Thursday, August 21, 2008

Evil: Defeat It, But What is It?

On Saturday I watched the presidential forum with Obama, McCain and Rick Warren on CNN. Let me start of by saying I am not super political and while I am registered I am not sure what party I belong to. With that said I realized that in Christian blog circles the topic that was most discussed was the candidates response to the "abortion question". I have found it funny though that we here in America have very easily passed over the "evil question".

Basically Warren asked each candidate, do you believe in evil, and how do you respond to it. McCain and Obama both were on the side to defeat it, although McCain was more right to the point.

The funny thing is, is that they both defined evil as either, the opression going on in 3rd world countries or terrorism (bin laden), while I would not disagree, I would say that is not the biggest "evil" we here in America face daily. Here is what I would have loved to see Warren, a servant of God say after both said to defeat evil. This is my mock manuscript I would have loved to hear:

Warren: "How do you handle evil?"

Obama/McCain: "Defeat it"

Warren: "Amen, so how do we stop the American Dream of consumerism, and materiel wealth?"

That's it. The biggest evil in America is the evil of self, of wanting to be famous, rich and do it at any price. This evil claims hundreds of million lives a year, as we give into the idea that we are defined by what we wear, drive, live in, look like. I realize that the only hope is for the church to be a light in the darkness, to be a light and stand out as a city on a hill that is not fascinated by the trinkets of this world. And the only hope for that is the Cross of Jesus Christ, where the sins of greed and lust of self are killed, and we are freed to live for God and love our neighbor with a risky, sacrificial type love that is willing to die so others will taste and see the beauty and joy found in the Lord.

So I guess when it all comes down to it, our next president will not defeat evil, only our reigning King Jesus will come and slay evil once and for all as He has already claimed victory, but not yet do we see it all, hmmm already and not yet....

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