The Mystery of Iniquity
As Americans today we are reeling from the news of the mass murder in Orlando. We all cry out in solidarity as a nation for respect and security for all our fellow citizens. I believe it is incumbent on traditional Christians to express most clearly their solidarity with their gay and lesbian neighbors.
I have been thinking today about the nature of human evil. The media have so far managed a partial picture of the perpetrator. He was fueled by anger toward our LGBT neighbors, affected by mental illness, and influenced by the ideology of hatred and violence found in ISIS. This seems typical of human sin. There is an irreducible dimension of human responsibility, the outgrowth of the vice of anger and hatred. But this is entangled with his own weakness. He was himself mentally ill, impaired. Finally there is always the dimension of what the New Testament calls the ‘powers and principalities.’ These are corrupt structures of belief and relationship, beyond the individual, that makes human society tilt toward wrong. Whether in some smaller cruelty or in the horrendous, these three are ubiquitous. Why they are with us in this God’s world is itself a mystery only made clear on the last day when every tear is dried and, before Christ, we see face to face.
Peace
+GRS
