What Is Evil?
We've all been conditioned to believe that evil comes smelling like smoke and wearing horns and a tail, but what if it looks like the guy sitting next to you reading his Bible?
Anyone who has spent any time on social media is well aware of how prevalent hate speech has become. Both political and religious vitriol are spewed in abundance from every corner of almost every major platform - and those are even the ones that are carefully monitored. The truth is, however, that most of what you see on the mainstream platforms isn’t even the most damaging hate speech.
The most damaging hate speech isn’t usually spewed loudly and proudly. The hate speech that you can identify as “hate speech” may hurt, but we all have certain defenses we can use when we actually recognize something someone says as being hateful. The really evil stuff, however is much more insidious. It’s the kind of speech that only a select few can even recognize as being hateful. It is very carefully targeted to a very small, very select audience but that audience feels its effects like a nuclear explosion.
Even that, however, is not the most destructive or damaging hate speech. The worst hate speech is that which you don’t even recognize as being hateful. The worst hate speech is calm, reasonable, rational and can even be delivered gently. Speakers that deliver this kind of hate may even convey a sense of decency, modesty or even humility. They are generally highly respected and/ or present an image of respectable civility. They are often, unimpeachable. What’s most destructive of all, however, is when the speaker invokes the name of God as if their message doesn’t come from themselves but from God.
This is exactly why the Mark Driscolls, John MacArthurs and Matt Chandlers of the world are so dangerous. They are reasonable, rational guys. They are jovial and persuasive; someone you might imagine hosting a swell BBQ and “manning” the grill (quite literally) with ease. They are “good guys,” the boys-next-door, always ready with the name of a guy that can lend a helping hand if you need it. They are usually so busy and so popular, no one even notices that they are never the ones actually lending a helping hand - they just hand you off to someone else, while claiming credit for “helping.”
They draw large audiences because they point out just enough of the flaws in their large, predominantly white, predominantly upper-middle-class and wealthier audiences to make them feel righteous for having been scolded, while spewing their most white-hot fury against those in the margins. Those on the outside of their main audiences. This is the evil that is so hard to see. The message they send is “we” have our flaws but at least we are better than them. That is a message people will not only flock to hear but will also pay large sums of money to hear repeated again and again.
We’ve all been fed this idea that evil is easy to spot. That it’s always perpetrated by bright red demons that appear complete with horns and a tail. The truth is, evil almost always gives the appearance of innocence, often wrapped in blonde hair, blue eyes and an angelic face. Evil will almost always present itself as pious, righteous and sometimes even vain - because in American culture we literally do not recognize vanity as even being sinful.
In fact, we have a very warped view of what “sin” really is. We’ve been taught that lying is a sin or being gay is a sin or having sex outside of marriage is a sin. In truth, none of those things are inherently sinful in and of themselves. We’ve been taught that sin is something you do not a condition of the heart. And that is for a very specific reason - because man likes to make himself judge and jury over what is right and what is wrong. What the Bible says, however, is that while man looks at the outward appearance, God looks at the heart. No man can truly judge another man’s heart, so men focus on what they can judge - what they can see. This results in a lot of careful image management. Rather than actually growing, we learn that we get just as many “points” by simply giving the impression of growth.
This is why deconstruction is so important. The purest evil often appears sane, rational and reasonable and makes anyone who disagrees with, argues or stands against it look like a crazy person. Although C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters does an admirable job of portraying just how mundane true evil actually is, I think it is actually Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead that does it best. Largely because the character she writes that embodies pure evil so beautifully is neither a Christian nor specifically religious. Although religious hypocrisy can sometimes be easier to spot, the ideas that make religion so dangerous can be found almost anywhere and the most dangerous ideas are also the hardest to see because they sound so “right.”
This is an excellent Cliff’s Notes analysis of the character Ellsworth M. Toohey from Rand’s The Fountainhead.
Toohey is a power-seeker [who] attempts to gain control over the lives of other men. At the personal level, he acquires a legion of followers who blindly obey his every command. Toohey deceives his victims by posturing as a humanitarian, but the code he preaches — that of self-sacrifice — is utterly destructive. Under the guise of offering spiritual guidance, Toohey convinces his followers to give up the things most important in their lives — their values. He tells them that virtue lies in selflessness, in the renunciation of personal desires, and that they must exist for the sake of others. He succeeds with a number of weak-willed individuals, who then surrender the things and persons most precious to them. But when a man gives up his values, he necessarily gives up that with which he formed them — his own thinking. His life is then empty, devoid of meaning and purpose, and he is incapable of internal direction. He needs external guidance. Toohey is never too busy to give them his full attention; he is always there to tell them what to do.
Anyone familiar with Evangelical Christianity or Christianity in general, should recognize the use of many of these same devices. This description could have easily been written about almost any Evangelical pastor in America and of many pastors and priests throughout history. How many churches say things like “love God, love others” as if it is somehow sinful to even consider oneself or one’s own needs? And yet did Jesus not tell us that the second greatest commandment was to love our neighbor as ourself?
Numerous times throughout the gospels, Jesus left needy crowds behind to tend to his own needs. While oxygen masks clearly weren’t a thing back then, I think it would be fair to say Jesus was the first to model the concept of putting on your own oxygen mask first. But Jesus had the courage to do what few religious leaders seem to be able to do. To put your own oxygen mask on first is to give the appearance of being weak, needy and human.
Instead, religious leaders often feel it necessary to present an image of super-human strength, to be completely without personal needs in order to gain the trust of - and therefore power over - their congregations. Very few churches meet together as pastor and congregation on an equal footing. Many pastors complain frequently about their congregations putting them on a pedestal but the truth is, they regularly participate in this process. To meet your congregation as an equal is to be weak and vulnerable and pastors feel required to present an image of strength and unwavering confidence - and so they do.
The idea of self-sacrifice and the suppression of personal desires seems very holy, noble and righteous, which is why it appeals to us so much. It appeals to our ego. What the Cliff’s Notes writer identifies as the ultimate outcome of that, however, is all too true. When you empty yourself of self, you become nothing more than a mere shell, which makes you dependent on someone else to tell you what to do. There will never be a shortage of men eager and ready to step right in and fill that role. Needless to say, they are just as plentiful outside of churches but what makes the ones inside of churches so dangerous is the fact that we have been conditioned to think of them as speaking for God.
If someone outside of a church setting gives you bad advice, we will most often blame them for giving us bad advice, which means we may not trust them anymore. When we seek wisdom from someone in a church setting, however, there is usually an unspoken assumption that what they are telling us is what God wants us to do or wants from us. When we do what they say and things go badly for us, it is not usually them that we blame but God. This is why spiritual abuse is so destructive. While bad advice that is not religious in nature may cut us off from relationships with other people, bad spiritual advice cuts us off from God.
This is also why church attendance is so important to those that crave power. The very setting reinforces the idea that the person speaking in it is speaking for God. It should be noted that Jesus did not build a building and then direct his followers to go bring people to it. He went out to where the people were and ministered to all the people.
He did not ask them what their beliefs were or who they worshipped before offering wisdom, guidance or healing. He never listed his credentials because he literally did not have any (which quite infuriated the religious elite). He also never took up an offering or asked for financial compensation. The only people he ever used Scripture with were those same religious elite who had twisted it for their own gain. He did not create an exclusive group and give them a specific name to differentiate themselves from everyone else. He also regularly hung out with people that “his” people disapproved of.
In his day, “breaking bread together” or sharing a meal with someone was a Very Big Deal. You could think of it like a high school cafeteria. What table you sat at, who you sat with and who you were and were not allowed to eat with was very carefully monitored and closely regulated. What you ate also mattered and everyone paid attention. If someone defied the established social conventions, it was also a Very Big Deal.
The problem with Jesus was that he ate with the athletes and the science geeks, the stoners and the Christians, the sexually active and the sexually pure and never elevated one over the other. The elite offered him a place at their table, but he refused to claim it by turning his back on the outcasts. And that is what they hated him for. He didn’t just eat with the broken, he broke the invisible barriers that granted the elite their elite status. He taught the outcasts that they were just as “in” as the elites.
He was also man who literally lived life to the fullest. His very first miracle was not some dazzling act of wonder like healing a sick person or making a blind man see. Although he would do plenty of that later, his first miracle was simply to help a young couple keep a party going. The first act that would introduce the Divine to the world was not anything you would expect a miracle to be. It was, in a word, mundane. So if the nature of the first miracle of God in the flesh was such a simple, mundane act what should that tell us about the nature of the most monstrous evil?
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Totally agree with your description of Jesus and the spiritual abuse many religious leaders are guilty of. However, as a former pastor, I think it’s important to note that there are many church leaders who don’t crave power or teach people to always put others’ needs above their own.
I once preached a sermon focused on the “as yourself” part of Jesus’ command to love and pointed out that he said “as” not “at the expense of” or “more than.” I mentioned that I found it harder to love myself than to love others. I led a workshop for women about self-love.
I even published a devotional book (Timeless Truths for Troubled Times, available on Amazon) that includes lots of stories about my personal struggles, including my battle with depression.
I know lots of other pastors, including some men, who are honest with their congregations about challenges in their personal lives.
Also, congregation members can bully pastors and Church Councils can be abusive to clergy, too. I was forced to resign with no advance warning because I strongly urged the Council to follow CDC guidelines re: Covid.
They insisted on resuming indoor worship, including congregational singing, in a sanctuary with windows that didn’t open, in July of 2020. That was only two months into the pandemic when vaccines were not available yet.
These days, the toxic Christians get most of the attention. They are embracing Trump, white supremacy, and violence, and trying to force all U.S. citizens to live in accordance with their racist, nationalist, patriarchal, and homophobic views.
Then there are the religious leaders enriching themselves by convincing vulnerable people that God wants them to hand over their money and will bless or heal them if they do.
Others are guilty of sexual abuse or covering up that abuse.
As you noted, some of these abusive leaders appear to be nice people and great spiritual leaders, which is how they get vulnerable people to follow and obey them.
I just thought it was important to point out that some religious leaders are genuinely good and trustworthy people doing their best to live according to the teachings and example of Jesus.
I've been much too busy to read online articles lately, but this one got my attention. And I feel like you described Jesus better than anybody I've ever read. I love the high school cafeteria example. I'm atheist myself but I have a sister who is sucked into a religion that teaches her that she cannot associate with family if they don't believe the same things she does. It's not even a matter of whether we believe in God or not, it's a matter of if we are part of the exact same church or not. Reading this article really had me thinking about her and how her church is twisting her mind. I'd share it with her in a heartbeat if I didn't already know she would turn it around as proof as to why she shouldn't be associating with non-believers.