It’s 2009. Do You Know Where Your Soul Is?

By BONO

Published: April 18, 2009

I AM in Midtown Manhattan, where drivers still play their car horns as if they were musical instruments and shouting in restaurants is sport.

I am a long way from the warm breeze of voices I heard a week ago on Easter Sunday.

“Glorify your name,” the island women sang, as they swayed in a cut sandstone church. I was overwhelmed by a riot of color, an emotional swell that carried me to sea.

Christianity, it turns out, has a rhythm — and it crescendos this time of year. The rumba of Carnival gives way to the slow march of Lent, then to the staccato hymnals of the Easter parade. From revelry to reverie. After 40 days in the desert, sort of ...

Carnival — rock stars are good at that.

“Carne” is flesh; “Carne-val,” its goodbye party. I’ve been to many. Brazilians say they’ve done it longest; they certainly do it best. You can’t help but contract the fever. You’ve got no choice but to join the ravers as they swell up the streets bursting like the banks of a river in a flood of fun set to rhythm. This is a Joy that cannot be conjured. This is life force. This is the heart full and spilling over with gratitude. The choice is yours ...

It’s Lent I’ve always had issues with. I gave it up ... self-denial is where I come a cropper. My idea of discipline is simple — hard work — but of course that’s another indulgence.

Then comes the dying and the living that is Easter.

It’s a transcendent moment for me — a rebirth I always seem to need. Never more so than a few years ago, when my father died. I recall the embarrassment and relief of hot tears as I knelt in a chapel in a village in France and repented my prodigal nature — repented for fighting my father for so many years and wasting so many opportunities to know him better. I remember the feeling of “a peace that passes understanding” as a load lifted. Of all the Christian festivals, it is the Easter parade that demands the most faith — pushing you past reverence for creation, through bewilderment at the idea of a virgin birth, and into the far-fetched and far-reaching idea that death is not the end. The cross as crossroads. Whatever your religious or nonreligious views, the chance to begin again is a compelling idea.

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Last Sunday, the choirmaster was jumping out of his skin ... stormy then still, playful then tender, on the most upright of pianos and melodies. He sang his invocations in a beautiful oaken tenor with a freckle-faced boy at his side playing conga and tambourine as if it was a full drum kit. The parish sang to the rafters songs of praise to a God that apparently surrendered His voice to ours.

I come to lowly church halls and lofty cathedrals for what purpose? I search the Scriptures to what end? To check my head? My heart? No, my soul. For me these meditations are like a plumb line dropped by a master builder — to see if the walls are straight or crooked. I check my emotional life with music, my intellectual life with writing, but religion is where I soul-search.

The preacher said, “What good does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul?” Hearing this, every one of the pilgrims gathered in the room asked, “Is it me, Lord?” In America, in Europe, people are asking, “Is it us?”

Well, yes. It is us.

Carnival is over. Commerce has been overheating markets and climates ... the sooty skies of the industrial revolution have changed scale and location, but now melt ice caps and make the seas boil in the time of technological revolution. Capitalism is on trial; globalization is, once again, in the dock. We used to say that all we wanted for the rest of the world was what we had for ourselves. Then we found out that if every living soul on the planet had a fridge and a house and an S.U.V., we would choke on our own exhaust.

Lent is upon us whether we asked for it or not. And with it, we hope, comes a chance at redemption. But redemption is not just a spiritual term, it’s an economic concept. At the turn of the millennium, the debt cancellation campaign, inspired by the Jewish concept of Jubilee, aimed to give the poorest countries a fresh start. Thirty-four million more children in Africa are now in school in large part because their governments used money freed up by debt relief. This redemption was not an end to economic slavery, but it was a more hopeful beginning for many. And to the many, not the lucky few, is surely where any soul-searching must lead us.

A few weeks ago I was in Washington when news arrived of proposed cuts to the president’s aid budget. People said that it was going to be hard to fulfill promises to those who live in dire circumstances such a long way away when there is so much hardship in the United States. And there is.

But I read recently that Americans are taking up public service in greater numbers because they are short on money to give. And, following a successful bipartisan Senate vote, word is that Congress will restore the money that had been cut from the aid budget — a refusal to abandon those who would pay such a high price for a crisis not of their making. In the roughest of times, people show who they are.

Your soul.

So much of the discussion today is about value, not values. Aid well spent can be an example of both, values and value for money. Providing AIDS medication to just under four million people, putting in place modest measures to improve maternal health, eradicating killer pests like malaria and rotoviruses — all these provide a leg up on the climb to self-sufficiency, all these can help us make friends in a world quick to enmity. It’s not alms, it’s investment. It’s not charity, it’s justice.

Strangely, as we file out of the small stone church into the cruel sun, I think of Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, whose now combined fortune is dedicated to the fight against extreme poverty. Agnostics both, I believe. I think of Nelson Mandela, who has spent his life upholding the rights of others. A spiritual man — no doubt. Religious? I’m told he would not describe himself that way.

Not all soul music comes from the church.

Bono, the lead singer of the band U2 and a co-founder of the advocacy group ONE, is a contributing columnist for The Times.

The President Ties His Own Hands on Terror

The point of interrogation is intelligence, not confession.

By MICHAEL HAYDEN and MICHAEL B. MUKASEY

The Obama administration has declassified and released opinions of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) given in 2005 and earlier that analyze the legality of interrogation techniques authorized for use by the CIA. Those techniques were applied only when expressly permitted by the director, and are described in these opinions in detail, along with their limits and the safeguards applied to them.

AP

9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

The release of these opinions was unnecessary as a legal matter, and is unsound as a matter of policy. Its effect will be to invite the kind of institutional timidity and fear of recrimination that weakened intelligence gathering in the past, and that we came sorely to regret on Sept. 11, 2001.

Proponents of the release have argued that the techniques have been abandoned and thus there is no point in keeping them secret any longer; that they were in any event ineffective; that their disclosure was somehow legally compelled; and that they cost us more in the coin of world opinion than they were worth. None of these claims survives scrutiny.

Soon after he was sworn in, President Barack Obama signed an executive order that suspended use of these techniques and confined not only the military but all U.S. agencies -- including the CIA -- to the interrogation limits set in the Army Field Manual. This suspension was accompanied by a commitment to further study the interrogation program, and government personnel were cautioned that they could no longer rely on earlier opinions of the OLC.

Although evidence shows that the Army Field Manual, which is available online, is already used by al Qaeda for training purposes, it was certainly the president's right to suspend use of any technique. However, public disclosure of the OLC opinions, and thus of the techniques themselves, assures that terrorists are now aware of the absolute limit of what the U.S. government could do to extract information from them, and can supplement their training accordingly and thus diminish the effectiveness of these techniques as they have the ones in the Army Field Manual.

Moreover, disclosure of the details of the program pre-empts the study of the president's task force and assures that the suspension imposed by the president's executive order is effectively permanent. There would be little point in the president authorizing measures whose nature and precise limits have already been disclosed in detail to those whose resolve we hope to overcome. This conflicts with the sworn promise of the current director of the CIA, Leon Panetta, who testified in aid of securing Senate confirmation that if he thought he needed additional authority to conduct interrogation to get necessary information, he would seek it from the president. By allowing this disclosure, President Obama has tied not only his own hands but also the hands of any future administration faced with the prospect of attack.

Disclosure of the techniques is likely to be met by faux outrage, and is perfectly packaged for media consumption. It will also incur the utter contempt of our enemies. Somehow, it seems unlikely that the people who beheaded Nicholas Berg and Daniel Pearl, and have tortured and slain other American captives, are likely to be shamed into giving up violence by the news that the U.S. will no longer interrupt the sleep cycle of captured terrorists even to help elicit intelligence that could save the lives of its citizens.

Which brings us to the next of the justifications for disclosing and thus abandoning these measures: that they don't work anyway, and that those who are subjected to them will simply make up information in order to end their ordeal. This ignorant view of how interrogations are conducted is belied by both experience and common sense. If coercive interrogation had been administered to obtain confessions, one might understand the argument. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), who organized the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, among others, and who has boasted of having beheaded Daniel Pearl, could eventually have felt pressed to provide a false confession. But confessions aren't the point. Intelligence is. Interrogation is conducted by using such obvious approaches as asking questions whose correct answers are already known and only when truthful information is provided proceeding to what may not be known. Moreover, intelligence can be verified, correlated and used to get information from other detainees, and has been; none of this information is used in isolation.

The terrorist Abu Zubaydah (sometimes derided as a low-level operative of questionable reliability, but who was in fact close to KSM and other senior al Qaeda leaders) disclosed some information voluntarily. But he was coerced into disclosing information that led to the capture of Ramzi bin al Shibh, another of the planners of Sept. 11, who in turn disclosed information which -- when combined with what was learned from Abu Zubaydah -- helped lead to the capture of KSM and other senior terrorists, and the disruption of follow-on plots aimed at both Europe and the U.S. Details of these successes, and the methods used to obtain them, were disclosed repeatedly in more than 30 congressional briefings and hearings beginning in 2002, and open to all members of the Intelligence Committees of both Houses of Congress beginning in September 2006. Any protestation of ignorance of those details, particularly by members of those committees, is pretense.

The techniques themselves were used selectively against only a small number of hard-core prisoners who successfully resisted other forms of interrogation, and then only with the explicit authorization of the director of the CIA. Of the thousands of unlawful combatants captured by the U.S., fewer than 100 were detained and questioned in the CIA program. Of those, fewer than one-third were subjected to any of the techniques discussed in these opinions. As already disclosed by Director Hayden, as late as 2006, even with the growing success of other intelligence tools, fully half of the government's knowledge about the structure and activities of al Qaeda came from those interrogations.

Nor was there any legal reason compelling such disclosure. To be sure, the American Civil Liberties Union has sued under the Freedom of Information Act to obtain copies of these and other memoranda, but the government until now has successfully resisted such lawsuits. Even when the government disclosed that three members of al Qaeda had been subjected to waterboarding but that the technique was no longer part of the CIA interrogation program, the court sustained the government's argument that the precise details of how it was done, including limits and safeguards, could remain classified against the possibility that some future president may authorize its use. Therefore, notwithstanding the suggestion that disclosure was somehow legally compelled, there was no legal impediment to the Justice Department making the same argument even with respect to any techniques that remained in the CIA program until last January.

There is something of the self-fulfilling prophecy in the claim that our interrogation of some unlawful combatants beyond the limits set in the Army Field Manual has disgraced us before the world. Such a claim often conflates interrogation with the sadism engaged in by some soldiers at Abu Ghraib, an incident that had nothing whatever to do with intelligence gathering. The limits of the Army Field Manual are entirely appropriate for young soldiers, for the conditions in which they operate, for the detainees they routinely question, and for the kinds of tactically relevant information they pursue. Those limits are not appropriate, however, for more experienced people in controlled circumstances with high-value detainees. Indeed, the Army Field Manual was created with awareness that there was an alternative protocol for high-value detainees.

In addition, there were those who believed that the U.S. deserved what it got on Sept. 11, 2001. Such people, and many who purport to speak for world opinion, were resourceful both before and after the Sept. 11 attacks in crafting reasons to resent America's role as a superpower. Recall also that the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, the attacks on our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the punctiliously correct trials of defendants in connection with those incidents, and the bombing of the USS Cole took place long before the advent of CIA interrogations, the invasion of Saddam Hussein's Iraq, or the many other purported grievances asserted over the past eight years.

The effect of this disclosure on the morale and effectiveness of many in the intelligence community is not hard to predict. Those charged with the responsibility of gathering potentially lifesaving information from unwilling captives are now told essentially that any legal opinion they get as to the lawfulness of their activity is only as durable as political fashion permits. Even with a seemingly binding opinion in hand, which future CIA operations personnel would take the risk? There would be no wink, no nod, no handshake that would convince them that legal guidance is durable. Any president who wants to apply such techniques without such a binding and durable legal opinion had better be prepared to apply them himself.

Beyond that, anyone in government who seeks an opinion from the OLC as to the propriety of any action, or who authors an opinion for the OLC, is on notice henceforth that such a request for advice, and the advice itself, is now more likely than before to be subject after the fact to public and partisan criticism. It is hard to see how that will promote candor either from those who should be encouraged to ask for advice before they act, or from those who must give it.

In his book "The Terror Presidency," Jack Goldsmith describes the phenomenon we are now experiencing, and its inevitable effect, referring to what he calls "cycles of timidity and aggression" that have weakened intelligence gathering in the past. Politicians pressure the intelligence community to push to the legal limit, and then cast accusations when aggressiveness goes out of style, thereby encouraging risk aversion, and then, as occurred in the wake of 9/11, criticizing the intelligence community for feckless timidity. He calls these cycles "a terrible problem for our national security." Indeed they are, and the precipitous release of these OLC opinions simply makes the problem worse.

Gen. Hayden was director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 2006 to 2009. Mr. Mukasey was attorney general of the United States from 2007 to 2009.

The Tea Parties

Yesterday was Tax Day, and it was marked by large numbers of Americans turning out for an estimated 2,000 tea parties across the country. This movement is significant.

In 1978, California voters enacted Prop. 13 in reaction to steep property taxes. That marked the start of a tax-cutting movement that culminated in Ronald Reagan slashing high national income taxes in the 1980s. Now Americans are reacting to runaway government spending that they were not told about before last year's election, and which Americans are growing to resent.

Derided by elitists as phony, the tea-party movement is spontaneous, decentralized, frequently amateurish and sometimes shrill. If it has a father it is CNBC's Rick Santelli, who called for holding a tea party in Chicago on July 4. Yesterday's gatherings were made up of people who may never meet again (there's no central collection point for email addresses). But the concerns driving people to tea parties are real, growing and powerful. Politicians ignore them at their peril.

One concern is the rise of state and local taxes. New York and California passed multibillion-dollar tax increases this year. Other states are considering significant tax hikes or have enacted tax increases in recent years. The many tax and fee increases enacted or under consideration is angering voters.

If that anger persists, it may give Republicans a leg up in the 38 gubernatorial elections over the next two years, as well as in key state legislative races that will determine which party redraws congressional and state legislative districts after the 2010 census. Expect voters to hear a lot about jobs being created in low-tax states in the coming years.

But the center of the debate is in Washington, not the states. The fear of future federal tax hikes is fueling the tea-party movement.

This is an important development. In 2008, voters were less worried about taxes than they had been in previous elections. Why? Because the 15 years between President Bill Clinton's 1993 tax hike and Barack Obama's increase in cigarette taxes in February was the longest stretch in U.S. history without a federal tax increase. President George W. Bush's tax cuts also cut 13 million people on the lower-end of the income scale from the income tax rolls -- people who don't pay taxes aren't worried about the tax burden.

So far, Mr. Obama has decided to let the Bush tax cuts expire in 2011 and avoid forcing Democrats to take a tough vote. But the tea parties reveal how hard it will be for the president to hide the Democrats' tax-and-spend tendencies from voters.

Mr. Obama plans to boost federal spending 25% while nearly tripling the national debt over 10 years. Americans know that this kind of spending will have economic consequences, including new taxes being imposed by the new progressives.

It hasn't gotten a ton of attention, but people are fed up with the complexity of their tax code and ready to do something about it. The Tax Foundation's 2009 Annual Tax Attitudes (which was conducted Feb. 18-27, by Harris) shows us that many Americans are willing to trade popular deductions for lower rates and a simpler code. There's also been a flurry of interest among Americans in replacing the current system with a national sales tax or a flat tax.

The open question is whether Republicans will be boosted by the nascent tea-party movement. House Republicans smartly offered a proposed spending plan this year that would freeze nondefense discretionary spending, suspend earmarks for five years, and reform entitlements. But cutting spending won't be enough. Taxes matter -- and will matter more in the coming years.

The 2009 Tax Foundation survey found that Americans believe that taxes should, on average, take just 15.6% of a person's wages. And 88% of Americans in the same poll believe that there should be a cap on all federal, state, and local taxes of 29% or less -- there is still a constituency out there that will favor tax cutting politicians.

But to tap into that constituency Republicans will have to link lower taxes to money in voters' pockets, and economic growth and jobs. They must explain why the GOP approach will lead to greater prosperity. Such arguments are not self-executing. They require leaders to make them, time and again, as Reagan once did.

Some liberals believe that the recession has made tax-and-spend issues passé. But political movements are often a reaction against aggressive overreach by those in power. Mr. Obama's response to the financial crisis -- a government power grab and budget explosion -- has put spending and taxes back on the front burner. The tea parties are an early manifestation of that. More is sure to follow.

Mr. Rove is the former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush.

Bono Explains Covering the Song “Jesus Christ”

Many U2 songs could be the perfect piece for your Easter soundtrack. But none may be more blunt in its message than this.

More than 20 years ago, U2 performed the Woody Guthrie song “Jesus Christ” as part of the tribute album A Vision Shared. On that album, Bono and the boys joined Bruce Springsteen, Sweet Honey In The Rock, Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan, John Mellencamp and others in paying musical respects to the man who said, “I am out to sing the songs that make you take pride in yourself and your work.”

In this clip, Bono discusses his feelings about the track.

Entrust: A Nortel spinoff that survived

On the face of it, Bill Conner's eight-year term as CEO of Entrust Inc. wasn't a brilliant success.

In 2001, the former Nortel executive took over a security software firm that had seen 95 per cent of its value vanish in the previous year. Conner then presided over the loss of another 71.7 per cent of the firm's worth.

We can be precise because Conner, 50, revealed Monday that he had reached a deal with an affiliate of U.S. private equity firm, Thoma Bravo, to sell Entrust for $114 million (all figures U.S.).

Of course, it's really not fair to judge the performance of a tech CEO against the manic standard of the tech bubble.

Indeed, in many ways Conner saved Entrust -- which remains one of Canada's most valuable software companies and employs about 300 developers in Kanata and 100 workers elsewhere.

The firm is headquartered in Dallas because that's where Conner wanted to live. He also knew there were advantages to having a U.S. address when knocking on the doors of America's largest corporations.

There's little question Conner was over-optimistic in 2001. He had been a member of Entrust's board of directors for three years, and should have known the company's prospects were uncertain at best.

On his second day in the top job, Conner revealed a quarterly net loss of nearly $51 million on sales of $31.5 million. His firm was bleeding to death.

"The first order of business was to stop the hemorrhaging," he said Monday. "The next step was to innovate and acquire new businesses."

None of this was easy. Entrust would lose money in 20 of its next 32 quarters. Early in Conner's reign, Entrust was very nearly crushed by software giant Microsoft, which began offering a less robust version of Entrust's software for free.

Conner responded by diversifying away from a near- total reliance on a technology known as public key infrastructure -- a system for securing online data and authenticating who is sending and receiving it.

In its most recent quarter, about 25 per cent of Entrust's software sales were derived from non-PKI products such as anti-fraud software.

Perhaps more importantly, Entrust has a very steady business featuring the sale of professional services -- which involves helping large corporations develop and maintain tamper-proof communications and data networks.

Last year, the services unit accounted for 62 per cent of the firm's $100 million in revenues. While professional services is not a fast-growing business, it's steady and profitable.

Despite Entrust's recent return to slim profits, Conner recognized his company didn't have enough heft to survive in the long-term.

"One hundred million dollars in sales is small compared to what's out there," he said, in reference to security software giants such as Symantec, IBM and Microsoft.

Eighteen months ago, Conner began his hunt for a merger partner or a potential acquirer. He canvassed rivals, systems integrators and software firms that might want to include security technology in their own products.

Chicago-based Thoma Bravo recently raised $822.5 million, which it plans to invest mainly in U.S. companies. The 29-year-old investment group has in recent years purchased a series of software firms that, like Entrust, sell licences to large organizations. The acquisitions include Attachmate (software for managing secure networks) and JDA Software (products for managing supply chains) -- to name two that are familiar to Ottawa-area software developers.

Thoma Bravo's $1.85 per share offer represents a 22-per-cent-plus premium over Entrust's average price during the previous 30 trading days.

Unusually, the acquisition agreement contains a clause allowing Entrust to solicit richer takeover proposals by May 13.

Entrust closed Monday on Nasdaq at $1.80 per share, suggesting that investors don't believe a bidding war is about to break out.

Given the huge amount of time Conner has spent canvassing alternatives, that assessment is probably right.

Eight years ago, had you suggested to Conner that he would one day sell his company to a private equity firm for Monday's negotiated price, he would have cleared the room with his 120 decibel belly laugh.

He made his peace a long time ago with what is reasonable in terms of the expectations for Entrust. For good measure he is planning to stick around to make sure the transition sticks.

Thoma Bravo is keeping Conner at the helm of Entrust, along with the rest of his management team.

Conner has been a key figure at Entrust since its inception in a quiet corner of the mid-1990s version of Nortel. He takes little comfort from the fact Entrust is today worth considerably more than Nortel, which is struggling to reorganize under the protection of bankruptcy court.

But he does like the fact Entrust finally appears on solid footing. For once, Nortel employees are envious.

The Threat of Culture

This essay is adapted from a lecture given on February 19, 2009 at Gordon College in Wenham, Massachusetts.

“When I hear the word culture, I reach for my gun.” This statement, often attributed to Nazi leaders, is actually a quote from the play Schlageter, an expression of Nazi ideology performed on Hitler’s birthday in 1933. In Hanns Johst’s play the original line is slightly different. It translates as “Whenever I hear of culture… I release the safety-catch of my Browning!”¹

Image - Marc Chagall, Purim, 1916–18, Oil on Canvas, Philadelphia Museum of Art. This was included in the notorious Degenerate Art (Entartete Kunst) exhibition, mounted by the Nazis, which opened in Munich in July 1937.

The line is spoken by a character named Friedrich in the midst of condemning the empty ideals of the French and describing the futility of doing studies instead of combat.

He says, “the last thing I’ll stand for is for ideas to get the better of me! I know that rubbish from ‘18… fraternity, equality,…, freedom…, beauty and dignity! You gotta use the right bait to hook ‘em. And then, you’re right in the middle of a parley and they say: Hands up! You’re disarmed…, you republican voting swine! — No, let ‘em keep their good distance with their whole ideological kettle of fish…. I shoot with live ammunition! When I hear the word culture…, I release the safety on my Browning!”²

Distrust of intellectuals and creative people has always characterized fascist regimes. Friedrich did not want “ideas to get the better of me.” For that matter, any administration concerned to make people tow the line is worried about creativity. Examples abound. Consider the attempts to purge jazz from the Soviet Union in the 1930s.

The irony, of course, it that jazz was actually a workingman’s music (remember the communist adoration of the proletariat), which should have gained the approval of the Soviets. To remedy this possible contradiction, the Russian jazz critics specified that the American version of it was decadent, not the music itself. Indeed, a well-funded kind of kitsch Soviet jazz band was created to prove the point.

The government tried to promote distinctly Soviet popular music. What you sing is what you believe, Solzhenitsyn once declared. Likewise, Louis Armstrong never performed in the U.S.S.R, though producer George Avakian tried hard to arrange for him to tour there. Ekaterina Furtseva, the Soviet Union’s culture minister, refused to welcome him because she felt “he was going to be too popular.”³

Culture, then, is subversive. It can subvert for ill or good. At times Christians have feared its power. They have worried that it might drive them into worldliness, removing their focus from the spiritual goals of salvation. Some cultural expressions can do that. There is a lot to worry about in our time, and threats to spirituality abound. But is that the end of the story? Must we reach for our guns? Or take the “conservative” side in the culture wars? Is there a better way?

I believe cultural engagement is an important kind of warfare. Occasionally, when Christians are being properly creative, others may reach for their guns. We are told that the extension of the kingdom of God will come with opposition. But we are to continue to preach the gospel and its values, through our words, acts and lives, and let the consequences be what they may. My suggestions for how we can do this parallel Paul’s speech on Mars Hill as recorded in Acts 17.

This speech not only urges us toward cultural engagement, but is a model for how we should understand and do it. Paul connects with the Athenians where they are. He approves some of their insights but denounces their wrong assumptions. He then pleads for change, based on the resurrection and Christ’s coming judgment. In doing so, Paul lays out two insights that should guide our work.

Paul’s first lesson: how culture becomes perverted. Many parts of our culture give us much to worry about. If Paul is correct, peoples around the globe are seeking God. However, they are unable to find him because, despite their best insights, they arrive at false conclusions about what God should look like and what he should do. In Paul’s words, they “feel their way toward him,” but end up in the wrong place.

The people of Athens were very religious. It is my strong conviction that this is the case for much of our planet today. Even Europe, which is more secularized than most continents, is religious in at least two ways. The first is the rise of various non-Christian religions. From Islam to Hinduism, to New Age, to occultism, there is plenty of religiosity.

The second way is the “religious” nature of many of its cultural practices. Sociologist Danièle Hervieu-Léger has argued, for example, that French government, banking, artistic pursuits, education, and the like have a Roman Catholic cultural infrastructure without the label. Similarly, Scotland has a Presbyterian infrastructure, regardless of its low church attendance.⁴

Of equal importance is Paul’s identification of two sorts of idols in Athenian religion. The idols affirm two kinds of gods, which coexist in a strange sort of dualism. The first are smaller objects of worship kept in human temples and the second, an unknown god named on an altar.

Apologist Dick Keyes brilliantly suggests that idolatry usually comes in two forms: a nearby god and a faraway god.⁵ This is true for biblical times and for our own. He cites Jeremiah 10, in which the prophet scorns the creation of portable gods who can do neither harm nor good (10:5). The scarecrow-god may frighten the birds away, but can never give the kind of material prosperity sought by the people. These gods are tame and limited.

At the same time the people have a faraway god who provides meaning and purpose, even though impersonal. For example, in Isaiah 65 the prophet faults the people for forsaking the Lord and “spreading a table for Fortune and willing bowls of mixed wine for Destiny” (65:11). They needed some sort of assurance that there is a purpose, a meaning, something in control. This was the case even though Fate and Destiny cannot express love; nor can they judge our lives in the end.

Keyes explains that these two types of idols are distortions of the fundamental purposes of mankind according to the Christian worldview. They are stand-ins for dominion and trust. Mankind was originally created to have dominion over the world. Not violent oppression, but gentle lordship. This rulership was to be under the overall lordship of God Almighty. Our rule is based on trust in his higher authority. Idolatry substitutes a nearby god for dominion and a faraway god for trust.

Our culture presents examples of both. Money, possessions, communication, these are among the nearby gods we desperately adore. The love of these has contributed to our present economic crisis. We are what we have, we might say: we think we all need PDA’s, cell phones, big screen TV’s, designer styles, and so forth. In a brilliant article on the economy, GCP Executive Director Chris Simmons traces the history of this nearby idol in America, though it applies to all of the West.⁶

Simmons explains that: “Before 1885, most white males owned property, did not work for a salary, did not have a regulated work schedule and did not go to a workplace away from home. Price tags did not develop until the mid-19th century because they were unnecessary. Customers bought things from people they knew so they could just ask how much things cost.”⁷

As a result of the industrial revolution, all of that changed. It was hoped that industrialization and lower prices would vastly improve the standard of living, and they did. However, supply exceeded demand. As a result it became necessary to stimulate demand; or let’s call it by its proper name, desire. Mainstream Protestant leaders affirmed a sort of Manifest Destiny of Americanism, the notion that more and new are always better. Media, particularly advertizing, got into the action, and helped create a “desire to desire.”⁸ General Motors is a good example of making up for bad planning with clever advertising. Think, Simmons suggests, of the way Howie Long, the former NFL player, promotes the Chevy Silverado by putting down nerds and weaklings.

Nothing is altogether simple. There are scores of reasons for our dreadful economic downturn. But what is undeniable is the way we cling to American consumerism even to the point that it may be the death of us. We do this partly because having these nearby gods gives us a sense of increased security, of control over our world.

Candidates for a faraway god abound as well.⁹ Sticking with the theme of money, we might say that a faraway god is the means of achieving security. Many of us nurture the semi-conscious hope that if only we can achieve some measure of financial stability, we can be happy. Perhaps we trust in a system like the free market. Or we believe hard work must produce results. The notion of progress has hit upon hard times, and yet people still nurture the idea that somehow, given time, things will get better. Or maybe it is just good luck, or Fate, or “the man upstairs.” All of these can and do replace Yahweh as our vague faraway god.

These are many perversions of the truth. They penetrate deep into our culture. But is it right simply to reach for our gun? Does the perversion of culture mean that the problem is culture itself? Although there are Christians who defend such a view, it is far off the mark.

Paul’s second lesson: how culture may be redeemed. It is never enough simply to decry the evils of the world, and then to offer salvation either as a way of warring against culture or as an escape from the world. In his Mars Hill speech, Paul reminds his listeners of the original purpose of history. God is the maker of the world and everything in it. He is to be worshiped as such.

He gave purpose to human existence. First, he gave us life and breath and his creation to enjoy. According to Bruce Waltke, being made in the image of God means we are “passionate vitality.” We are alive for the purpose of worshipping God.¹⁰ Second, he gave us a task: to multiply and live on the face of the earth. Our purpose is to seek God in the hope of finding him through our life in this world.

In light of that purpose, Paul tells the audience to correct their mistaken views both of the nearby gods and the faraway god. God is not to be worshiped through art and imagination divorced from faith in Christ. Nor is he unknown, nor is he to be worshiped in ignorance. He is known and has now made his presence even better known. God has announced a purpose to call everyone to account at the fixed day when history ends.

If all this is true, how should we live? In a word, says Paul, by repentance. Repentance means a turnaround, a paradigm shift. It is a radical reorientation. What might this look like in terms of culture?

We know that in the centuries after Christ’s resurrection, despite small beginnings, the church grew quickly, and eventually redefined many of the cultural and social realities of ancient Rome. What should this look like today?

However much many of us have been influenced by Abraham Kuyper and his ideal of cultural transformation, most of us have become more sober, more modest in our outlook. Ironically, though, that may lead to greater effect. Andy Crouch provides helpful guidance. In his recent book, Culture Making, he cautions us against triumphalist claims of changing the world through inventions, strategies, causes, and the like.¹¹ He urges us to look at the divine pattern of culture making, which asks the rich to become more humble and work instead for the empowerment of the poor and disenfranchised.

He then cites examples such as the end of Apartheid in South Africa and the revolutions in former Soviet republics. He also cites small-scale changes, which do not appear in the headlines, but are just as significant as the larger ones. These include showing love within families or the gracious treatment of employees. This is absolutely not to lower our expectations or abandon the grand calling to make disciples of the nations. There are two ways we can work out the implications of these ideas in terms of cultural engagement.

The first is to redefine or redirect cultural patterns affected by the fall. Of course, the gospel is a new creation, not simply a restoration. As a result our redirecting should be very ambitious. As we seek to enact change, we are living out our heavenly citizenship. Each one of us has a calling. Here are a few ideas as to what this might mean in terms of individual callings.

All of our callings should be fulfilled honorably, truthfully and skillfully.

Artists should feel their way through the confusing varieties of modern art and see if they can redirect some of that talent in order to skillfully tell the true story. Maybe they will participate in initiatives such as Prospect.1 New Orleans, which ran from November to January. It was the largest biennial of international contemporary art ever organized in the U.S. It served multiple purposes: to help the local economy after Katrina, to restore a sense of aesthetics to that historic city, to educate people about the arts, and to “redefine the city as a cultural destination.”¹² Or maybe they will teach art at a Christian college as does Bruce Herman, and translate biblical and first century models for our times.

Scientists should see if they can redirect ongoing research for the greater benefit of the human race. Maybe they will get into redefining the use of the environment. One constant model is the Au Sable community in Michigan, which educates people in recognizing the earth as the Lord’s and teaches sustainable community in an age in which most environmental studies have been done outside the church.

Those in business should look for ways to go beyond profit making and provide for the betterment of their community and of global society. They should provide fair and encouraging working conditions for their employees. When a downturn comes, be the first to provide generously for those in trouble. Work quietly with your hands in order to provide for those in need.

Mothers and fathers should look at the broken families all around us and redirect these relationships with love and healing.

In all these cases culture should not be seen as a threat, if it is tied to the glory of the original creation and reconfigured in Jesus Christ. It may be perceived that way by our detractors. If we are quietly generous, whether we encounter opposition or not, we have a clear conscience before the Lord.

One more thing. I have come to believe that we Christians should be subversive. Is there not a place to undermine the dominant powers and exercise divine power to dismantle strongholds? (2 Corinthians 10:4) When Jesus became incarnate his mother Mary sang her Magnificat, praising God for bringing down the mighty and exalting the humble. (Luke 1:52) Our Lord Jesus undermined the power of both religious teachers and Roman rulers.

He did not do this violently but subversively, and with great imagination. Think of the parables. Think of his interactions with the Scribes, catching them off guard with his deepening of the law, his praise of the simple and anonymous, his defense of the vulnerable and his cleansing of the Temple.

After his magnificent speech, Paul received three reactions. I suggest they are the ones we will receive not only when we speak, but when we work at challenging and transforming culture. Some believed. Some repented and enlisted in the task force. Some mocked and rejected the whole idea as preposterous. Perhaps they reached for their guns! Still others wanted to know more.

Our times present extraordinary opportunities for this kind of engagement. Let us give our neighbors reason for the hope we have. (1 Peter 3:15)

_________
¹Hanns Johst, Schlageter. Translated with an introduction by Ford B. Parkes-Perret. Akdemischer Verlag Hans-Dieter Heinz, Stuttgart: 1984, (Act 1, Scene 1).
²Ibid.
³S. Frederick Starr, Red Hot: The Fate of Jazz in the Soviet Union, (Pompton Plains, New Jersey: Limelight Editions, 2004).
⁴Danièle Hervieu-Léger, Religion as a Chain of Memory, (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2000).
⁵Os Guinness and John Seel, eds., No God but God: Breaking With the Idols of Our Age (Chicago: Moody Press, 1992), 29–61.
⁶Chris Simmons, “Our Culture, Ourselves,” gospelandculture.org, http://www.gospelandculture.org/2009/01/our-economy-ourselves/ <3.5.2009>.
⁷William Leach, Land of Desire: Merchants, Power and the Rise of a New American Culture (New York: Vintage Books, 1993), 3–38. Cited in Simmons, “Our Culture, Ourselves.”
⁸Simmons, “Our Culture, Ourselves.”
⁹Dick Keyes, “The Idol Factory,” in No God but God, 41.
¹⁰Bruce K. Waltke and Cathi J. Fredricks, Genesis: A Commentary (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2001), 70–71.
¹¹Andy Crouch, Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling (Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2008).
¹²http://www.prospectneworleans.org/. <3.9.2009>

William Edgar is Director of The Gospel & Culture Project as well as Professor and Chair of Apologetics at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Courageous Cowards...as Evidence of the Resurrection

There’s no video of Jesus rolling the stone away. The empty tomb is unmarked, its whereabouts unknown. None of us has put our hands in His wounds. Yet we believe Jesus died and rose three days later. For Christians, it is a matter of faith.

If irrefutable evidence for the Resurrection existed, there would be no need for faith. After all, as the author of Hebrews puts it, “Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” Jesus Himself tells us, “Blessed are those who believe and yet have not seen.”

He was talking about people like you and me.

Not seeing all the evidence forces us to make a conscious decision about believing or not believing. And pushing against the doubt and uncertainty stretches and strengthens our faith, as a muscle is strengthened by resistance to weights.

That being said, there is ample evidence for the Resurrection—more than enough to give skeptics second thoughts and to give believers assurance.

Shrouded in Questions
Before digging into the real evidence, it may be helpful to discuss the stuff that poses as proof of our Lord’s resurrection—the stuff that diverts our attention rather than builds our faith.

The evidence is not some burial cloth locked away in Italy. There’s been a debate about the Shroud of Turin’s authenticity for centuries, with skeptics and the faithful using science to make their respective claims. Just last year, scientists began a new round of “shroud-ology,” hoping to settle once and for all whether the burial cloth dates to the 13th century or first century.

However, try as they may to validate these claims, the faithful can’t carbon date the Shroud into proof of anything at all. By investing so much energy in the Shroud, they run the risk of being disappointed by scientific findings. Worse, some become believers in the Shroud rather than in the Christ.

The evidence is not in the writings of Josephus or other non-biblical sources, either. Josephus, after all, never called Jesus the Christ and did not argue that Jesus had risen. Rather, as Dr. James D. Tabor, a professor of Christian origins at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte, explains in Josephus on Jesus, the references in Josephus’ first-century writings that include the religiously loaded word “Christ” and assertions about Jesus’ resurrection were “rather clumsily added” sometime in the 11th century.

Josephus was not an apologist and doesn’t appear to have been a convert to Christianity. Instead, he offered “matter of fact, neutral reporting,” in Tabor’s words.

Josephus did, however, call Jesus “a wise man.” He noted that Jesus “drew many after him.” He reported that Pilate “condemned [Jesus] to the cross.” He reported on the claims of Christ’s resurrection—not on the Resurrection itself. There is a significant distinction. And, tellingly, he reported that Jesus’ followers “did not forsake him.” An older version of Josephus’ text cited by Tabor—an Arabic translation—puts it this way: “Those who had become his disciples did not abandon their loyalty to him.” (We’ll return to this in a moment.)

The “evidence” explained in The Da Vinci Code and other films and books from this strange genre is not accurate either. No matter what ABC News and The History Channel say—no matter how hard they try to scramble history and heresy, opinion and fact—it’s still all based on a work of fiction that is itself based on someone’s theory about a painting from the 15th century (Leonardo Da Vinci’s The Last Supper). It’s fiction pretending to be fact, a novel masquerading as a documentary.

We can hope and pray that God has mercy on those who have foisted this off as history, because pushing seekers away from their own pursuit of the Truth and planting the seeds of doubt in baby believers is dangerous ground. As Jesus warned, “If anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea” (Matthew 18:6).

Finally, the evidence is not even the empty tomb—at least not for us. After all, we don’t know where it is. We can’t point to the actual site. We didn’t see the hurried Sabbath-eve burial ceremony. Of course, for those who did, seeing the empty tomb meant everything. And that leads us to the real evidence of Christ’s resurrection: the existence of His Church, of Christianity itself.

Fighting against God
Jesus’ first followers were real people. They were proud and petty, short-sighted and short-tempered, and cowardly when Jesus needed them most. They ran from Gethsemane when the Roman soldiers and temple guards came to arrest their friend, their teacher, their Messiah. They hid in the shadows as He was led from jurisdiction to jurisdiction—from Caiaphas and Annas, to the Sanhedrin and Herod, to Pilate and the mob. They publicly disowned Him. And they locked themselves away somewhere outside Jerusalem, forgetting His promises and succumbing to their fears.

Yet the Church—our faith—somehow came into being because of these people. How? The only thing that can explain their transformation is an encounter with the risen Christ, the living God.

When Jesus was buried, the Gospels tell us that a detachment of Roman soldiers was stationed outside the tomb. Pilate ordered them to “make the tomb as secure as you know how” (Matthew 27:65).

How many of Caesar’s soldiers were there is not clear, but we do know that Roman military personnel were neither derelict nor fearful. They were highly professional and usually ruthless in carrying out orders. The disciples caught a glimpse of their ruthlessness during Christ’s arrest, torture, and execution, and they learned about the Roman military’s respect for order and the chain of command from firsthand experience with a centurion. “I myself am a man under authority with soldiers under me,” the godly soldier explained. “I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it” (Luke 7).

In other words, Roman legionnaires did what they were ordered. But on that first Easter morning, they were asleep “like dead men.” And the tomb was empty.

Matthew’s account tells us that the Sanhedrin grappled with how to smother the story. Ultimately, they “gave the soldiers a large sum of money,” encouraged them to report that the body had been stolen, and promised to cover for them if the story got out.

Just as they feared, the story was leaked. A shrewd teacher named Gamaliel finally convinced his fellow Pharisees to stop the cover-ups and persecutions with words that at once appealed to their reason and stabbed their collective conscience: “If their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God” (Acts 5).

Making All Things New
Among the first to hear the story that the Sanhedrin were trying to bury were Peter and John, who immediately “started for the tomb,” as John’s account explains. “Both were running.”

That little sentence tells us a lot. John and Peter ran to Jesus. Three days earlier, they had run away from Him.

Living in a time when even non-Christians embrace elements of Christ’s message, in a country where most people practice Christianity, in a place within walking distance of three different Christian denominations, I cannot blame the apostles for what they did and what they failed to do at Gethsemane. The most powerful military on earth—with a long record of brutally crushing any threat to Pax Romana—was knocking on their door. They had good reason to scatter in fear, to give up hope, and to hide on that long Sabbath Saturday.

Mark tells us that when the Roman centurions marched into the Gethsemane garden to seize Jesus, “everyone deserted him and fled.” One of them was so terrified that he “fled naked, leaving his garment behind.”

• Everyone fled. That included John and his brother James.

A week before Christ’s execution, the two were arguing about their position and place in Christ’s kingdom, demanding of their preoccupied teacher, “We want you to do for us whatever we ask” (Mark 10).

Their arrogance melted into fear once the Roman army arrived. But after they encountered the risen Christ, they became new men.

Acts 4 tells us that the Sanhedrin, including Caiaphas himself, was “astonished” by the “courage” of John. When the priests ordered John and Peter “not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus,” they refused. “Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God's sight to obey you rather than God,” they declared, “for we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.”

John went on to write a large chunk of the New Testament and was exiled for his faith in Jesus. James was so bold that he died for His savior at the hands of Herod.

• Everyone fled. That included Peter, the one who publicly and loudly disowned Jesus not once but three times. “I don’t know the man!” he exclaimed on that dark Friday.

But after the Resurrection, after Christ’s restoration, Peter would never disown Him again. Not only would he stand up to the Sanhedrin; he “stood up among the believers” and stood out in the world.

He became the leader of the Church, winning converts, counseling the unsure, healing the crippled, teaching the wise, breaking down barriers of race and religion, going to prison for his faith, and dying for Jesus. Peter was martyred sometime around 67 A.D.

• Everyone fled. That included Thomas.

When the other apostles told Thomas that Jesus had appeared to them, Thomas was dismissive. “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it” (John 20).

For Thomas, seeing was believing. But Jesus was quick to tell him otherwise. “Because you have seen me, you have believed,” Jesus said. “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

That encounter was enough to transform Thomas. “My Lord and my God!” he cried. The doubter had become a believer, and the believer became a lion. Tradition tells us that he died spreading the Good News far from his home, perhaps as far away as India.

• Everyone fled. That included Philip.

John tells us about the time Jesus turned a few fish and loaves into a feast for 5,000. Before He served His miracle feast, Jesus first tested His disciples, and Philip was one of the students that day.

“When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, ‘Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?’”

Philip’s answer was not exactly what we would expect from someone who believed He was standing in the very presence of God. “Eight months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each one to have a bite,” he nervously responded, focusing on what he did not have and overlooking that the Creator doesn’t need to shop for food.

Yet after the Resurrection, Philip had enough courage and faith to be imprisoned and martyred for Christ.

Philip was imprisoned and martyred for Christ in 54 A.D.

Some of those who formed the foundation of the Church were not at Gethsemane. James, the half-brother of Jesus, was probably among this group.

The Gospels tell us that Jesus was estranged from His family. According to John, “Even his own brothers did not believe in him.” Mark’s account quotes Jesus’ family as saying, “He is out of his mind.”

“At first he did not believe in Jesus and even challenged Him and misunderstood His mission,” one commentary writes of James (NIV Study Bible 10th Anniversary Edition, 1995). Yet sometime after the resurrection, James was transformed. He led the Council of Jerusalem and authored the New Testament book bearing his name, providing timeless instruction on Christian action, temptation and testing, faith and works, and the power of prayer. He died for his faith—for his brother and savior—in 62 A.D.

Secret Faith
Of course, some of Christ’s followers were transformed even before the Resurrection. Like us, they believed yet did not see. But unlike most of us, they expressed their belief at great risk to themselves.

Nicodemus was a key member of the Sanhedrin, and he had a reputation to protect. So, Nicodemus “came to Jesus at night,” as John reports. We shouldn’t miss the symbolism here. Nicodemus came under cover of darkness in order to protect his image. In response, Jesus delivered a blunt message about darkness and light: “Men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil,” He explained, no doubt sending a signal to His visitor. “But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.”

In a sense, Jesus was saying to Nicodemus and to us that it’s not enough just to know about Him or to know Him. We must also have the courage to identify ourselves with Him. Nicodemus wasn’t immediately ready to take that step. But he would get there.

During their encounter, Nicodemus asked questions and expressed doubts: “How can a man be born again when he is old?” It was a very personal and honest question for Nicodemus, and it was probably humbling for such a wise man to ask. “Surely he cannot enter a second time his mother’s womb to be born,” Nicodemus wondered aloud.

Jesus answered by explaining that everyone who believes in the Son will have eternal life.

There is no evidence that Nicodemus believed what Jesus was saying at the time. But the seeds were planted. And in John 7, Nicodemus openly defended Jesus before the Sanhedrin. In response, his colleagues mocked him with sneering questions. By John 19, the seeds had bloomed and the transformation of Nicodemus’ heart was well underway. With a courage the apostles lacked that weekend, Nicodemus prepared Jesus’ lifeless body for burial, wrapped his teacher in linen, and buried his Savior.

We can almost hear him whisper through his tears: “Now I understand. You were pierced for our transgressions. And through your blood and death we are born again.”

That is a life transformed.

Nicodemus wasn’t alone as he buried our Savior. Joseph of Arimathea, another “prominent” member of the Sanhedrin, in the words of Mark, assisted him. John tells us that Joseph “was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly” because he feared reprisals from other council members. But on that terrible Friday, Joseph revealed his heart to the world. Luke notes that Joseph “had not consented to [the] decision and action” of the Sanhedrin’s kangaroo court. And Mark reports that Joseph “went boldly to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body.”

His faith would never again be a secret. Indeed, Acts 6:7 reports that “a large number of priests became obedient to the faith.” It seems likely that it was Nicodemus and Joseph who shared the Good News with their fellow teachers.

Faithful Faith
This change in the disciples from “a snuffling band of unreliable followers into fearless evangelists,” as Philip Yancey argues in The Jesus I Never Knew, “offers the most convincing evidence for the resurrection.”

Many of them died for Christ, and all of them lived for Him. The author of Hebrews offers the details of what they endured. They “stood [their] ground in a great contest in the face of suffering,” were “publicly exposed to insult and persecution,” and “joyfully accepted the confiscation of [their] property.”

You can’t fake that kind of faith, and you don’t have that kind of faith in a hoax.

As the first generation of Christians passed from this life to the next, Christianity gradually changed from a faith of followers, eyewitnesses, personal connections, and Thomases into a faith of, well, faith. It grew into a faith comprised of people who believe and yet do not see. People like you and me.

Alan Dowd, a writer and researcher in Fishers, Ind., is the author of more than 400 articles covering everything from faith to philanthropy to foreign policy.

Why Does a Good God Permit Evil?

David Hume, the famous 18th-century philosopher, framed the issue as succinctly as anyone: “Is [God] willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil?”

Much closer to our time, philosopher H.J. McCloskey, in his 1962 article “The Problem of Evil,” describes the situation as follows: “The problem of evil is a very simple one to state. There is evil in the world; yet the world is said to be the creation of a good and omnipotent God. How is this possible? Surely a good, omnipotent God would have made a world free of evil of any kind.”

You don’t have to be a philosopher to feel this tension. All of us experience various types of evil, whether great or small, on a regular basis. Why would a good and all-powerful God allow this? Satisfying answers do not spring readily to mind.

It is therefore no surprise that the presence of evil drives many people to conclude that such a God does not exist. The logic is straightforward: “A God who is good and all-powerful cannot allow evil to exist, but evil does exist, therefore there is no good and all-powerful God.”

Obviously, many others come to a different conclusion. Despite the presence of evil, millions today do believe that God is both good and all-powerful. For some, the reality of evil causes pain but no tension; it is a sad fact of life in a fallen world. For others, however, the tension persists. They don’t give up their faith, but feel at times like their faith is shaky, or even that they’re somehow being dishonest, like those refusing to acknowledge a bad diagnosis.

So what can we say about the problem of evil? To answer this question we must ask five more.

Question 1: What do we mean by “evil”?

It’s important to begin here because we use the word “evil” in at least three different ways.

To begin, we sometimes use the term loosely to refer to things we don’t like, such as fruitcake or the DMV office (or the New York Yankees). That’s not the type of evil we’re discussing here.

Second, we sometimes use the word to refer to some sort of harm, misfortune, or negative circumstance we choose to bring upon ourselves. For example, I love to run. In fact, I love to run so much that I began training for a marathon. Now when training for a marathon, they say to build up your pace gradually, otherwise you will end up with an injury. But I went out for a long run at a pace that was way too fast for my poorly-trained body. The resulting injury meant I had to completely give up running for a time.

Interestingly, even though I knew this was entirely my fault, I still found myself saying, “Lord, why me?” And even though the answer was obvious, I wanted to blame someone else. Since God could have prevented this, he happened to be my first choice.

Here’s another example: What happens if a man is unfaithful to his wife and she leaves him? The suffering will be real, but it’s suffering he has brought upon himself. The responsibility is his, not God’s. These types of evil—the ones we choose to bring upon ourselves—are not what we’re talking about either.

Today we’re talking about evil in a third sense: the suffering we cannot control. Sometimes it is due to the moral choices of others: a parent abuses us; a drunk driver kills a beloved friend; our parents divorce. Other times the suffering comes from natural events: a hurricane destroys a city; a tsunami wipes out 250,000 people; a child is stricken with leukemia. It is this type of evil—the suffering we can’t control or prevent—that leads to the “problem of evil.” It is in the face of this type of suffering that we sometimes conclude, “Surely a good and all-powerful God does not exist.”
And this leads to our second question.

Question 2: Does the problem of evil prove that there is no good and all-powerful God?

For many, the answer to this question is a slam-dunk: “Of course it does.”

But how so? What does the argument look like? It’s not enough simply to declare this. We have to explain why the presence of evil leads us to this conclusion. For example, consider the following sentence: “All single men are bachelors; therefore, Abraham is not a bachelor.” As it stands, this is not an argument; the first statement does not necessarily lead to the second. In order for this to be an argument, we need to add another statement: “All single men are bachelors; Abraham is not a single man; therefore, Abraham is not a bachelor.” Now we have an argument.

Similarly, if we say, “Evil exists; therefore there is no good and all-powerful God,” we have not made an argument. The first statement does not necessarily lead to the second. We need other statements in between. Perhaps the most common approach goes as follows: “Evil exists; a good and all-powerful God would not permit evil unless there was a justifiable reason; if there were a justifiable reason, it would be apparent to us; there does not appear to be any justifiable reason for evil; therefore such a God does not exist.” Now we have an argument. The argument only works, of course, if we know that each of the additional statements is true. Are they?

Many have pointed out there is a huge assumption here, namely, that if a good and all-powerful God has reasons for allowing evil, then we as finite human beings would be able to figure them out . But why should we assume this to be true? As finite beings we’re limited in ways that an infinite being is not. He may have reasons we cannot begin to comprehend.

Philosopher William Alston gets at it this way: Suppose that some of the very best scientists in the world come up with a new theory about quantum physics. Suppose I, as a non-physicist, look at their theory and say, “Because I cannot figure it out, they must be wrong.” It’s possible they might be wrong, but I have no real basis for knowing.

Alston’s point is simply this: We are not in a position to assume that if an infinite God has reasons for allowing evil, then we as finite and fallible beings should be able to figure them out. And because we cannot assume this, any argument which does—such as the approach identified above—has not proved anything at all.

Naturally, some of us hear this and say, “I don’t care how the philosophical arguments go. I still feel in my heart of hearts that there are types of suffering that are so bad—so unjust—that it is impossible that a good and all-powerful God exists.” This leads to the next question.

Question 3: How is evil a problem for atheism?

As soon as we use the term “evil”, we are making a judgment; we’re saying that something is wrong, that injustice exists in the world. We feel that it is wrong for one person to murder another. We feel that it is unjust for a man like Hitler to murder six million people. And we feel this way because we believe human beings have dignity and, as a result, fundamental rights.

But on what basis do we feel this? Christians respond that we have been created in God’s image and given inherent worth by Him. But if this is not true—if we’re simply the random product of evolutionary forces—then where does such dignity come from? At this point even many secular thinkers acknowledge that it is difficult—if not impossible—to argue that we have any inherent dignity or worth if there is no God. In his 2000 article, “A Common Humanity,” atheist thinker Raimond Gaita states it this way: “The secular philosophical tradition speaks of inalienable rights, inalienable dignity, and of persons as ends in themselves. These are, I believe, ways of whistling in the dark, ways of trying to make secure to reason what reason cannot finally underwrite. Religious traditions speak of the sacredness of each human being, but I doubt that sanctity is a concept that has a secure home outside those traditions.”

If, for example, we’re watching a National Geographic special on lions and see one lion kill another, do we sense that it has committed a wrong? That it has in some way transgressed the dignity of the other? No, we think only that this is a matter of nature working its course. The first lion is under no moral obligation to let the second live.

But let us not miss the point: Without God, we are no different than the lion in terms of dignity; we are simply smarter animals on a different branch of the evolutionary tree. It is no more wrong or unjust for one person to kill another than it is for one lion to kill another, or for the robin to eat the worm. It might be unwise to murder, because there will be penalties to pay. It might go against community opinion in terms of what is right and wrong. It might be unfortunate for the person who is murdered. But in no way is it fundamentally wrong; no injustice has occurred. It is simply the working out of the survival of the fittest.

None of this, of course, is meant to disprove atheism. It is simply meant to illustrate a point: If our hearts tell us there is evil in the world—that certain acts are horribly wrong because they transgress our dignity and worth—then retreating to atheism doesn’t help us, since atheism—to be consistent—can’t provide a basis for human dignity in the first place. In this regard, evil is just as much a problem for the atheist as it is for the believer.

At this point someone might well respond: “All that’s been said so far is that evil does not disprove God and that evil is also a problem for atheism. So what? The question still remains: How could a good and all-powerful God allow so much evil and suffering in the world?”

Let me admit up front that we do not know what the answer is. But, as Tim Keller says in his book The Reason for God, we do know what the answer is not. And this leads to the fourth question.

Question 4: How might the fact that God himself experienced evil help us?

The foundation of the Christian story is this: In the person of Jesus of Nazareth, God has entered into human history and voluntarily experienced ultimate suffering and evil, all as an act of love for us. Christian writer Dorothy Sayers puts it this way:

The incarnation [of God in the person of Jesus of Nazareth] means that for whatever reason God chose to let us fall into a condition of being limited, to suffer, to be subject to sorrows and death—he has nonetheless had the honesty and the courage to take his own medicine ... . He himself has gone through the whole of human experience—from the trivial irritations of family life and the cramping restrictions of hard work and lack of money to the worst horrors of pain and humiliation, defeat, despair, and death ... . He was born in poverty and ... suffered infinite pain—all for us—and thought it well worth his while.

On the one hand, Sayers is pointing out that Jesus’ sufferings were many and real. In the Gospels you see Him rejected and slandered (Matthew 12:24), misunderstood by family and friends (John 11:16; 14:8), abandoned and betrayed by those who loved Him (Matthew 26:47-56; Luke 22:54-62), and suffering unimaginable physical violence (Matthew 27:27-35). Be it emotional or physical pain, God has not kept Himself immune from the suffering of this world.

BE IT EMOTIONAL OR PHYSICAL PAIN, GOD HAS NOT KEPT HIMSELF IMMUNE FROM THE SUFFERING OF THE WORLD.

But even more significantly, Sayers points out that He did all this as an act of love for us (John 10:11-18; 15:13). The Scriptures teach we’ve all contributed to this world’s suffering, be it from things we have done or failed to do. So how can God bring justice for these things—to make sure that someone pays for them—without destroying we who are guilty? Only by paying the penalty Himself. This is the unique message of Christianity: God’s love for us propels Him to pay our penalty on our behalf, and in so doing to experience evil in all its ferocious brutality.

So how can a good and all-powerful God allow suffering and evil? We simply don’t know. As Keller states, however, we know what the answer is not: It is not because He doesn’t love us; it’s not because He doesn’t care; it’s not because He doesn’t understand. It cannot be any of these, for his love-propelled voluntary suffering on our behalf tells us otherwise. Writer John Stott, in his book The Cross of Christ, explains:

I could never myself believe in God, if it were not for the cross. The only God I believe in is the One Nietzsche ridiculed as “God on the cross.” In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it? ... [The God I worship is] that lonely, twisted, tortured figure on the cross, nails through hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wrenched, brow bleeding from thorn-pricks, mouth dry and intolerably thirsty, plunged in God-forsaken darkness. That is the God for me! He laid aside his immunity to pain. He entered our world of flesh and blood, tears and death. He suffered for us. … There is still a question mark against human suffering, but over it we … stamp another mark, the cross, which symbolizes divine suffering.

And this leads to our last question. The fact that God voluntarily suffered evil might demonstrate His love, but is this where the story ends? Is this world simply like one long, sad movie, with a God who understands our suffering, who loves us in our suffering, and yet who does nothing about it in the end?

Question 5: Where does the story end?

In the second to last chapter of the Bible, we read this description of what the end will be like: “[God] will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” (Revelation 21:4). The very things that cause us suffering now—death, mourning, pain—will be gone. On what basis is this claim made? The resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth from the dead.

IF HE CAN DEFEAT THE STRONGEST OF EVILS, THEN HE CAN DEFEAT ALL THE REST.

We may think of it this way. Suffering and evil show up in all sorts of ways: poverty, war, abuse, relational pain, and ultimately death itself. These are all similar in one way—we label them as evil. But one of them is unique: Death is the only one that can never be avoided. People may be brought out of poverty; wars and abuses may end; relational pain can be healed; but death is unavoidable. It is the strongest expression of evil there is. No one has ever ultimately defeated it—except Jesus. The Scriptures teach that God not only suffered and died on our behalf, He also came to life again and defeated death itself. Which means this: If He can defeat the strongest of evils, then He can defeat all the rest.

Why does He not do so sooner? The Bible doesn’t say. But its certainty about the end of the story is not rooted in wishful thinking; it is rooted in a cosmic battle that has already taken place, a battle in which Jesus has defeated the worst of all evils. It is this Jesus—this victorious king—who not only comforts us in our present suffering, but who will one day come again and defeat suffering in all its forms. This—and nothing less—is the assurance that belongs to those who name Him as their king.

Jay Sklar is Associate Professor of Old Testament at Covenant Theological Seminary, where he has taught since 2001. He is still training for the marathon.