Return to the M.B.Herald Vol. 36, No. 21 Home PageIf you have read J.R.R. Tolkien's Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, you may have been intrigued by the cost of fighting evil. Of course, there was the danger of injury, defeat and death. But even in victory there seemed to be a price of contamination for engaging evil so closely. Both Bilbo and Frodo were deeply damaged for having carried "the Ring".
This risk also seems true in life. As an American raised in the 1960s and 1970s, I was engaged in the moral struggle against racism and war. And yet there was a price to pay--the cynicism and resentment that poisoned my appreciation of people and my country.
It's taken years to recover from those attitudes. In the meantime, I have not softened my opposition to evil, but I have come to know myself as less than pure. It's unfortunate that in the heat of the battle, we become more characterized by what we are against than what we are for.
Even the prophet Elijah got some twisted ideas when fighting evil. Following his greatest victory over evil--the contest on Mount Carmel--he ran off to the wilderness. He became a coward and a complainer. He wanted to die and whined that he was the only one left who had been faithful and zealous for God (I Kings 19:10). And yet there were still 7,000 faithful followers.
The evil of the battle contaminates us as well. How else would some justify bombing abortion clinics or compromising honesty to lure abortion-minded women into crisis pregnancy clinics to save their babies? Or why do we sometimes secretly gloat over someone who gets AIDS--or, for that matter, any sinful person when he or she is punished?
I think that when we battle evil, we forget who is in control. We think that the battle is ours and feel responsible to win it by any means. That's when the evil one has the chance to entice us to use one of his tactics.
Dave Jackson is a freelance writer from Evanston, IL.
Return to the M.B.Herald Vol. 36, No. 21 Home Page