For this week's post I simply share the conclusion of my paper on how we deal with the evil in our present reality. Hope you enjoy!
We are not oblivious, naïve, or
ignorant of evil. As the Church we cannot afford to be unaware of Powers and
Principalities, of darkness, of evil in our midst. In Christ we are victorious over the Powers
through the resurrection, but faith in Christ also brings knowledge and
responsibility. The origin of evil come
from the inversion of what knowledge of good and evil would bring: separation
from God. In Christ we have once again
been given that knowledge, but this time as a means for reconciliation,
restoration, redemption and hope. We
engage with evil knowing that its forces are all an illusion; we care for
people knowing that their pain is real and their experiences of evil are
paramount for how they understand God.
We care for the hurt, battle with the forces opposed to God, and fight
the fight knowing that victory is ours in the present as well as the
Eschaton. We preach good news because
the truth of Christ equips humanity to resist evil. We put on the full armor of God[1]
because in the tension of the “now” and the “not yet” there is a battle with
Powers and Principalities. For so long I
have wrestled with my understanding of evil and of the Powers and
Principalities. I struggle because I
failed to grasp the hope in the present when imminent threat appears
unstoppable. Evil experienced in humans,
in forces, even within myself stood in opposition of how I understood freedom
in Christ and the victory of the Cross.
The good news is this: the war against the Powers is finished, but God
has not left us alone in the immediate where the battle wages on. He has given us His word, His truth, His
love, and His Holy Spirit to fight the battles that must be fought and bring
hope to the lost and the broken. Evil
may not be explained away, but it is put in its place, under the feet of
Christ.
In
the end, I whole-heartily agree with Stringfellow’s assessment of our reality
in the tension of the coming Eschaton.
This is truth, reality, but ultimately: HOPE.
“This
is an awful freedom into which the Church is born and into which the Christian
is baptized. It is a freedom to live in
this present age, during the remaining time of death’s apparent reign, without
escaping or hiding or withdrawing from the full reality of death’s presence,
bearing the brunt of its powers, yet jubilantly confident at the same time of
Christ’s victory over death and all the powers of death. It is the freedom to live anywhere, any day,
in such a way as to expose and confound the works of death and at the same time
to declare and honor the work of Christ.
It is the extraordinary freedom ‘to be in but not of this world.’ As the
language of tradition puts it: it is the freedom to be in a world which appears
to belong to death and which death claims but in fact to belong to Christ.”[2]
