What Are We to Do with Evil?

There’s a question.  What are we to do with evil? There's a number of things we can do.  Perhaps an initial, instinctive reaction - for those of us who consider ourselves to be ''good people'', and thus enemies of evil, - would be for us to fight evil.  After all, we can't let evil run amok, and have free reign. You have to fight it, take it on, defeat it.  That's what you do with evil. There's certainly a part of me that thinks this is the right and suitable approach. But lately, in my Bible study and reading, I'm wondering if that is actually what the Bible teaches.

I've looked at Micah in the Old Testament. In that book, the prophet Micah is speaking out against the abuses of the wealthy and those in power, and how they are taking from the poor and the defenseless. Or they are taking bribes not to defend the defenseless; or to look the other way. Certainly, that would qualify as evil, right? It is - that's why Micah is speaking up against it. But what is he saying? You know what he is not saying? He is not calling for revolution. He is not calling for the poor and defenseless to band together, to rise up, and to acquire more force and more power, and thus take back by might what is rightfully theirs. He is not calling for a middle class to support an uprising of the downtrodden. These would be responses we would think today is how evil is handled and approached - riots; protests, uprisings, and anarchy - But that is not what Micah prescribes.

Consider Paul's letter to the Colossians. Late in the letter, Paul is addressing slaves. Certainly, slavery is wrong, and because we know it to be wrong, we'd expect the apostle of Jesus to certainly speak up against it. Does he? Surprisingly (to us), he does not. He tells the slaves to obey their masters. If anything, he tells them to be the best slaves imaginable, to be as if they were slaves for Jesus. He does not call for something like a Spartacus movement, a call to arms and an uprising against those who own slaves. He does not call for military engagement, nor for things like a sit-in strike. He tells the slaves to be obedient to their masters, to work honestly and uprightly, both when the master is around and looking, and when the master is not around.

Aren't things like stealing and slavery wrong? Yes. Without a doubt. So why are we not to be agents of change to right the wrongs in this world? Here's the thing. We have gotten to a point where we believe the ONLY way to defeat wrongs and evil, is to rise up, and fight them with power and force and might.  But that is not the way as shown in Scripture.

There are powers and forces at work in this world. They run things; they rule things. Try to buck them or go against them and see how they rise up to maintain their power. They maintain and hold to their power precisely because they have power. They have might and force and use those to maintain their grip on the power they have. But are these not the same forces that we consider to be evil? Is it evil for a rich and powerful person to take property from the poor? Certainly. And don't they use power to enable themselves to do precisely that? Yes. Here's a key question - are not the elements of force, might and power, since they are wielded and used by evil people for evil purposes, also not themselves evil? And if so, what does that make us - again, we who consider ourselves "good people" - if we wield the implements of evil?

And as regards that last question, is that what the Bible calls for us to do? Is that what Micah and Paul called for?

If you think I'm leaning towards saying that we should not rise up and acquire force and power, and then use that force and power towards the defeat of evil, then you are correct. And if I'm leaning towards saying that, then a natural follow up question would seem to be - what are we to do about evil? Just let it run amok and out of control? That's where I think the Bible says - no. But what do we do? We're back to the question at the beginning of this piece.

We are to stand up to it. We are to declare it as evil. But we are not to fight evil on its terms. We fight it on God's terms. Micah called out the rich and powerful for the evil they were doing. He warned them to look at Samaria, the northern capital which had been demolished by the invading Assyrian army and had taken the northern tribes into captivity. He warned them Jerusalem was next. What did the rich and powerful do? Did they scoff at Micah? Jeremiah tells us in Jeremiah 26 that the king sought the favor of the Lord. God relented and Jerusalem was spared.

2 Chronicles 20, an army is coming against Judah. The people are worried - they call to God. God tells them in verse 17 ''You need not fight this battle. Take your positions, stand firm." Stand up to evil. Stand up against it. But do so in the strength of God, trusting in him. God won a victory for Judah that day.

But won’t that expose us to harm and suffering? Without a doubt. You can't stand up to power and tell it is wrong and evil, and not to practice that evil, and then expect to be treated well. It certainly didn't go well for John the Baptist when he told King Herod he had done wrong. It didn't go well for Dietrich Bonhoeffer. If you don't know his story, read it. Bonhoeffer was not afraid to stand up to evil, but he didn't try to overthrow it with force, might, or power. He trusted God. Look at the various civil rights movements in this country, India, and South Africa. People who were being treated wrongly, instead of staging a revolution, instead of fighting for their rights by killing or destroying those in power, stood up to the oppressive powers and confronted them and told them they were wrong. They suffered greatly for doing so. One thing their suffering did was to expose evil for the evil it is. When we take up force and arms and might against evil, it can be hard to determine who the ''good guys" are. In the civil rights struggle, such a distinction was not that hard to see, when those in power and authority beat and use violence against others who do not fight back, who is the good guy? Who is the bad guy? In all of this struggle, strides were made, progress was made in the suppression of the evil they were experiencing.

But as we look around us, we see so much wrong in this world. It makes us wonder if we can defeat all of it.  Can we? Should we try? Jim McGuiggan says in his book "The Dragon Slayer" that ''we didn't overcome the world."  We haven't won the world, and I doubt we're going to.  If anything, we're responsible for it being in the shape it is in.  But one did overcome it.  McGuiggan goes on ''The cross of Jesus Christ stands an eternal judgment on evil and it assures us that at the heart of the universe is a holy Lord that has conquered Sin.  We're given assurance that righteousness triumphs over evil.  And it assures us that that triumph is not guaranteed because we are against it, but because he is against it!  The cross proclaims to us that all wrongs will be righted!"

Evil has been defeated. It has been judged and condemned. This all took place on a hill outside Jerusalem some 2000 odd years ago. Our job is not to take on evil with force, might, and power, but to stand up to it and call it out. All the while trusting in the one who did defeat it.

-Mike Hendricks