Erik Ericksson on the blossoming of evil in America

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I’m afraid I cannot write this post for a secular crowd today. My worldview is Biblical. I believe in a God who became flesh, born of a virgin, who was crucified, died, was buried, and rose again from the dead. I believe it is a fact, not a metaphor, truth, and not a morality tale. In the past forty-eight hours, I have seen a lot of people scoffing at thoughts and prayers, and I see it as a manifestation of the same evil that led a man to barricade children into a church and shoot them.

It is hard for me not to see as evil the same people bullying others into silence over transgenderism, also bullying those who offer prayers. Evil, once dominant, seeks to silence good.

We live in a secular age where people do not think evil is real. Demons are beyond science, and in a spiritual age where people mask their faiths behind hypotheses and theories, evil is too much for them. Many men and women, far smarter than anyone reading this, embraced the divine. But today, should one do as they did, society belittles them, scoffs at them, and dismisses them. The greatest trick the devil ever played is to convince people he is not real.

Evil is real. We all saw it. We saw the manifesto of the unhinged young man. We saw the page of his drawing of the monster that he talked to in the mirror. We saw the dialogue, written in Russian.

“Who?”

“When will this end?”

“Help me!”

“No.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Help”

“Kill yourself. Kill.”

Science uses the language of mental illness, but society excuses some mental illnesses as normal. There seems to be more here, though, something demonic — something for which secular scientism has no answers and cannot accept is true.

Paul, in Ephesians 6:12, writes about what we are dealing with. “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”

The world today has no way to deal with this problem. And those who would scoff at prayers play into the hands of the spiritual forces of evil. They hate the things of God. They view prayer as a placebo, not real. Michael Steele, a former Republican National Committee Chairman who at one time would offer prayers, now says they are a lie and nothing.

Gavin Newsom mocks those who offered prayers, as does Jenn Psaki, also of MSNBC and Joe Biden’s former press secretary. Of all people, it took Barack Obama on social media to publicly offer prayers for the victims for the Democrats to back off from belittling Christians offering prayers for dead Christians.

We catechize ourselves by those with whom we surround ourselves. Michael Steele has surrounded himself with those hostile to the things of God, and now he, too, mocks the Christians. Gavin Newsom, playing to a secular base hostile to Christians, mocks the people of faith offering their prayers.

The things of the world hate the things of God. Evil mocks God and mimics Him in false imitation. The world attempts to offer solutions, but they are not real solutions.

They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Ro 1:29–32). (2016). Crossway Bibles.

We are dealing with a profound evil in our society. Missionaries tell tales of encounters with real evil that would make your hair stand up on the back of your neck. They are not lying. They have encountered it. As Christianity enters a space, the old gods are pushed out. As Christianity leaves a space, the old gods return. The old gods are demonic. The early church catalogued experiences with the demonic. The demons offered truth and access to the divine, but would twist the words of those who encountered them, mimic and mock them, and drive them to despair and/or death.

Most Protestant churches lack deep thinking on the dark side of the unseen realm. Some choose to avoid it lest their congregants dwell on it. To do so is unhealthy. But it is there, and it is very real.

Those of you who are not people of faith cannot accept it. You do not believe it. You roll your eyes at it and attempt to find an explanation grounded in science. But the answers keep failing.

Unfortunately, too many in the church today also want to find answers in society, often in politics. Too many in the church have decided their political preferences and faith are aligned perfectly or good enough. But in so doing and turning so often to politics, the churched get tempted to use politics as a tool with which to deploy their faith in search of a solution. And the political subverts the faithful.

We head towards the end of history. You can feel it, perhaps. Evil can too. And it seeks to stand and fight. It must be resisted, but it must be done not with the tools of the world and the ways of the world. Evil must be resisted with love and truth and grace.

The temptation in politics is to tell Christians to fight like the other side. Be dirty, dishonest, and cheat. It is the Devil’s own lie that you can become like them without becoming them. Christ, instead, says to leave retribution to Him. You must love your neighbor and seek the welfare of your community.

Evil is real. Those of us who know God have our eyes open and can see it. Those dead in their sins cannot see. Those of us who see must be prepared to lead. But leading does not mean a political fight. It means showing love and grace and humility and peace and truth. It means trusting God and his army of Angels. It means reflecting Christ into a world that rejects Him....

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