A Touch of Evil

This past week, I had a marvelous meeting with Priest C to discuss some of the issues I raised in this post. What I'm relating here are the after-effects of mere portions of our discussion following several rinse/hold cycles in my brain, and as always, nothing is a direct quote. The questions about evil were the focus of our time together, and I've got several excellent resources to pass on/recommend if any of you happen to be interested in this stuff.

First, here's a video Priest C suggested I watch before we met:


N.T. Wright (N.T. stands for Nicholas Thomas, if you're curious-- I was) is an author and former Bishop of Durham in the Church of England.

A note on the video-- I was totally turned off by the comment he makes at the very, very beginning about how he doesn't like talking about evil "because when you start talking about that, you put yourself in a place of danger, to be honest." Really? Just talking about it? I didn't know whether to roll my eyes or pull my blanket more tightly around me and hold up a crucifix. Priest C's interpretation was that if one starts to examine and focus on issues about evil (or evil itself) so that it becomes an all-consuming obsession, then yes-- that might put you in danger. And though Wright is obviously one of the good guys with his feet firmly planted in the Light, so to speak, he did write a book entitled Evil and the Justice of God, so he's obviously spent more time pondering the murky side of things than I have. (That's recommended reading on the topic, by the way, and I borrowed a copy.)

Let's start with hell. Basically, if we believe that God gave us free will, then there must be a hell. However, it's not some kind of lake of fire in which all its inhabitants boil for all eternity...

Detail of a medieval chapel wall painting in La Brigue, France


...or, I guess, where massive demon cats eat us for lunch. Ouch.

Other points:

--We have the High Middle Ages to thank for much of the art and literature that kind of worked as the fixative chemicals on the image of hell present in world imagination.

--In the Old Testament we read about the Hebrew concept of Sheol, which is kind of a different notion than hell qua hell. (Bam. Second entry lately with some Latin in it. It's like Quo Vadis up in here.)

--In the New Testament-- according to Rob Bell in his book Love Wins, which I'm currently reading, "Jesus's teachings about hell [are] a volatile mixture of images, pictures, and metaphors that describe the very real experiences and consequences of rejecting our God-given goodness and humanity. Something we are free to do, anytime, anywhere, with anyone."

Bell also has some compelling, Biblically based arguments about why God's real deal is wanting to save each of us and be reconciled with even those individuals who refuse God's love. About how hell doesn't have to be forever for anyone.

Oh-- as far as Satan-- I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that evil is oozing and amorphous and definitely alive in the world, but that I don't think it necessarily has a name, or a street address, or wear a Halloween costume. And while I don't have a definitive date for the advent of the concept of Satan into Judeo-Christian thought, he's* got a couple of interesting Wikipedia pages that define the evolution of the Hebrew concept of an "Adversary," with which Jesus would have been familiar.

This all seems so scattered and unfinished, and it's a shabbily incomplete reproduction of a long and thoughtful conversation that not only answered some of my more academic questions but touched on personal issues as well. I'm going to leave things here, but I'm absolutely devouring Love Wins and look forward to reading Evil and the Justice of God. Perhaps you might want to peruse one or the other yourself? I'm now going to finish this mug of tea and get myself to bed, because if I don't, Monday's going to come all the sooner...which sounds like hell on earth.

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*Yes, I mean Satan. He's probably on Twitter, too.