in between this time, Satan is running to and fro seeking whom he may devour. But his time is short."

*

Be it the chaplain in Manhattan, the pastor in Pittsburgh or the farmer in Kentucky, Christians across the country searched for answers to explain what happened Sept. 11 and offer a God-centered approach to personal healing and the country's response.

From the Oval Office to the pulpit, one word came up consistently to describe the terrorist hijackings and crashes of four commercial airliners: evil.

But charting a Christian response to such evil requires prayer, pause and purpose, according to theologians, ethicists and others who wrestle with such issues.

"You have what Paul called the 'mystery of iniquity,' and evil is there," said Henlee Barnette, professor emeritus of Christian ethics at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. "It's everywhere, and the challenge to the Christian is to respond in an intelligent, reasonable way to evil in his or her own life, in the lives of others and in the life of our nation."

All crises bring out basic questions of meaning and purpose, but a number of Christian observers outlined three major questions that Christians must answer in the wake of recent events:

-- HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN?

"I have been asked hundreds of times in my life why God allows tragedy and suffering," evangelist Billy Graham said during a prayer service at the National Cathedral. "I have to confess that I really do not know the answer totally, even to my own satisfaction."

Understanding the human potential to cause such destruction leads Christians back to the basic doctrines of their faith, including sin and the freedom to choose right from wrong, said ethicist David Gushee.

"Why this happened is really in a sense the same answer to 'Why did Adam and Eve sin?'" said Gushee, professor of moral philosophy at Union University in Jackson, Tenn. "It happened because we have the freedom to make bad choices."

Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, agreed. "We need to be very clear that the problem behind all of this does not come down to a lack of security in an airport," he said. "Ultimately, we still have to deal with the reality that God has allowed a sinful world to exist and for some time he is allowing sin to take its toll."

Mohler and Gushee said Christians should avoid answers about the existence of evil that either are simplistic -- such as "God will always protect me" -- or outright heresy, such as "God must have caused this to happen."

Romans 8:28 often is cited in times of suffering, proclaiming "that in all things God works for the good of those who love him." But Mohler said that doesn't imply that God causes tragedies. The Bible consistently insists God does not cause suffering, Mohler added.

"No way can we dignify these murderous acts by proclaiming in a glib way that some good is going to come of it," he said. "The biblical affirmation is that even in the face of such awful evil, God's grace will triumph."

But God's ability to redeem a tragedy doesn't eliminate the challenge for Christians to insist that God is loving and powerful even though he permits sin to cause terrible consequences.

Theodicy, the branch of theology that seeks to vindicate God's permission for evil to exist, is nothing new.

Evil is a major theme in both Psalms and Job, according to George Klein, an Old Testament professor at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas.

But while both books contain agonizing petitions to God in the face of evil, neither holds God's answer for why he allows suffering, Klein said.

Many psalms that lament evil have a common structure, Klein noted. Rather than staying focused on the evildoer or how God will judge him, the psalm reviews one of God's previous great acts, such as creation or protection during Israel's exodus from Egypt.

"They jump fast-forward to their conclusion, and their conclusion is that the Lord is righteous, the Lord is powerful and he should be revered even in the midst of uncertainty and trouble," he said.

"The Psalms do emphasize God's role as king and righteous holy creator. But the way they function is to help God's people lift up their eyes, to look on the Lord to realize that he is good. The fact that somebody appears to do well even though they are evil does not undercut God's righteousness. He will deal with them in his own way," Klein added. "It's not a nice bumper-sticker theology, but it really is a hope, a confidence."

Likewise, the book of Job never defends God for allowing the central character to suffer.

"It just doesn't. Instead it just quickly jumps and says that God is worthy of worship, ... God is good and in his way, in his time, what is mysterious, unknown, troubling to us will be seen in a different light. But for now, our responsibility is to accept the painful mysteries and uncertainties and to trust in God wholeheartedly and his righteousness and his power and his knowledge, his providence."

-- WHAT SHOULD AMERICA DO?

Christians dare not shrink from their responsibility to influence a government's response to evil, several theologians and ethicists said.

From "just war" theories of combat to an introspective view of American policies, Christians must lead the country to develop a moral response, they said.

"When the public discourse turns from grief to retaliation, the community of faith must offer a different language and articulate different solutions," said Robert Parham, founder and executive director of the Baptist Center for Ethics.

Beginning with St. Augustine 1,600 years ago and modified since, a "just war" doctrine requires that government military action be measured and appropriate, said Chuck Colson, a Christian author and former adviser to President Richard Nixon.

"Augustine's formulation was that it has to be, obviously, a just cause," Colson said on his BreakPoint radio program. Military action also must be a last resort and intended to prevent more evil or damage than it will cause.

"There's got to be a good chance of success, and, most importantly, civilian casualties have got to be limited. You cannot target civilians," he said.

Mohler said Romans 13 outlines government's responsibility to maintain order and punish evildoers. Biblical admonitions to turn the other cheek do not apply to a proper response to last week's attack, Barnette added.

"As Christians we should respond with love, even to our enemies," he said. "Jesus taught us to love our enemies. But let me add, love without justice is pure sentimentality."

"Now personally, I'm a man of peace, but this is a defensive war against a destructive evil. As a Christian ethicist, I believe that the most loving thing to do is to seek out the evil perpetrators and their supporters and bring them to justice," Barnette added. "If someone comes up and strikes me on the right cheek, I turn the other one. But if someone comes to destroy my family, love becomes justice."

But Christians also must lead the country in controlling its emotions, Gushee added. "We may be setting ourselves up for a deep sense of national rage if we are not able to achieve the kind of perfect justice that we appear to be looking for."

Like the Jews around the world who lost a more massive 6 million lives in the Holocaust, Americans might have to come to terms with an inability to balance the scales of justice in this life, he said.

"The theme that there is an eternal Judge and that we don't have to hinge all of our future hopes on achieving some earthly justice is very important right now," he said.

"The most powerful nation in the world, unable, perhaps, to get the full and perfect justice that it's looking for, could be a pretty dangerous nation," Gushee said. "Let's hope we have more wisdom and sobriety and realism than that."

The Christian command to love one's enemies also dictates a willingness to understand the motivation of perceived injustice behind such hateful acts, he said.

"That doesn't make the decision any less evil," he quickly added. "But I think a distinctively Christian response says there is humanity in the image of God, even in the adversary. And you seek to recognize that even while you deal with appropriate responses to protect yourself from being harmed like this in the future."

-- AS A CHRISTIAN, WHAT SHOULD I DO?

A Christian personal response to evil begins with a willingness to base one's actions on something other than simple human nature, Barnette said. "We should respond and not merely react."

Part of that response begins with a simple decision to engage in the experiences and suffering of others, said Vicki Hollon, director of the Wayne Oates Institute, an agency in Louisville, Ky., dedicated to Christian-based ethics and pastoral care.

More than just showing compassion or being a good civic person, a Christian's involvement in assembling care packages, donating money, giving blood or praying for victims should be based on God's instructions and be intended to help others find God, she said.

"We have ... a framework out of which we do what we do very clearly, very intentionally with a purpose of serving as a light that points back to God," she said.

Prayer is a basic response to any tragedy, many noted. "I heard one person say all we can do is pray, but you know that's not a little thing," Mohler said. "Prayer is one of the most important ministries that a Christian can perform in order to reach out to those we cannot see, we do not even know."

Individual Christians also should recognize that evil is not entirely an outside force, Barnette noted. "I have to say this: The more optimistic theologians overlook the evil within," he said. "Wherever there is an overwhelming desire for power, for the accumulation of things for self or for a nation, you're going to have this kind of evil."

Christians leaders also must be prepared to interpret events through the lens of the Christian faith, Gushee added.

During his address at the National Cathedral, Billy Graham noted that victims entering the World Trade Center, the Pentagon or any of those four planes probably didn't think it would be their last day.

"That's why each of us needs to face our own spiritual need and commit ourselves to God and his will now," he said.

Likewise, all Christians have an opportunity to offer a distinctive moral vision and spiritual presence, Gushee said.

"I cringe when I think about the inevitable Sunday school classes that will mainly consist of 'We need to go nuke those guys' kind of response. We can do, and must do, so much better than that."

___________________

David Winfrey is news director of the (Ky.) Western Recorder.

Across the nation and throughout the world, people from all walks of life have asked one question in recent days: How could a loving God allow such a terrible tragedy?

It is a question that must be handled with care, and one that Scripture alone answers correctly, R. Albert Mohler Jr. said during a special chapel sermon at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

The seminary president, speaking two days after terrorist attacks killed thousands in New York City and Washington, D.C., said that the tragedy of September 11 will offer Christians countless opportunities to spread the gospel, share their faith and minister to those in need. During those times, Mohler said, believers should be ready to tackle what he called "the greatest theological challenge we face."

"People all over the world are demanding an answer to this question," Mohler said. "It comes only to those who claim that God is both mighty and good. How could a good God allow this to happen? How can a God of love allow killers to kill, terrorists to terrorize and the wicked to escape without a trace?

"No superficial answer will do."

Two answers, Mohler said, fall short of a biblical explanation for evil. First, he said, it is unbiblical to deny God's omnipotence, omniscience and sovereignty over all of creation.

"Not even a sparrow falls without his knowledge," Mohler said. "He knows the number of hairs upon each our heads. God rules and reigns over all nations and kingdoms and principalities. Not one atom, not one molecule of the universe is outside his active rule."

However, Mohler noted, the Bible also says that God is not the author of evil.

"God is absolute righteousness, unconditional love, goodness and justice," Mohler said. "Most errors related to this issue occur because of our human tendency to impose an external standard -- a human construction -- of goodness by which we will measure God. But good does not so much define God as God defines good."

Thus, the answer to the problem of evil lies somewhere in the middle of these two erroneous explanations, Mohler said.

"Between these two errors the Bible points us to a radical affirmation of God's sovereignty as the ground of our salvation and the assurance of our own good -- our own future," Mohler said. "We cannot explain why God has allowed sin, but we understand the Bible to declare clearly that God's glory is more perfectly demonstrated through the victory of Christ over sin. We cannot understand why God would allow sickness and suffering, but we must affirm that even these realities are rooted in sin and its cosmic effects."

To some, the explanation may raise as many questions as it answers. It's a mystery, Mohler admitted, but Christians must never forget that God is in control.

"How does God exercise his rule?" he asked. "Does he order all events by decree, or does he allow some evil acts by his mere permission? We find ourselves using both of these words. This much we know -- we cannot speak of God's decree in a way that would imply him to be the author of evil, and we cannot fall back to speak of his mere permission, as if this allows a denial of his sovereignty and active will."

Mohler quoted the apostle Paul, who writes in Romans 8:28, "And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, who are called according to his purpose."

"As Paul affirms for the church, God's sovereignty is the ground of our hope, the assurance of God's justice as the last word and ... the assurance of God's loving rule in the lives of his people."

Mohler preached from Luke 13:1-9, where Jesus tells the story of a tower in Siloam that had fallen and killed 18 people. Jesus asks those who are listening, "Do you suppose that those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them were worse culprits than all the men who live in Jerusalem? I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish." Jesus then tells the parable of the fig tree.

"This is one of those difficult passages of Scripture," Mohler said. "In it, tragedy and theology intersect in the teaching of Jesus and end up in a parable. The background events are genuinely tragic. The context is a call to repentance -- individual and national."

Jesus' call to repent applies to modern-day America as well, Mohler said.

"Jesus took the occasion of the tower's fall and turned it into a call for individual and national repentance," he said. "Given our assurance that God is in control and working even in this unspeakable tragedy to accomplish his will, dare we not see the horrors in New York and Washington as an opportunity for America -- and for Americans -- to repent as well? ... We need to repent of our national arrogance. We need to repent of our national depravity. We need to repent of our rebellious spirit against God's law and God's sovereignty."

Mohler said that it would be arrogant to claim that he -- or anyone -- has special knowledge of what God is doing through the recent tragedy. However, he said, "This biblical text explains that all such events are signs of our need for repentance. Thousands must have died in New York and many died in Washington. Like the Galileans in Jerusalem and the victims in Siloam, many may have died impenitent and unrepentant.

"...This is a time for national and personal repentance, and in the midst of this national horror, Christians will face unprecedented opportunities to tell the truth, to speak the word of the gospel. This great tragedy ... may produce a softening in the American heart, or it may produce a hardening. Let us pray that it will produce a softening. Let us pray that there may be yet time for us to reach many of our fellow citizens with the gospel."

As the dust settles on the recent horrors in New York and Washington, secular man has begun to think of the sacred. Frantically searching for the key to unlock the mystery of why this happened, 21st-century America wonders what lies beyond the door of the unseen. Exactly what does all of this mean -- and how can we face the future?

Sadly, evil is nothing new, and early Christians understood and even anticipated its reality in their lives. In 1677, a group of Baptists boldly confessed in the Second London Confession, "God hath decreed in himself from all eternity, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably, all things whatsoever comes to pass." Believing that God is never the author of sin, they carefully stated that despite sinful man's best efforts to act in rebellion, the "contingency of second causes" could never thwart God's wise and holy (albeit often unknown) purposes.

Unlike those early Baptists, modern theologians of all stripes are scrambling to defend God's good name. Many are quick to point out that God in no way caused this to happen, and was, to hear them talk, taken by surprise just as we were. Various pastors are also boldly stating that God is unable to control evil. He reacts as we do -- with shock and disbelief.

We must not refuse, as C.S. Lewis put it, to "follow our thoughts home." To believe in a God who shares power with evil in a co-equal or, in many cases, subservient manner, is to have no God at all. More than one supreme being means there is no supreme being. God -- to be God -- must stand above and over evil in some way if God is to exist at all. To fashion a God capable of emotion but not power is simply to concoct a fantasy and call it God. And such a "God" is not worthy of worship. Here, then, are our options: God is evil; God is impotent; or evil is a real and present mystery that we cannot fully understand.

When faced with a similar situation, Jesus Christ minced no words. Another vicious act of terrorism is recorded in Luke's gospel (chapter 13). The despotic ruler Pilate murdered a group of innocent Galileans. Not content with their dead bodies, Pilate sought to defile their souls. He took some of their blood and mingled it with that of the animals brought for their sacrifices.

The reply of Jesus is shocking, to say the least. Rather than run down the perpetrator, he talked about the victims. He ignored their question of "why?" and resorted to a question of "when?" Challenging their ideas about tragedy and sin, Jesus called on his hearers to repent or face the same end -- death. Jesus went on to speak of 18 other people who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them. Again, he spoke not of why -- but when. Faced with death, he called on his hearers to repent.

How offensive! How insensitive! How cruel!

Or how comforting. For a closer look reveals a deeper truth. The window on the unseen world is opened by Jesus. The path to the defeat of death is -- of all things -- repentance. These dreadful days bring yet another opportunity to call a world in peril to repentance -- the ultimate, and only, answer to the sorrows of this life.

God is never the author of sin, but he is never surprised by it. In a world promised to bring pain and hardship, Jesus brings a word of refuge -- repentance toward God and faith in the Christ.

_____________________

Baker is the Kampouris Fellow in the study of Christianity and culture at the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C., and a member of Capitol Hill Baptist Church.

*

In the film, HANNAH AND HER SISTERS, the character played by Woody Allen tries to tell his Jewish parents that he has difficulty believing in the God of their faith. His mother won't hear such nonsense and locks herself in the bathroom. Allen's character shouts after her, “Well, if there's a God, then why is there so much evil in the world? Just on a simplistic level, why were there Nazis?” From behind the bathroom door the mother cries out to her husband, “Tell him, Max.” The father replies, “How in the world do I know why there were Nazis? I don’t even know how the can opener works!”

Evil confronts us in many ways, and demands some kind of an answer. Regardless of whether we believe God exists, that we are god, that everything is god, or that there is no god, some kind of answer is needed. To the Christian, the question is posed in light of the view of God that is presented in the Bible, but all beliefs and everyone has to come up with some kind of explanation. The problem of evil demands some kind of philosophical response but also one that satisfies us existentially.

It has been fashionable of late to reject any and all notions of truth in place of taste and perspective. Reality is merely what one clams it to be. Truth is merely as we see it, or as it is socially constructed. But even when posing the oft-asked questions, “Where was God when such and such an event happened?” or “Why did God allow it to happen?” some knowledge of what life is about is presupposed. Moreover, positing the questions of God's involvement and whereabouts in the midst of evil presupposes some sense and notion of good.

But where does this notion come from? As the Twin Towers fell in New York City, many of the same voices that days earlier claimed the moral equivalence of all views and that no belief was better than another, suddenly seemed compelled to invoke evil as real, as different from something else, and that something called the “good” was both better and to be defended.

The biblical vision captured in the Westminster Confession in 1646 claims: “The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” To most modern people, the chief end of life is to provide freedom and as much pleasure as we can get, forever. Interestingly, as we look back through the history of ideas, the question, “Where is God when it hurts” was not asked before the 17th century. The inquiry has a late pedigree in our making man the center and measure of all things in our considerations.

The Bible clears up any ambiguity about who we are, who God is, what is wrong with the world, and what can be done. The possibility of freely chosen love means allowing conditions that permit freely chosen rejection, evil, or alternatives. Our lack of interest in God and our self-assured confidence excludes any normal or routine reflection on life. For many of us, pain is the platform from which the imperative questions of life are asked and answered. C.S. Lewis put it this way, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains; it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”

The question of God's presence in the midst of evil is answered in the silhouette at the heart of a different question: WHERE WAS GOD AT THE CRUX OF HUMAN HISTORY? As the disciples' gazed at the Cross, their expectations were dashed, their hopes shattered, and they could not see God in the midst of the turning point of history. But at the Cross, what men at first could not see was the triumph of good over evil.

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Copyright © 2005 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM). Reprinted with permission. "A Slice of Infinity" is a radio ministry of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.

*

[original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #10147]

Malcolm Muggeridge observed that the depravity of man is at once the most unpopular of all dogmas, yet the most empirically verifiable. Despite abundant evidence to the contrary, we want so badly to believe that humans are basically good, and that our evil acts are a problem of conditions or environment, but do not stem from evil in the human heart.

This false idea was well documented by historian Christopher Browning's book on the Holocaust, hauntingly titled ORDINARY MEN. Said one critic: "The most frightening aspect of ... Browning's ... book is the knowledge it conveys to us that it was not a few brutes, but many good and ordinary men, who committed murder for Hitler."[1] One might think that the men who engineered such atrocities were somehow of a different breed, perhaps genetically predisposed or psychologically imbalanced. I do not mean to mitigate the power of false beliefs or influence of a mob mentality, yet I cannot escape the fact that those capable of such ghastly acts against millions of people were, by all accounts, ordinary men.

Malcolm Muggeridge tells of a time when he was a journalist in India, and left his residence one evening to go for a swim. As he entered the water, across the river he saw a woman bathing. Muggeridge impulsively felt the allure and temptation of the moment. He had often felt this kind of struggle but had resisted because he was a married man. On this occasion, however, he wondered if he could cross the line of his conscience, and swam furiously toward the woman. His mind fed him the fantasy that stolen waters would be sweet. Finally only a few feet away from her, he emerged from the water and looked at the woman. At once he realized that he was looking into the eyes of a leper - a toothless old woman was grinning at him. He was gripped with disgust and thought, "What a dirty lecherous woman!" when suddenly the rude shock of it dawned upon him. It was not the woman who was lecherous; it was his own heart.

Friend, perhaps you, like me, need only to look as far as your own life to see that your heart is bent on following its own devices and falls short of what God intends. Let me say that God stands ready to forgive sin and offer new life for the asking. He is in the business of turning wayward hearts toward Him and bringing hope and healing to "ordinary men." That's an extraordinary answer for ordinary people.

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1. Christopher Browning, Ordinary Men (New York: HarperCollins, 1991), jacket copy.

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Copyright © 2002 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM). Reprinted with permission. "A Slice of Infinity" is a radio ministry of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.

*

Forged in the heat of theological battle, Augustine's five most distinctive teachings remain controversial.

Despite Augustine's long and dominating shadow over 1,500 years of Western church history, his central ideas have not been universally accepted or uniformly interpreted. The Eastern Orthodox regard some of Augustine's key ideas as pernicious, if not heretical. Anabaptists have rejected much of his theology, while Protestants in general claim selected teachings and ignore others.

Nonetheless, Augustine is widely regarded as the church's most influential philosopher and theologian. His five central ideas were forged in the heat of theological conflict, and they remain controversial today:

1. The nature and source of evil.

2. The nature of the church and its sacraments.

3. Original sin.

4. The relationship of grace and free will.

5. Predestination.

Augustine refined each of these doctrines as he battled what he believed were heresies, or at least false worldviews: a dualistic "cult" known as the Manichees, a Christian sect in North Africa known as the Donatists, and the beliefs of a British monk named Pelagius and his followers. Augustine's distinctive teachings are essentially answers to these theological enemies.

EVIL NOTHINGS

One of the most pressing theological problems in Augustine's time was how to justify belief in an omnipotent and perfectly good Creator when sin and evil were obviously deeply woven into the created beings.

The Manichees taught that two eternal beings control the universe, one of them good and the other evil. Even if the all-good deity is superior, they argued, it cannot at present conquer or control the evil one. The Manichees also taught that evil is intrinsically associated with matter and that only spirit is good. Thus, the good deity created spirits but not matter.

Against this double dualism (reminiscent of both Zoroastrianism and Gnosticism), Augustine developed an idea he believed was consistent with biblical revelation and the best of philosophy: evil is not some "thing" or "substance" but only the privation of the good (privatio boni). It is to goodness what darkness is to light.

The source of evil, then, is not God's creation (how could God create "non-being"?) but the misuse of human free will. According to Augustine, evil "is nothing else than corruption, either of the measure, or the form, or the order that belong to nature." Elsewhere Augustine wrote, "The only evil thing is an evil will."

The vast majority of later Christian thinkers depended on Augustine's "theodicy" (defense of God) to reconcile the reality of evil with God's goodness. Some Christians, though, have found Augustine's concept of evil insufficient to account for the power and types of evil we experience. Nonetheless, Augustine's response to dualism was largely triumphant over Manicheism.

CHURCH AS A MIXED BAG

Augustine also fought with the Donatists, especially their perfectionist theology of the church.

Donatists believed the grace of God could be found only in an undefiled church, and since they restricted their membership to those they believed to be true saints, they believed they had a monopoly on grace. Thus they considered only their baptism and Lord's Supper valid.

Augustine, however, argued that the church is both universal (not limited to a particular branch) and mixed (some members saved, others not). Only God can know definitely which baptized persons are truly regenerate. Augustine accused the Donatists of a sin worse than condoning impurity: dividing the church.

Augustine and the Donatists also differed on the qualifications of priests. Donatist priests had to be morally pure; specifically they must not have lapsed during Roman persecution. Augustine, like his North African predecessor Cyprian of Carthage, based priestly authority not on irreproachable behavior but on the criterion of apostolic succession — Jesus' disciples laid hands on the next generation of leaders, who laid hands on the next, and so on.

Augustine contended that God's saving grace was conveyed ex opere operato, that is, by Christ himself through his priests regardless of their character or beliefs. If the recipient of the sacrament is not resisting grace, and if the priest performing the sacrament is rightly ordained and in good standing with the Catholic church, grace is conveyed. The human priest is merely Christ's extended hand in the sacrament.

"What these [priests] administer," wrote one Augustine scholar, "is the baptism of Christ, whose sanctity cannot be corrupted by unworthy ministers, any more than the light of the sun is corrupted by shining through a sewer."

Augustine's ideas became the Catholic church's bulwarks against all forms of sectarian and schismatic reform. Even the "magisterial" reformers (Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, Cranmer) accepted most of Augustine's answers to Donatism, though they all rejected ex opere operato, arguing that recipients of the Eucharist must have faith for grace to be effective. The Anabaptists, on the other hand, rejected these ideas and repeated Donatism's insistence on a pure, or at least regenerate, church.

OF HUMAN BONDAGE

Augustine's notions of original sin, grace and free will, and predestination are inextricably bound together, and they were shaped by his debates with the Pelagians.

Augustine believed that humankind suffers from original sin, meaning that since the fall of Adam, we are depraved — incapable of doing good without supernatural help. The commands of God to do good were given, Augustine concluded, simply to point out our inability and throw us on the mercy of God.

Pelagius, however, believed that if God commands us to live good and even morally perfect lives, he must give us the ability to obey without any special, supernatural assistance. Thus Pelagians denied there was any "original sin" or "depravity." Instead of being "depraved," the only disadvantage we currently have is that, living in a sinful world, we are more likely to develop sinful habits. Sin is a social disease, not an inherited spiritual-genetic defect.

Thus, Pelagius concluded, we are capable of living sinless lives simply by exercising our wills for the good. "A man can be without sin and keep the commandments of God, if he wishes," he wrote, "for this ability has been given to him by God."

Augustine was more outraged by Pelagius than by any other rival, and in response, he argued even more forcefully that we are born condemned for Adam's sin and incapable of not sinning.

"A man's free will," he wrote against Pelagius, "avails for nothing except to sin." Only the supernatural power of God's grace, imparted through baptism, could heal the deadly wound of sin upon the human soul. (Hence the need for infant baptism — to heal that wound immediately.)

Furthermore, only the power of God's grace could restore in some measure the free will lost in the fall of Adam's race. Grace cannot be received by an act of human will or even cooperated with (synergism) — it must be given as a gift.

"The Spirit of grace therefore causes us to have faith," he wrote, "in order that through faith we may, upon praying for it, obtain the ability to do what we are commanded."

THE CHOSEN FEW

Why do only some receive this gift of faith? In On the Predestination of the Saints, written not long before he died, Augustine concluded that God simply chooses some persons out of the mass of fallen humanity to save and leaves others to their deserved condemnation. The reason some are so graced and others passed over lies only in "the hidden determinations of God."

The basic outlines of what later came to be known as "Calvinism" are found in Augustine's later anti-Pelagian writings. The Catholic church appropriated some of these ideas, such as inherited guilt (though not total depravity) and the absolute necessity of supernatural grace for meritorious works of righteousness. However, Catholic theology by and large passed over Augustine's doctrine of predestination in favor of an emphasis on human cooperation with grace after baptism.

Wycliffe, Luther, Calvin, and other reformers reaffirmed Augustine's doctrine of predestination, inherited depravity, and the sovereignty of grace — though Anabaptists and other radical reformers rejected the same (but without affirming Pelagianism).

Most theologians define their positions in relation to Augustine's doctrines. Almost all of them can appeal to something in the great North African church father, and almost all of them neglect some aspects of his teaching in favor of others. But no one after him can ignore him. Augustine's teachings on these and other controversial subjects have determined much of the agenda for Christian theology for a millennium and a half.

Martin Luther refers to Augustine more often than to any other theologian, echoing, for example, his gloomy view of human will: "Where reason is in error and the will turned away, what good can man attempt or perform?" But Luther felt he had moved beyond Augustine on the matter of justification: "In the beginning I devoured Augustine, but when the door into Paul swung open and I knew what justification by faith really was, then it was out with him."

Thomas Aquinas cited Augustine when defending his views on original sin and infant baptism: "According to the Catholic Faith we are bound to hold that the first sin of the first man is transmitted to his descendants, by way of origin. For this reason children are taken to be baptized soon after their birth, to show that they have to be washed from some uncleanness. The contrary is part of the Pelagian heresy, as is clear from Augustine in many of his books."

John Calvin, when accused by the Roman Catholic church of theological innovation, argued that he was instead hearkening back to Augustine: "Augustine is so completely of our persuasion, that if I should have to make written profession, it would be quite enough to present a composition made up entirely of excerpts from his writings."

When English Reformer Thomas Cranmer commissioned a portrait of himself from Gerlach Flicke, he had a copy of Augustine's De Fide et Operibus ("On Faith and Works") painted on the table in front of him. In Cranmer's personal copy of the book, he had underlined the phrase "a good life is indeed inseparable from faith."

Anabaptist leader Menno Simons disagreed with Augustine on many things, including church leadership, the nature of Christian community, and infant baptism. In fact, he dismissed any influence when he wrote that if Augustine and other church fathers could support their teaching "with the Word and command of God, we will admit that they are right. If not, then it is a doctrine of men and accursed according to the Scriptures."

__________

Roger E. Olson is a professor of theology at Truett Theological Seminary, Baylor University, in Waco, Texas. He is author of The Story of Christian Theology: Twenty Centuries of Tradition and Reform (InterVarsity, 1999).

Copyright(c) 2000 by the author or Christianity Today

If you want to understand something, whom do you ask? In our culture, if the matter is one of importance, if it is of significance, if it is of great import, you ask a professor. In contemporary society the academic has taken on the role of keeper of knowledge, the understanding one, the one who really sees the truth, really grasps what is the case.

This situation is not bad in and of itself, but it does present some serious limitations for our culture. One such limitation is that only certain topics, certain questions, and certain answers, are acceptable in the contemporary academy. And since the academy in a very important sense provides the answers to our culture's questions, these academic limitations get passed onto the society at large.

The limitations of the contemporary academy are no more apparent and no more dire, than on the topic of evil. Even though evil, arguably more than any other topic, shapes and determines our world, the contemporary academy by and large does not accept evil as a valid category of discussion. Studying evil as a concept of historical importance, as a vestigial notion of bygone eras, this is acceptable. But studying evil as if it were real, as if it were alive and thriving in our world, as if it infected every human endeavor? No, that is not acceptable. In fact, the founding of a field of Evil Studies has recently been suggested, but this wise idea has been largely ignored. [1] This ignoring is not ignorance but a tacit denial of the reality of evil.

The modern academy is supposed to give us the knowledge we need to function in our modern society. But since evil is excluded from discussion, it cannot. Evil determines the shape and form of our world, more than technology, more than education, more than economic resources, more than national interests, more than political ideologies. This is true of the world in its entirety, as it is true for the entirety of your world. Just as evil shapes the contours of history, so it shapes the contours of our individual lives. But don't head to the university research library to check out a few volumes on how to solve the problem of evil. You won't find them.

Evil's antidote is goodness. This is true both on a global scale and on a personal one. As a Christian, let me hold up to you Christ as that antidote, as that source of goodness, the One who delivers us from evil. Look to Him with me, that we might overcome the evil within our world and within us.

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1. Dallas Willard, Renovation of the Heart (Colorado Springs, CO, NavPress, 2002), p. 59.

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Copyright © 2003 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM). Reprinted with permission. "A Slice of Infinity" is a radio ministry of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.

*

In evil long I took delight,

Unawed by shame or fear,

Till a new object struck my sight,

And stopp’d my wild career:

I saw One hanging on a Tree

In agonies and blood,

Who fix’d His languid eyes on me.

As near His Cross I stood.

Sure never till my latest breath,

Can I forget that look:

It seem’d to charge me with His death,

Though not a word He spoke,

My conscience felt and own’d the guilt,

And plunged me in despair:

I saw my sins His Blood had spilt,

And help’d to nail Him there.

Alas! I knew not what I did!,

But now my tears are vain:

Where shall my trembling soul be hid?

For I the Lord have slain!

A second look He gave, which said,

“I freely all forgive;

This blood is for thy ransom paid;

I die that thou may’st live.”

Thus, while His death my sin displays

In all its blackest hue,

Such is the mystery of grace,

It seals my pardon too.

With pleasing grief, and mournful joy,

My spirit now is fiil’d,

That I should such a life destroy,

Yet live Him I kill’d!

As the Romanian government hurries to improve law-enforcement sophistication in its campaign for European Union membership, villagers in the Transylvania region are resisting police crackdowns on their traditional practice of vampire killings, according to a March Knight Ridder News Service report. Vampires (unlike Hollywood conventions using crosses and garlic) are just people who go bad upon death and cause continuing grief to family members unless they are re-killed. The body is dug up; the heart is removed with a curved sickle and burned (but it will likely squeak like a mouse and try to escape unless held down); and the ashes are mixed with water and drunk. Villagers are outraged that some may face criminal charges for disturbing the dead, which carries a three-year prison sentence.

*

"Men do not differ much about what things they will call evils; they differ enormously about what evils they will call excusable."

-- G. K. Chesterton

“That there is a devil is a thing doubted by none but such as are under the influence of the Devil!”

-- Cotton Mather

"I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. That is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant."

-- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction."

-- Pascal

In the wake of the tsunami that claimed more than 220,000 lives, some people were asking hard questions. Faced with such devastation, they wanted to know, how was it possible to believe in a good, all-powerful God?

Now stories are leaking out about what's going on in the aftermath of the tsunami. The reports are sketchy and anecdotal so far, but they already have people asking another, equally important, question: Is it possible to believe in the goodness of man?

Women and children in refugee camps have been sexually abused. One teenage girl told a story of being raped by a man moments after he had pulled her to safety. At the same time, children separated from their families have been illegally taken out of the country and placed for adoption. And other stories of human trafficking are circulating.

Now at this point the numbers are small, and many of the reports unconfirmed. But as reporter Jaci Schneider, writing in the Abilene Christian University magazine, explained, “The region of South Asia ... was already known for the trafficking of children for forced slavery and prostitution and has become even more susceptible to those atrocities. In just one region of Indonesia, at least 13,000 children might have become orphans. Even if their parents are alive, they have been separated, and it may take weeks to be reunited with their families.” These children are more vulnerable than ever to a practice that, as Schneider points out, was going on long before the tsunami called the world's attention to that region.

Washington Post reporter DeNeen L. Brown adds, “Those who have long worked in disaster zones say human predators are part of a pattern. The natural disaster strikes, people die, people mourn, compassion and aid roll in — and so do the predators.” Tragically, we've seen it happen just recently with reports of UN workers in Africa abusing and exploiting the people they were there to help.

The stories from Asia led Brown to make a lame attempt to try to explain the problem of human evil. She quotes psychologists who state that people behave this way when they are overwhelmed with stress, or when their needs are not being met. But in the end, she was not able to come up with any real explanation of the root problem. She could only conclude, “It raises questions about the nature of humanity and its capacity for evil, for wickedness.”

Indeed, it does — questions I have heard through years of prison ministry from those who want to believe that human nature is basically good. It's not. Forget the excuses.

It may be hard to believe that God is good during a time of natural disaster, but it becomes easier when we recognize just how depraved human beings can be. Seeing the kind of evil that humanity is capable of, we know that something has gone tragically wrong with the whole world, including creation. That's what we mean by the Fall: It is very real, despite secular society's desire to ignore it or to excuse it away. But then when we look at God's work of redemption and mercy, it helps us understand that God looks lovingly upon us despite our own natures and that, by His grace, He understands more about goodness than we ever will.

FOR FURTHER READING AND INFORMATION:

• DeNeen L. Brown, “For Small Survivors, A Cruel New World,” Washington Post, 14 January 2005. (Note: Some of the advertisements for the sale of children appear to be a hoax. Go here for details.)

• Jaci Schneider, “Tsunami tragedy won't end when we forget,” Optimist (Abilene Christian University), 14 January 2005.

• “Traffickers threaten Aceh orphans,” CNN, 10 January 2005.

• Cihan News Agency, “UNICEF: Child Traffickers on the Job in South Asia,” Zaman Online, 10 January 2005.

• “Tsunami survivors now fear rape,” Irish Examiner, 5 January 2005.

• Jonathan Wald, “U.N. accuses force of sex abuse,” CNN, 8 January 2005.

• BreakPoint Commentary No. 050113, “'Acts of God' and the Acts of Man: Turning Away.”

• BreakPoint Commentary No. 050106, “Aceh and the Abyss: The Fog of Despair.”

• BreakPoint Commentary No. 030425, “Can we be good without God?: Why Godless Morality Always Fails.”

• T. M. Moore, “The Ruin of Our Sin,” BreakPoint Online, 11 January 2005.

• John Piper, “Tsunami and Repentance,” Desiring God, 5 January 2005.

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Copyright © 2005 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

*

As I write this, I am home sick with a dreadful cold. I won’t bore you by describing my symptoms; I doubt there’s a person out there who hasn’t been waylaid — at least for a brief time — by this most common ailment.

What we think of as “the common cold” is really just a bundle of symptoms. In actuality, the real ailment behind a cold is a microscopic virus in our nasal passages. Anyone browsing the medicine aisle in a drugstore might believe that we have any number of cures for the common cold available in those brightly colored pills, syrups, and gel capsules. But we shouldn’t confuse treatments with a cure. Although I’m grateful for so many ways to treat my symptoms, there’s not a drug on the market that can truly cure a cold before it has run its course.

Those who observe this world with the eye of a realist recognize that there is something dreadfully wrong with it. The symptoms are all around us: war, disease, famine, disasters, poverty.... These are only the obvious clues that all is not right. Easier to ignore are the more subtle symptoms in our own lives. We lie quickly and effortlessly. We hurt those we love the most. We crave whatever is forbidden to us. We take delight in scandal, as long as it does not interrupt our routine. Even if poverty and natural disasters could be explained away by ecological formulas, the symptoms tell us that the problem runs deeper. There is something amiss in the human heart.

Human beings have devised innumerable ways to deal with the symptoms of evil. We have property laws and courts of criminal justice to restrain violence. We have alcohol and sedatives to numb us. We can turn the television off when the news is too disturbing. We take every opportunity to shield ourselves from feeling the depths of our own pain and the pain we have caused others. The better we get at masking symptoms, the easier it is to pretend that there is nothing wrong. The truth is that this world is infested with death — not only physical death, but also the spiritual death of reckless, rampant sin.

The good news is that, unlike the common cold, this deep-seated disease has a dearly bought cure. The cure for death is none other than life itself. The risen Christ offers the cure to us, holding it out in his nail-scarred hands. Not only will he raise our bodies, but he will also resurrect our souls. Even now, he makes us new creations, endowing us with the power to overcome our base temptations and motivations to bear the fruit of life.

Once we have recognized the cure, we become even more aware of the symptoms of death around us. But once we have tasted true life, we know that treating the symptoms is not enough. We must look forward to the day when there is a new heaven and a new earth, free of the malady that plagues this one. We must believe the words of him who said, “Behold, I am making all things new.”

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Copyright © 2005 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM). Reprinted with permission. "A Slice of Infinity" is a radio ministry of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.

*

Dr. Michael H. Stone, a personality expert at Columbia University, favors use of the term “evil.”

Predatory killers often do far more than commit murder. Some have lured their victims into homemade chambers for prolonged torture. Others have exotic tastes - for vivisection, sexual humiliation, burning. Many perform their grisly rituals as much for pleasure as for any other reason.

Among themselves, a few forensic scientists have taken to thinking of these people as not merely disturbed but evil. Evil in that their deliberate, habitual savagery defies any psychological explanation or attempt at treatment.

Most psychiatrists assiduously avoid the word evil, contending that its use would precipitate a dangerous slide from clinical to moral judgment that could put people on death row unnecessarily and obscure the understanding of violent criminals.

Still, many career forensic examiners say their work forces them to reflect on the concept of evil, and some acknowledge they can find no other term for certain individuals they have evaluated.

In an effort to standardize what makes a crime particularly heinous, a group at New York University has been developing what it calls a depravity scale, which rates the horror of an act by the sum of its grim details.

And a prominent personality expert at Columbia University has published a 22-level hierarchy of evil behavior, derived from detailed biographies of more than 500 violent criminals.

He is now working on a book urging the profession not to shrink from thinking in terms of evil when appraising certain offenders, even if the E-word cannot be used as part of an official examination or diagnosis.

“We are talking about people who commit breathtaking acts, who do so repeatedly, who know what they're doing, and are doing it in peacetime” under no threat to themselves, said Dr. Michael Stone, the Columbia psychiatrist, who has examined several hundred killers at Mid-Hudson Psychiatric Center in New Hampton, N.Y., and others at Creedmoor Psychiatric Center in Queens, where he consults and teaches. “We know from experience who these people are, and how they behave,” and it is time, he said, to give their behavior “the proper appellation.”

Western religious leaders, evolutionary theorists and psychological researchers agree that almost all human beings have the capacity to commit brutal acts, even when they are not directly threatened. In Dr. Stanley Milgram's famous electroshock experiments in the 1960's, participants delivered what they thought were punishing electric jolts to a fellow citizen, merely because they were encouraged to do so by an authority figure as part of a learning experiment.

In the real world, the grim images coming out of Iraq -the beheadings by Iraqi insurgents and the Abu Ghraib tortures, complete with preening guards - suggest how much further people can go when they feel justified.

In Nazi prisoner camps, as during purges in Kosovo and Cambodia, historians found that clerks, teachers, bureaucrats and other normally peaceable citizens committed some of the gruesome violence, apparently swept along in the kind of collective thoughtlessness that the philosopher Hannah Arendt described as the banality of evil.

“Evil is endemic, it's constant, it is a potential in all of us. Just about everyone has committed evil acts,” said Dr. Robert I. Simon, a clinical professor of psychiatry at Georgetown Medical School and the author of “Bad Men Do What Good Men Dream.”

Dr. Simon considers the notion of evil to be of no use to forensic psychiatry, in part because evil is ultimately in the eye of the beholder, shaped by political and cultural as well as religious values. The terrorists on Sept. 11 thought that they were serving God, he argues; those who kill people at abortion clinics also claim to be doing so. If the issue is history's most transcendent savages, on the other hand, most people agree that Hitler and Pol Pot would qualify.

“When you start talking about evil, psychiatrists don't know anything more about it than anyone else,” Dr. Simon said. “Our opinions might carry more weight, under the patina or authority of the profession, but the point is, you can call someone evil and so can I. So what? What does it add?”

Dr. Stone argues that one possible benefit of including a consideration of evil may be a more clear-eyed appreciation of who should be removed from society and not allowed back. He is not an advocate of the death penalty, he said. And his interest in evil began long before President Bush began using the word to describe terrorists or hostile regimes.

Dr. Stone's hierarchy of evil is topped by the names of many infamous criminals who were executed or locked up for good: Theodore R. Bundy, the former law school student convicted of killing two young women in Florida and linked to dozens of other killings in the 1970's; John Wayne Gacy of Illinois, the convicted killer who strangled more than 30 boys and buried them under his house; and Ian Brady who, with his girlfriend, Myra Hindley, tortured and killed children in England in a rampage in the 1960's known as The Moors Murders.

But another killer on the hierarchy is Albert Fentress, a former schoolteacher in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., examined by Dr. Stone, who killed and cannibalized a teenager, in 1979. Mr. Fentress petitioned to be released from a state mental hospital, and in 1999 a jury agreed that he was ready; he later withdrew the petition, when prosecutors announced that a new witness would testify against him.

At a hearing in 2001, Dr. Stone argued against Mr. Fentress's release, and the idea that the killer might be considered ready to make his way back into society still makes the psychiatrist's eyes widen.

Researchers have found that some people who commit violent crimes are much more likely than others to kill or maim again, and one way they measure this potential is with a structured examination called the psychopathy checklist.

As part of an extensive, in-depth interview, a trained examiner rates the offender on a 20-item personality test. The items include glibness and superficial charm, grandiose self-worth, pathological lying, proneness to boredom and emotional vacuity. The subjects earn zero points if the description is not applicable, two points if it is highly applicable, and one if it is somewhat or sometimes true.

The psychologist who devised the checklist, Dr. Robert Hare, a professor emeritus at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, said that average total scores varied from below five in the general population to the low 20's in prison populations, to a range of 30 to 40 - highly psychopathic - in predatory killers. In a series of studies, criminologists have found that people who score in the high range are two to four times as likely as other prisoners to commit another crime when released. More than 90 percent of the men and a few women at the top of Dr. Stone's hierarchy qualify as psychopaths.

In recent years, neuroscientists have found evidence that psychopathy scores reflect physical differences in brain function. Last April, Canadian and American researchers reported in a brain-imaging study that psychopaths processed certain abstract words - grace, future, power, for example - differently from nonpsychopaths.

In addition, preliminary findings from new imaging research have revealed apparent oddities in the way psychopaths mentally process certain photographs, like graphic depictions of accident scenes, said Dr. Kent Kiehl, an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Yale, a lead author on both studies.

No one knows how significant these differences are, or whether they are a result of genetic or social factors. Broken homes and childhood trauma are common among brutal killers; so is malignant narcissism, a personality type characterized not only by grandiosity but by fantasies of unlimited power and success, a deep sense of entitlement, and a need for excessive admiration.

“There is a group we call lethal predators, who are psychopathic, sadistic, and sane, and people have said this is approaching a measure of evil, and with good reason,” Dr. Hare said. “What I would say is that there are some people for whom evil acts - what we would consider evil acts - are no big deal. And I agree with Michael Stone that the circumstances and context are less important than who they are.”

Checklists, scales, and other psychological exams are not blood tests, however, and their use in support of a concept as loaded as evil could backfire, many psychiatrists say. Not all violent predators are psychopaths, for one thing, nor are most psychopaths violent criminals. And to suggest that psychopathy or some other profile is a reliable measure of evil, they say, would be irresponsible and ultimately jeopardize the credibility of the profession.

In the 1980's and 1990's, a psychiatrist in Dallas earned the name Dr. Death by testifying in court, in a wide variety of cases, that he was certain that defendants would commit more crimes in the future - though often, he had not examined them. Many were sentenced to death.

“I agree that some people cannot be rehabilitated, but the risk in using the word evil is that it may mean one thing to one psychiatrist, and something else to another, and then we're in trouble, “ said Dr. Saul Faerstein, a forensic psychiatrist in Beverly Hills. “I don't know that we want psychiatrists as gatekeepers, making life-and-death judgments in some cases, based on a concept that is not medical.”

Even if it is used judiciously, other experts say, the concept of evil is powerful enough that it could obscure the mental troubles and intellectual quirks that motivate brutal killers, and sometimes allow them to avoid detection. Mr. Bundy, the serial killer, was reportedly very romantic, attentive and affectionate with his own girlfriends, while he referred to his victims as “cargo” and “damaged goods,” Dr. Simon noted.

Mr. Gacy, a gracious and successful businessman, reportedly created a clown figure to lift the spirits of ailing children. “He was a very normal, very functional guy in many respects,” said Dr. Richard Rappaport, a forensic psychiatrist based in La Costa, California, who examined Mr. Gacy before his trial. Dr. Rappaport said he received holiday cards from Mr. Gacy every year before he was executed.

“I think the main reason it's better to avoid the term evil, at least in the courtroom, is that for many it evokes a personalized Satan, the idea that there is supernatural causation for misconduct,” said Dr. Park Dietz, a forensic psychiatrist in Newport Beach, California, who examined the convicted serial murderer Jeffrey Dahmer, as well as Lyle and Erik Menendez, who were convicted of murdering their parents in Beverly Hills.

“This could only conceal a subtle important truth about many of these people, such as the high rate of personality disorders,” Dr. Dietz said. He added: “The fact is that there aren't many in whom I couldn't find some redeeming attributes and some humanity. As far as we can tell, the causes of their behavior are biological, psychological and social, and do not so far demonstrably include the work of Lucifer.”

The doctors who argue that evil has a place in forensics are well aware of these risks, but say that in some cases they are worth taking. They say it is possible - necessary, in fact, to understand many predatory killers - to hold inside one's head many disparate dimensions: that the person in question may be narcissistic, perhaps abused by a parent, or even charming, affectionate and intelligent, but also in some sense evil. While the term may not be appropriate for use in a courtroom or a clinical diagnosis, they say, it is an element of human nature that should not be ignored.

Dr. Angela Hegarty, director of psychiatry at Creedmoor who works with Dr. Stone, said she was skeptical of using the concept of evil but realized that in her work she found herself thinking and talking about it all the time. In 11 years as a forensic examiner, in this country and in Europe, she said, she counts four violent criminals who were so vicious, sadistic and selfish that no other word could describe them.

One was a man who gruesomely murdered his own wife and young children and who showed more annoyance than remorse, more self-pity than concern for anyone else affected by the murders. On one occasion when Dr. Hegarty saw him, he was extremely upset - beside himself - because a staff attendant at the facility where he lived was late in arriving with a video, delaying the start of the movie. The man became abusive, she said: he insisted on punctuality.

________

Benedict Carey, “For the Worst of Us, the Diagnosis May Be ‘Evil,’” New York Times, 8 February 2005. Reprinted by All About Psychotherapy.

My heart sank as the young mother told the interviewer how proud she was of her daughter. “She solved her own murder,” Erin said with a proud but pained sincerity. Five-year-old Samantha was the victim of a cruel and tragic murder. Her own tears were the evidence that sealed the case against her abductor. DNA in the form of teardrops was found on the passenger-side door of the killer's car, irrevocably making their mark on the crime scene, and poignantly making their mark on everyone that imagines them.

I don't know how to read stories like this without retreating to the deepest why's and how's of life. This abrupt ending to Samantha's life is another wretched symptom of a sick and desperate world. The problem of evil is a problem that confronts us, sometimes jarringly. But something else jolts my numbed mind awake in the midst of this story. I had no idea our tears were so personally our own.

Samantha's tears solved the case because there were none others like hers. They were unique to the eyes they came from, intricately a part of Samantha herself. In the pains and joys that cause us to weep, we leave a mark far more intimate than we realize. We shed evidence of our makeup, leaving behind a complex yet humble message: I was here, and my pain was real.

The problem of pain is only intensified by the personal nature of our experience with it. In our tears we all leave the markings of our existence within a broken and despairing world. Traces of our very makeup cry out for an answer to suffering, while at the same time pointing to the intricate and intelligent design of the one who made us. The thought stirringly brings new depth to the image of the sinful woman weeping at the side of Jesus, washing his feet with her tears.

Dorothy Sayers offers a most compelling description of the God willing to take on the limitations and suffering of his creation. In her book CREED OR CHAOS, she writes: “For whatever reason God chose to make man as he is — limited and suffering and subject to sorrows and death — He had the honesty and the courage to take His own medicine. Whatever game He is playing with His creation, He has kept His own rules and played fair. He can exact nothing from man that He has not exacted from Himself. He has Himself gone through the whole of human experience, from the trivial irritations of family life and the cramping restrictions of hard work and lack of money to the worst horrors of pain and humiliation, defeat, despair and death. When He was a man, He played the man. He was born in poverty and died in disgrace and thought it well worthwhile.”(1)

I know of no equal comfort in the midst of life's sorrow, no other answer to the problem of pain. The Son of God is as unique and personal a savior as the tears we shed crying out for him. Every tear is marked with the intricacies of our Creator. Every cry is heard by the one who wept at the grave of Lazarus. In the promise of Revelation 7:17, we find the image of this hope brought to fruition: “For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; he will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

________

1. Dorothy Sayers, Creed or Chaos? (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1949), 4.

________

Copyright © 2005 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM). Reprinted with permission. "A Slice of Infinity" is a radio ministry of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.

*

The university professor challenged his students with this question:

“Did God create everything that exists?”

A student bravely replied “Yes, he did!”

“God created everything?” the professor asked.

“Yes sir,” the student replied.

The professor answered, “If God created everything, then God created evil since evil exists, and according to the principal that our works define who we are, then God is evil.”

The professor was quite pleased with himself and boasted to the students that he had proven once more that the Christian faith was a myth.

Another student raised his hand and said, “Can I ask you a question, professor?”

“Of course,” replied the professor.

The student stood up and asked, “Professor, does cold exist?”

The professor replied “Of course it exists. Have you never been cold?”

The students snickered at the young man's question.

The young man replied, “In fact sir, cold does not exist. According to the laws of physics, what we consider cold is in reality the absence of heat.

Everybody or object is susceptible to study when it has or transmits energy, and heat is what makes a body, or matter, have or transmit energy. Absolute zero (- 460 degrees F) is the total absence of heat. Cold does not exist. We have created this word to describe how we feel if we have no heat.

The student continued. “Professor, does darkness exist?”

The professor responded, “Of course it does.”

The student replied, “Once again you are wrong, sir. Darkness does not exist either. Darkness is in reality the absence of light. Light we can study, but not darkness. In fact we can use Newton's prism to break white light into many colors and study the various wavelengths of each color. You cannot measure darkness. A simple ray of light can break into a world of darkness and illuminate it. How can you know how dark a certain space is? You measure the amount of light present. Isn't this correct? Darkness is a term used by man to describe what happens when there is no light present.”

Finally the young man asked the professor. “Sir, does evil exist?”

Now uncertain, the professor responded, “Of course, as I have already said. We see it every day. It is in the daily example of man's inhumanity to man. It is in the multitude of crime and violence everywhere in the world. These manifestations are nothing else but evil.”

To this the student replied, “Evil does not exist sir, or at least it does not exist unto itself. Evil is simply the absence of God. It is just like darkness and cold, a word that man has created to describe the absence of God.

God did not create evil. Evil is the result of what happens when man does not have God's love present in his heart. It's like the cold that comes when there is no heat or the darkness that comes when there is no light.”

The professor sat down.

================

Most internet versions then add this line: The young man's name -- Albert Einstein. Historians say this would be a fiction. As a matter of fact, Einstein said the problem of evil was the biggest reason he could not believe in a personal God. [Holwick]

One of the most harrowing features of modern thought is the reluctance to speak honestly about evil. The cause of this discomfort with the category of evil is understandable, of course. When belief in God recedes, confidence in moral judgment inevitably recedes with that belief.

This is brought to life in the pages of THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE in the form of a film review. The film is a documentary about the French lawyer Jacques Verges -- a man who has defended some of the worst criminals in France, including Klaus Barbie and Carlos “the Jackal.” He also had long friendships with murderous dictators such as Cambodia’s Pol Pot and China’s Chairman Mao.

Reviewer Daphne Merkin seems to understand the difficulty posed by the film and its subject:

What does evil -- a term that came into general use only in the

15th century, originally referring to the overstepping of proper

limits -- look like these days, when so many of us are wary of

reductive terms, unsure of our own convictions and easily

persuaded of the moral relativism of our values? (The Oxford

English Dictionary notes that the word is “little used in modern

colloquial English.”) Does it have a particular smell, like teen

spirit? Does it come wearing a hood, as in the movies? Or,

again, does it look like you and me, sitting over dinner and

enjoying a glass of vintage Bordeaux?

The syndrome cited here -- a reluctance to use “reductive terms” -- reflects the moral discomfort and uncertainty of the age. How do we come to terms with humanity without using the word “evil” and meaning it?

Merkin continues:

For much of history, when an ironclad trust in a divine maker

still prevailed (however many plagues or earthquakes he might

have arranged), the question of “evil” was contained by one of

two rationales: that people deserved it because of wicked

behavior or that it was part of a larger, unknowable celestial

plan. That attitude, gullible as it now seems, had the benefit

of keeping this particular epistemological dilemma outside the

human purview. It held steady until the emergence of a

philosophical tradition that, beginning with Immanuel Kant’s

questioning of God’s pivotal position and reaching an apogee of

unbelief with the arrival of Nietzsche, put the concept of evil

right in our laps. As Susan Neiman says in “Evil in Modern

Thought,” from the Enlightenment on there have been two views:

“The one, from Rousseau to Arendt, insists that morality demands

that we make evil intelligible. The other, from Voltaire to Jean

Améry, insists that morality demands that we don’t.”

That is a succinct, if reductionistic, explanation for what happened. The great philosophical turn was away from a fixed understanding of evil as an objective concept and toward evil (and all moral judgment) as a matter of subjectivity and context. Gone was the idea of evil as an act that opposed God’s law and offended God’s righteousness.

Gone with those beliefs was any confidence in moral judgment. As Merkin suggests, postmoderns are more like Neville Chamberlain, trying to negotiate with evil, than like Winston Churchill, determined to oppose it by force when necessary.

The maker of the film, Barbet Schroeder, refuses to take a position in the film, resisting moral judgment. Indeed, he calls Verges a “perverse and decadent aesthete.” There is something particularly chilling about reducing evil to aesthetics.

The frightening specter we now face is of a postmodern world that is losing the last vestiges of confidence in moral judgment. Be advised ... and be afraid.

*

[Original illustration at this number was added to HolwickID #22888]

Many years ago, living for a brief time in another continent, I befriended a woman who delighted in talking with me about the United States. She had once visited New York City and relished opportunities to remember it. One day I asked her if she would ever consider moving to the States. Much to my surprise, she quickly replied, “No!” And then she explained, “There is much about America that is free and good, but I am afraid the truth is that your souls are sent the bill.”

I have no doubt that this is true of her homeland as well, but we would be wise to take note. In his book DELIVER US FROM EVIL, Ravi Zacharias asks pointedly, “Is it possible that American culture lives with an appetite for good seasoned with subtle wickedness, refusing to consider even briefly, the consequences for the soul? Is it conceivable that a nation such as ours, with bountiful resources and endless possibilities, can be riding the whims of dangerous philosophy?” Perhaps we do well to ask these questions both collectively of our culture and individually of our own hearts.

Our daily headlines tell a sorry tale. It is not difficult to find the effects of a world gone awry, in varying degrees, within our own neighborhoods, on our televisions, or in our music. And perhaps most troubling is the social theory that teaches us to stop thinking about it at all. A popular song portrays the subtle consequence-free appetite for darkness, a philosophy that easily embeds itself into the mind. It states, “Darkness has a hunger that’s insatiable and lightness has a call that’s hard to hear.” The lyrics then loudly conclude that the less we seek something that explains all of this, the better; the less we seek a source that accounts for these qualities of good and evil, the closer we actually are to being alright.

Will your mind allow you to believe such a thought? THE LESS I SEEK A SOURCE FOR THE GOOD AND BAD WITHIN ME, THE BETTER OFF I AM. How can such a mindset yield anything good?

C.S. Lewis once said, “Evil is a parasite. It is there only because Good is there for it to spoil and confuse.” In our culture and in our hearts lies much that is good and much that is SPOILED good. Will it be said of us as it was said of the people of Hosea’s day:

“There is no faithfulness, no love,

no acknowledgment of God in the land...

They exchanged their Glory for something disgraceful” (4:1b,7b).

Restoration begins with individuals and communities ready to come obediently to the one who says, “Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow” (Isaiah 1:18). In God the Father and Christ the Son, we find more than the source of truth and goodness; we find an explanation and purpose for life. And we find that there is restoration for the darkness within our borders, and indeed, the darkness within our own hearts.

________

Copyright © 2006 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM). Reprinted with permission. "A Slice of Infinity" is a radio ministry of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.

“How do you expect me to believe in God,” asked Woody Allen, “when only last week I got my tongue caught in the roller of my electric type-writer?”

For a while now, at least in the Western world, the existence of any form of pain, suffering, or evil has been regarded as evidence for the non-existence of God. If a good God existed, people reason, these things would not. But they do and, therefore, He does not.

My job takes me around many different parts of the world in order to answer people’s questions about the Christian faith. I find it fascinating that I have never been asked this question in India, a country that certainly knows a lot more about suffering than we do. I find it even more intriguing that Christians who write books in situations where they have known unspeakable torment because of the Gospel do not normally raise this as an issue for themselves either. Why?

There are so many ways in which questions concerning pain can be raised. It can be raised because of personal loss and suffering, or because of a personal interest in the issue of theodicy, to name but two. However, regardless of the way the question is raised, it normally comes down to a moral complaint against God. “How could you allow this to happen?” The complaint is against God’s moral character. “Can I really trust God if I see this happen?” But if you are sure that you can trust Him, regardless of the pain you find yourself in, there is no temptation to turn away from Him as He is the only one who can help.

Firstly, let’s deal with the argument against God’s existence. Ravi Zacharias has dealt with this brilliantly in his book CAN MAN LIVE WITHOUT GOD. If you argue from the existence of evil to the non-existence of God, you are assuming the existence of an absolute moral law in order for your argument to work. But if there is such a law that would also mean that there is such a God, since He is the only one who could give us such a law. And if there is such a God to give us this law, then the argument itself is flawed, since you have had to assume the existence of God in order to argue that He doesn’t exist. It is an attempt to invoke the existence of an absolute moral law without invoking the existence of an absolute moral law giver, and it cannot be done.

Secondly, we must also ask the question: what it would take to create a loving world void of evil? A world in which love is capable of meaningful expression and experience would also imply a world in which there is choice. If someone tells you that they love you, those words mean something because they are freely given. If you learned that someone had told you they loved you but that they had been forced to say it, their words would not mean very much. Thus, if we want to speak of a loving world, we must also speak of a world in which choices are exercised. And in such a world, there is also the possibility of choosing a course of action that is NOT LOVING, i.e. evil.

While these observations are helpful in getting at the heart of contradictions often behind the questions of God and suffering, I do not think they get at the heart of the questions as people most commonly ask: Can I trust God even when faced with great evil? Is He morally trustworthy? Can I trust Him even if I don’t understand what is happening?

These are profound questions, and whole books could be written about them. But I will offer one more thought. Maybe the reason we question God’s moral character when bad things happen is that we live our lives largely independent from Him. In other words, we struggle to trust Him in times of trouble because we do not really trust Him when things are going well. Maybe we struggle with suffering so much in the West because we are so comfortable most of the time that we feel we don’t need God. We do not rely on Him on a daily basis, and so we do not really know Him. When suffering comes along, therefore, it is not so much that it takes us away from God, but that it reveals to us that we have not really been close to Him in the first place.

As I said earlier, I have never been asked questions about God and suffering when I am travelling in countries riddled with the realities of it. In fact, when I visit churches in parts of the world where they are faced daily with horrific affliction, I normally leave inspired. They trust God in everything, even when things are going well. When times are hard, they cling to God because they have already learned to trust Him. They have learned that God does not change, even when our circumstances have.

________

Copyright © 2007 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM). Reprinted with permission. "A Slice of Infinity" is a radio ministry of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.

It has happened once again. Evil has surfaced unmistakably in a form everyone can see. [A lone gunman, deranged, murdered 32 people at Virginia Tech University.] The world will struggle with this for days to come, asking, “Why would a good and loving God allow such evil to happen?” Meanwhile the parents and friends will weep, struggling with their own questions drawn from a darkened, bottomless well of unspeakable pain and disorientation.

For believers it is a harsh reminder that the world we live in is at war. Evil is not simply an idea or an act. Evil is fueled by an individual consciousness nearly as old as creation itself. The early Christians never asked, “Why did God allow....?” They knew better.

The world we see is profoundly affected by a world we cannot see. Consider such Scripture passages as:

“And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you

formerly walked according to the course of this world, according

to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now

working in the sons of disobedience” (Ephesians 2:1-2).

“Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand

firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not

against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the

powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the

spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Ephesians

6:11-12).

“For we wanted to come to you -- I, Paul, more than once -- and

yet Satan hindered us” (1 Thessalonians 2:18).

“Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from

you” (James 4:7).

“Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil,

prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1

Peter 5:8).

We tend to see everything bad that happens in terms of something God allows or disallows. Yet, we also fiercely (and correctly) hold on to the idea of personal choice. We choose -- which makes us responsible for our actions. We can be influenced by evil, but we are ultimately responsible for the evil we choose to do.

Angels make choices too, just like us. Millennia ago, the Bible explains that some of God’s creatures rebelled. The angels sinned. Man sinned. The world as God intended devolved into moral and spiritual chaos.

Jesus came to rescue us from the enemies of our soul, both in this world and the world we cannot see.

It is true that God is sovereign. He is the Lord of Lords. He is the King. Jesus came announcing the Kingdom of God (Matthew 4:17). He taught us to pray that God’s Kingdom would break through into this world, demonstrating that He is the King (Luke 11:2). He “bound the strong man” and demonstrated God’s reign by restoring creation and creatures to a condition reflective of God’s rule (Matthew 12:28-30), then expects you and me to “gather with Him” -- doing the same kind of ministry today.

Jesus calls the devil the “ruler of this world” (John 12:31, 14:30, 16:11). The devil tempts Jesus by offering Him the very kingdoms under his control in exchange for worship (Luke 4:5-7): If the devil does not control the kingdoms of the world, how could Jesus be tempted? He was tempted only if it was a legitimate offer by the ruler of this world.

Jesus calls Satan a liar and a murderer (John 8:44), who steals truth from the hearts of people who do not know God (Matthew 13:19), keeping them blind to the reality of a living God (2 Corinthians 4:4). He animates evil in the world, influencing and empowering those who do not know God to reject God and do everything that is offensive to God (1 John 5:19).

In the face of clear, biblical teaching, the church too often slumbers on, fumbling around trying to answers questions about “why did God allow this to happen?” rather than running to the secret place, combating the mortal enemy of the souls of mankind. We are called to do battle.

When we are responsive to Jesus and doing life under His directional control, Jesus said the gates of hell would not be able to withstand the forward movement of the church (Matthew 16:18). Far from being on the defensive, the church Jesus builds goes on the offense against an unseen army of evil at work in this world.

C. S. Lewis writes in “Mere Christianity:”

“One of the things that surprised me when I first read the New

Testament seriously was that it talked so much about a Dark Power

in the universe -- a mighty evil spirit who was held to be the

Power behind death and disease, and sin. The difference is that

Christianity thinks this Dark Power was created by God, and was

good when he was created, and went wrong. Christianity agrees

with Dualism that this universe is at war. But it does not think

this is a war between independent powers. It thinks it is a

civil war, a rebellion, and that we are living in a part of the

universe occupied by the rebel. Enemy-occupied territory -- that

is what this world is.”

Do you realize where you are living today? The horrific acts of violence at Virginia Tech are a reminder that there is no place where you and I can sit down, relax and forget about the imminent threat of evil. You and I are doing life in the middle of a battlefield that is raging all around us every day -- right now.

________

Don Pucik is associate executive director of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention.

If you have a youngster between the ages of seven and 13, chances are a boy named Harry Potter has moved in with you. So have wizards and witches and dragons.

Kids can’t seem to get enough of the Harry Potter books, all three of which are currently riding the New York Times bestseller list. But some Christian parents are wondering if Harry and his friends are suitable playmates for their kids.

Book one, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, has the orphaned Harry living with cruel relatives in an English suburb. On his eleventh birthday, Harry discovers that he is a wizard, endowed with magical powers. Harry is promptly dispatched to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where he takes classes in magic, befriends other young witches and wizards, and learns the fine points of flying on a broomstick.

In the just-published third book in the trilogy, Harry discovers that a wizard named Sirius Black has escaped from the Azkaban prison and is apparently trying to kill him.

The books are enormously inventive, and include the kind of humor that makes many parents want to borrow the books from their kids. But if you’re the parent of a Harry Potter fan, you may be concerned about the elements of witchcraft in these books.

It may relieve you to know that the magic in these books is purely mechanical, as opposed to occultic. That is, Harry and his friends cast spells, read crystal balls, and turn themselves into animals–but they don’t make contact with a supernatural world.

Other parents are concerned with the dark themes and violence in the books. After all, Harry’s parents are murdered in book one, and throughout the books, Harry is pursued by followers of a murderous wizard named Voldemort. But as the author, J. K. Rowling, points out, “the theme running through all of these books is the fight between good and evil.” The plots reinforce the theme that evil is real, and must be courageously opposed.

As this theme unfolds, so do the characters of Harry and his friends. They develop courage, loyalty, and a willingness to sacrifice for one another–even at the risk of their lives. Not bad lessons in a self-centered world.

Some Christians may try to keep their kids from reading these books, but with eight million copies of the Harry Potter books floating around American homes, it’s almost inevitable that your own children or grandchildren will be exposed to them. If they do read these books, help them to see the deeper messages. Contrast the mechanical magic in the Potter books to the kind of real life witchcraft the Bible condemns–the kind that encourages involvement with supernatural evil. Help them, as well, to see how the author presents evil as evil, and good as good.

If your kids do develop a taste for Harry Potter and his wizard friends, this interest might just open them up to an appreciation for other fantasy books with a distinctly Christian worldview. When your kids finish reading Harry Potter, give them C. S. Lewis’s Narnia books and J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy.

These books also feature wizards and witches and magical potions–but in addition, they inspire the imagination within a Christian framework–and prepare the hearts of readers for the real-life story of Christ.