My penfriend Frank Berger has posted an outstandingly clarifying blog post today - short, punchy, exactly what is needed:
People who perceive the evil gripping the West can generally be divided in two distinct groups.
The first group believes the system has been corrupted, and they advocate for the removal of the evil forces and elements that have caused the corruption. Put another way, people in this camp believe the system is inherently good, or at least was inherently good before dark interests debased it. Purge the evil from the system, the first group argues, and the system can be saved.
The second group, on the other hand, sees the system as purposefully corrupt and evil. People in this group believe the system has been designed by evil for the purpose of creating chaos and promoting damnation. Evil cannot be purged from the system because the system itself is evil embodied. Purging evil from the system would result in the elimination of the system (which is exactly what most in the second group believe should / needs to happen).
So where do you land? Do you see evil in a corrupted but otherwise good system? Or do you see only an evil system?
My comment: I see an evil system - but I am afraid of the implications of such an insight, and so I resisted it for a very long time.
Acknowledging that the system is itself designed for evil implies it needs to be destroyed - and the system is almost everywhere now. Destroying the evil system probably means disruption (and presumably, suffering, disease, death) on a scale never before seen.
I see that as a kind of death grip that evil now has upon the world - evil holds us to ransom - at least so far as this-worldly aspects are concerned. We have a situation in which the destruction of evil will almost certainly mean triggering the destruction of our civilisation - and therefore (almost certainly) our-selves and those we love.
More accurately, I think it means making this happen earlier rather than later - because evil is parasitic and un-sustainable - so such a 'crash and burn' will happen whatever we do; but by supporting the evil system, this inevitable collapse can be delayed.
But the price of doing so escalates. It gets harder and harder to delay collapse, and we would have to give more and more to sustaining the evil system for this to happen.
The only 'answer' - which would ensure we 'did the right thing' (rather than being drawn into ever-greater evil, as is currently the situation) is a really solid and motivating belief in the Heavenly Life Everlasting beyond death, attained through following Jesus with love.
This is why I try to emphasise the teaching of the Fourth Gospel - it is the Christian understanding that we most need now and in the days to come.
