Terrorism: The face of Evil
Father Pothin's Reflection for May 28, 2017
In America, today is Memorial Day week end, the day we honor our heroes who fought evil. Across the Christians world, today is “ascension” Sunday, the day we celebrate Christ’s “ascent” to heaven and His great commission to apostles:” Go ye and of all nations make my disciples…” In other words, go in the world and uproot the tree of Evil, go into the world and defeat “terrorism.”
I invite you to read this weekly reflection against the backdrop of the surge of terrorism in today’s world. We Christians cannot ignore, not any more, the danger that terrorism (of all kind) represents to our survival and the survival of our belief system. Speaking against terrorism is speaking against “evil doers” or “evil thinkers.” Speaking against terrorism is in line with the mission of the church, the great commission of Christ to his apostles, to deny evil doers any safe refuge here on earth. The inability to recognize evil among us, or the temptation to justify it one way or the other, is a spiritual blindness, it is a sin.
Those saying that terrorists (all ranges) are just the victims of poverty reacting to their “unjust” conditions of living ,are on the wrong side of the truth. Such statement is a political artifact aim at obscuring the true reality of the spread of evil in the society. If poverty or the disparity of social status were the inevitable reason for/the cause of terrorism, then the majority of world households would have produced at least one terrorist each. We know that is not the case. Why then is this evil doing/evil thinking spreading from one region, the wealthier region of the globe? Why is it that this extremist ideology is carried out or sponsored by the least poor on earth? Just as something is wrong in the terrorist mind, something is equally wrong in the mind of whosoever (political or religious leader) finds reasons to justify the unjustifiable reasons leading to terrorism. You cannot explain evil or paint it for what it is not. Evil is evil.
What shall we do? Condemn these barbaric acts vehemently. Use our churches’ media outlets to post statements of condemnations. What will that accomplish? Rise awareness, our self-awareness about the danger of evil around us. Being aware of evil in our surrounding is a small but important step in the fight against the devil. But we cannot win this fight if we are not deeply committed to our churches’ life, I mean our churches gatherings. Our attendances and involvement shall exceed expectations if we are to win this battle against evil; this means going back to our original sense as a church, the very first place that defeated the deceiver on earth. Church is the footstool of humanity. What else can we do? Get out into our community, reach out, and reclaim the place that we, the church, once held in the history of the mankind, that is a nest of spiritual safety, a classroom of knowledge of evil and good. We cannot leave this “fight” against terrorism be fought by the political society alone. We are the church which has led and won all fights against evil in the history; we cannot afford to sit of the sideline and watch. Nothing shall stop us from getting involved in the world to uproot the work of evil: not the smallness of our congregation nor its lack of financial resources. Our future as human is at stake and requires an unprecedented involvement in the world. The real truth behind every terrorist attacks, small or big, happening here or oversea, is the eradication of “Christ-like values,” “human values.” As our Lord Himself said in today’s gospel, “they shall put you out of the synagogues, yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service. And these things will they do unto you because they have not known the Father nor me. But these things have I told you that when the time shall come, ye may remember.”
The best way to honor our heroes on this memorial day ,to continue the “great commission” is to become foot soldiers of Christ, get up and fight evil with all our might.
–Fr Pothin
