Tuesday, January 27, 2015
Good and Evil: letter to a friend
In a message dated 1/21/2015 12:45:43 P.M. Central Standard Time, xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
-- Unfortunately, we are stuck with the politicians the majority chooses
You've put your finger on the BIGGEST question of all: how is it that "good" people choose to follow evil men and bad principles ?
And of course, when you talk moral issues, "good" and "evil," it's really a spiritual question. It's only about politics to the extent that everything people do is a reflection of the spirit that is in their hearts. (Proverbs 4:23. Not a version I use a lot, but the NIV Reader's
Bible puts this verse really well: "Above everything else, guard your heart. Everything you do comes from it.")
How does the enemy get people who have "the mind that is in Christ" (I Corinthians 2:16, Philippians 2:5) to "like" lies, violence, and hatred ? The same way he always has: manipulate their thinking and operative attitudes (what scripture calls "the heart") to confuse what is good and what is evil. ("God is not the author of confusion"...which tells us who is.)
Politics is the worst possible way to sort out that moral question: but it definitely comes into play in manipulation. It's the essential job-skill of politicians to manipulate people's thinking, to their own advantage. Satan's main tactic of deception is also manipulating people's thinking; so politicians are perfect tools in "spinning" evil ideas as "good." (Which God curses in Isaiah 5:20.)
Christians "hearts" have been manipulated by politicians (but actually by you-know-who) to think (for example) that it's good to "give the
poor the dignity of helping themselves." That it's good to kill your enemy before he can kill you. That it's good to demand your "rights." When Christians' "hearts" operate on these thoughts and attitudes entirely contrary to "the mind of Christ," they will inevitably follow
bad leaders and evil principles. And it becomes questionable if people operating in the enemy's spirit should be called "Christians" at all.
This is pretty much the political (but behind it, the spiritual) state of "the Christian majority" today. It's not a hopeful situation, when God's moral law is that following bad men and evil principles can only ever lead to disaster.
Knowing who they work for, I keep a sharp lookout for manipulators, and speak out against them wherever I find them. It's what Christians'
spiritual warfare comes down to: recognize and resist the enemy. Otherwise we become part of the spiritual problem of "good" people who follow the evil one.
God, against this darkness, convict those who love You to shine all the brighter ! AMEN
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2 comments:
While I agree Christians have fallen for strange ideas of what is good and bad, I don't think a politician's main job skill has to be manipulation (like Satan). When I was in high school (at a Christian school), I had been on a team for a year and unhappy with the cliques that had developed in response to the way the captain "led" (mostly just held her position and demonstrated preferring her closest friends). When it came time to choose a new captain, one of her friends was running. The other girls asked me to run for the job too. My speech was about being a team and communicating. The other speech was about fun and rah-rah. (Mainly, of course, it would have been "fun" for a few, maybe a third to half the team, if that's what you call fun.) I won the selection, and we DID have fun (not what I had promised) -- while working hard and together and having a better team instead of a disjointed joke.
Thank you for your comment, especially since you raise an important point. It seems the political process should, even if only a human means of making a situation better, be intended towards doing GOOD. Manipulation seems the signature-tool of politicians whose intent is something less: usually their own self-aggrandizement.
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