Evil I

Evil I
Lately, due in no small part to class study, I have been thinking a lot about evil, or pain, or badness: whatever we want to call it. It came up a couple times yesterday:
For some reason, I was talking to one of my friends at work about the Chinese opium problem. A brief summary: the British made lots of money off of a debilitating addiction, thus bringing a huge country to its knees, and cultivating/continuing a culture of distrust in Asia towards the west. I cannot remember exactly why I was talking about this (it is really boring after all) but it might have had something to do with certain comments by radio talk show hosts. At any rate, I was inadvertently setting a stage for a thought/faith/talk/Holy Ghost trainwreck that ended far better than just about every trainwreck. I realized something that I had been reading about for a few weeks. It had finally made sense among all the other things floating around up there. Suddenly I tied together the chain of evil events that encompassed that whole Chinese/British experience into a coherent thought on the Kingdom of God. Evil has a way of perpetuating itself when left unchecked, and a great many times, it has a very insidious way of disguising itself as good. But Jesus broke that chain all those years ago. He made it possible to lovingly throw a wrench in the machine of evil. Not repaying evil with evil ends the transaction with no party indebted to the other. Now, radical peace is something I have been convicted of for a long time, but it hadn’t really illustrated itself in this way. To that I am greatly thankful for the opportunity to read N.T. Wright’s Evil and the Justice of God. When I had finished describing the evil thing to my friend I commented, man that is cool. My friend, who I would probably put into the ‘seeker’ category, said, “yeah. That is cool.”
That’s one for Paraclete.
Later in the day, my mom whom I might put into the category of ‘hostile’ was asking about the Christian response to bad driving, perhaps feeling guilty for cursing and honking at another driver. She asked if cursing made her evil. I waffled, not really thinking that calling that act evil would get her anywhere. The thoughts against a simple dualistic look at reality bounced around my brain thankfully not reaching my vocal chords. She cut to the point: what would the Christian have done? I said they probably would have at least honked. But the point is that we are given the opportunity to act differently. So far, no one has fully mastered this since the ascension. She then grilled me on how wrong it is to tithe. Oh well.
Anyway, the point being that we are given a tremendous opportunity everyday to choose another way and it does not always have to be A and B. Sometimes it can be A, B, and J. The challenge comes when we seek to choose J when A and B are way easier. The best part is that the source of J is a person that loves us even when we do choose A or B.
Just ask Dietrich Boenhoeffer.
Also, be careful when you categorize people. They will surprise you!
God Bless!