Evil

Has anybody else noticed how quiet North Korea got following the Boston Marathon bombing?

P.J. O'Rourke observed that giving money and power to politicians is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenagers. The new North Korean “Dear Leader” Kim Jong-un gives us both: he is a politician, and his regime acts like a bunch of teen-aged girls nagging their moms for $100 to take to the mall. But having to listen to him was better than listening to the endless speculation over why the bombers did it.

We know why the bombers did it. They were in the grip of evil. Note that I did not say, “They are radicalized Muslims,” or, “They struggled to come to terms with our empty, violent, consumerist society.” Nope, they were in the grip of evil.

Many mocked President Bush the Younger when he included North Korea in his Axis of Evil. Yet nothing has happened in the eleven years since to contradict him. Because of North Korea northern Asia is just one nervous egomaniac away from the unthinkable. (Refer to the above statement on politicians.) Iraq and Iran continue to pump sewage into the rest of the Middle East. With its nuclear gamesmanship Iran threatens the safety of the world more profoundly, perhaps, than any other nation.

Evil is real. It inhabits all nations and tribes. Unless we admit the truth about evil we will never achieve even partial security. Our Founders understood this. They did not trust human nature. Some appealed to theology for their opinion. These were Calvinists who agreed with the biblical teaching that all humanity has a mixed nature of good and evil. All of them were Enlightenment thinkers, heavily influenced by the realistic pessimism of Voltaire and Hume. That's why they created a form of government designed to prevent any one man or faction from taking absolute power—or even from making important decisions unilaterally.

Evil is real. If we want to achieve existential security we must accept this proposition. This means, among many other things, that the USA must take responsibility for the consequences of the sub-culture of violence from which so many of our younger people have arisen. The bombers and the school and movie shooters have a lot in common. It mean also that we must have no illusions about the threat that radical Islam poses us. Yes, we Christians have done horrible things too. But NO, that does NOT excuse the evil teachings of those who would take all the world back to the barbaric, misogynistic 13^th century—all, of course, under the iron fist of Allah's self-appointed tonsils.

Evil is real. If we want to achieve spiritual security we had better start where the Bible tells us to start: with confessing our own sins. Then we must appeal to Jesus Christ for forgiveness. Then we must try our hardest to live in the way he modeled for us while on this earth: with passionate commitment to the poor, to those who mourn and so forth. He promised to give supernatural peace to all who called on His name. I am calling on His name pretty often these days.

Evil is real. How will you handle this difficult but undeniable truth in your own life?