G & E

A while ago, I read a book by Joel C. Rosenberg called The Last Jihad. It was the first in a 5 part fiction series about the end times up until the rapture. In it, the director of the FBI recalls a conversation he had with the head of the Mossad (kind of like the Israeli CIA) prior to Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in 1990, where he was trying to convince the head of the Mossad that Hussein was just "flexing his muscles" and trying to scare people in order to raise the price of oil. There was no way he would actually invade Kuwait for no real reason. The Mossad director replied with the statement, "The problem with you Americans, is that you don't believe in evil." That we don't believe that there are supernatural forces driving men to do things we can't fathom. So I thought about this statement. Is it true? Do we really not believe that there are evil forces that cause men to do horrible acts? Look back to prior to World War II, where many nations tried to please Adolf Hitler by giving him some land here and there and looking the other way when he broke International Law. We didn't think he would start a full-out invasion and we certainly didn't think he would lead one of the largest acts of ethnic cleansing the world's ever seen. Even when we received reports of the mass killings from a Polish operative in Auschwitz, we dismissed the claims as an exaggeration. Did we believe in evil then? Did we believe that it could manifest itself in such a way? Obviously, we did when we saw it firsthand.

So I've been thinking about this whole concept of "Good vs. Evil" and it seems like anything I've taken an interest in as of late has reflected it. I've been watching Lord of the Rings to pick up the symbolism, reading Ted Dekker's Circle Trilogy, studying on things like the Holocaust, looking back on my final capstone project in college on the massacre at Columbine High School in 1999, and of course, focusing on Pastor Josh's Heaven and hell series at Trailhead Church. I can't help but ask myself, would someone ever make the statement, "You know the problem with you Christians? It's that you don't believe in evil." I mean, if you were to ask Americans prior to WWII, whether or not they believed in evil, almost all would answer yes, but it wasn't until we saw it manifest into such a way as Adolf Hitler, that we finally took notice. I'm sure many of us wish that America got involved in the war much sooner as opposed to taking an isolationist stance in the beginning. Had we not taking such a stance, maybe the outcome would have been a bit more positive for the Jewish race, but that's something we'll never know. We learned that hoping evil will just go away and that maybe the problem will work itself out or someone else will handle it, does not work. So, if we really believe evil is capable of such things, do we really believe in evil? Do we believe that evil manifests itself today? Do we really believe that there is a war between good and evil, angels and demons, and God and Satan?

Evil exists and it manifests itself constantly. It may not be in the form of dictator but the warring is more crucial. The world is full of abuse, pain, and suffering. You see hunger and hate. Teenage suicide and self-mutilation is at an all time high. People turn to needles and alcohol just to numb themselves and will do anything just to get that numbness. Children younger and younger are having their innocence stolen by the Internet everyday with images reflecting brokenness and pain. Ethnic cleansing and wars still rage on in third-world countries, while we still think that that all died with the Nazis. Starvation and drought runs rampant, as well as fear. People walk the streets everyday with a fear of a 9/11 on their mind. There are countries where children and people are being traded and sold like livestock. So, as Christians, do we believe in evil? If so, can we really take an isolationist stance? We learned with Hitler what happens when you do that and the same principle applies. Do we really believe that Jesus was telling us the truth that He was the way to Heaven? That He was the way to freedom, to redemption, and to hope? Again, how can we take an isolationist view? If we know that evil exists and runs rampant, how can we sit by when we know what will change that?

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil, is for good men to do nothing

- Sir Edmund Burke