Evil is an insidious thing. Though we may often imagine evil as a benign
little devil perched on our shoulder, its influence is hardly as subtle
as that.1 Experience dictates that, if evil exists at all, it is a malignant
entity that spreads like an undetected cancer. It manifests itself in
the viciousness of our dark desires, but we also sense its effects in
the perversion of our best intentions. We suspect that evil creeps into
our relationships and communities, even poisoning the best of our cultural
systems and governing bodies. Though such an assessment sounds paranoid,
modern history seems to agree. We are no longer surprised to see well-behaved,
decent citizens condoning and participating in the evil of genocide. We
readily note that cultures and governments are even more fallible to corruption
than their constituent citizenry, often creating a systemic framework
that protects evil practices instead of punishing them. Even
religion and religious people can be co-opted by evil’s perversity.
Perhaps we would do well to be wary of evil.
But if we declare evil to be such a perverse and expansive entity,
what must we say about good? If the Christian gospel is to lay a claim
on overcoming evil, shouldn’t its scope be broader and
more powerful than its adversary? Wouldn’t it be peculiar for
Christians to treat the message of redemption as if it were a benign
angel atop our other shoulder, smiling benevolently at evil’s
ravenous rampage? Do our actions betray the belief that, though we see
evil (or “sin”) as an infectious and invasive foe, we see
no promise in the gospel to overcome the weaknesses in our bodies, communities,
and ruling powers?
Of course, the concept of a wide-reaching and able-bodied gospel does
not necessarily require that its war against evil must be fought on
the same grounds and with the same methods. A Biblical perspective reminds
us that, though the expression of evil may take many forms, its foundation
remains spiritual: “For our struggle is not against flesh and
blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the
powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in
the heavenly realms” (Eph. 6:12). Perhaps the evil that manifests
itself in physical, psychological, communal, and systemic entities are
the symptoms, not the causes, of a fundamentally spiritual disease.
Perhaps the gospel, as the conqueror of evil, is a medicine whose roots
are similarly spiritual.
But even thinking of evil as a spiritual sickness does not give us
license to ignore its symptomatic effects. What doctor prescribes a
medicine that only treats a disease with no hope of alleviating the
symptoms? Though the foundation of the gospel rests in both personal
and spiritual truths, it must sponsor applications to domains greater
than that of an individual’s struggle with sin. The gospel must
have something to say about fighting the metastasis of sin in the community,
cultures, governments, and systems that evil has come to infect. It
must demand that we not only pray for our sick neighbors, but heal and
serve them as well. It demands that we not only give money to our poor
but restructure our own communities and lives to restore them as well.
Jesus was not one to neglect need, however diverse and debilitating.
Matthew 8:16-17 records one of many instances where Jesus healed entire
crowds of spiritually and physically sick people: “When evening
came, many who were demon-possessed were brought to him, and he drove
out the spirits with a word and healed all the sick. This was to fulfill
what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah: ‘He took up our infirmities
and carried our diseases.’” Some chapters later, Matthew
describes Jesus’ own perspective on the believers’ responsibility:
that we are to feed the hungry, show hospitality to the stranger, clothe
the naked, care for the sick, and even visit those in prison (Matt.
25:31-46). It is quite evident that Jesus expects his followers to,
at the very least, be merciful by healing the symptoms of evil.
The gospel cannot be contained in rhetoric and spirituality alone.
But what is the gospel? Perhaps we have been confusing the term with
the large and vague concept of “good.” Is the gospel only
a message of “good news”? Or is it a force designed to counteract
and transform evil? Is it merely a miracle drug that we inject into
infected cells? No; the gospel is more, and more personal than these
things. Jesus himself declared, “I am the resurrection and the
life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever
lives and believes in me will never die” (John 11:25-26). If evil
results in torment and death, then good – gospel – must
result in healing and life. This is precisely what Jesus declares himself
to be: not the message of life but rather life itself.
The faith of the Christian does not reside in a message but
a person; Christians do not profess to believe in the message
of Jesus Christ, but the person and life that Jesus Christ is.
This is profound because the gospel then is not merely a message or
a force, but something as organic, communicable, and personal as evil.
In essence, the gospel is the communication of life: one that opens
up individuals to the person of Jesus Christ, who then begins the work
of transforming the individual, the individual’s relationships,
the individual’s community, and the systems that the individual
participates in. It is not merely a medicine but something alive
in itself.
But what does this really mean? We hear so much about how Jesus changes
individuals, but can he really speak into our tortuous humanity? Does
the gospel really hold promise for transformation beyond the individual?
Is it something we can communicate to another culture without the historical
(and evil) perversion of cultural imperialism? Is the gospel translatable
in our relationships, our cultures, and our systems?
There are no easy answers to these questions. Contemporary culture
is partly justified in its wariness of Christianity, for our long and
bloody history of “culturally insensitive” methods of evangelism
bear witness to the insidiousness of evil. Post-modernity says to us,
“Your religion is not superior to anyone else’s because
it is not inherently true, but merely culturally true.
It is the cultural by-product of geographic, ethnic, and ritualistic
boundaries. Because cultures and their mores are different and deterministic,
all have the same moral value: nothing. So shut up.” Post-modernity
has cast the preaching of the gospel as a social phenomenon on par with
spitting while talking: an annoying and disgusting habit to be politely
tolerated – if not gently rebuked – from time to time.
It is little surprise that contemporary Christians are often hesitant
to speak of the gospel’s capacity to act beyond the individual.
We fear accusations of being puppets manipulated by Western culture
for the purposes of domination and cultural assimilation. Yet we are
thoroughly convinced that the power of the gospel is the power of life.
What is there left for us to say?
Bryant Meyers, the former Vice President for International Program
Strategy at World Vision International (one of the oldest and most successful
non-profit Christian humanitarian organizations), speaks about the work
of the gospel in culture this way:
God at one and the same time upholds a given political
or economic system, since some such system is required to support human
life; condemns that system insofar as it is destructive to
full human actualization; and presses for its transformation
into a more human order. Conservatives stress the first, revolutionaries
the second, reformers the third. The Christian is expected to hold together
all three.2
Communication between cultures often degenerates into conflict because
each culture assumes a different and opposing stance: the speaking culture
tends to act as a revolutionary aggressor while the recipient culture
responds with conservative defensiveness. The result is either grudging
transformation (often seen as imperialism) or outright hostility. The
simple, non-confrontational solution suggested by post-modernism is
to simply leave both cultures alone. The historical solution has been
to imperialistically assert the superiority of one over the other. The
gospel solution is to embrace an outside arbiter – the person
of Jesus Christ – who then dwells within each culture and upholds,
condemns, and transforms both of them. The gospel cannot be a tool of
cultural assimilation because it subjects the speaking culture to the
same rubric as the recipient one! Yes, it condemns the evil that is
present in other cultures, but that does not mean it is silent about
the evil in the culture it was spoken from. It demands transformation
but it does not necessarily demand that the transformation result in
conformity. Therefore, if one culture seeks to speak the gospel to another,
it must assume a position of genuine vulnerability and humility: a posture
that admits weakness and steps away from superiority and competition.
We would do well to look to Jesus Christ for guidance in how we ought
to communicate the gospel. The act of the incarnation was the ultimate
demonstration of the organic and communicable nature of the gospel.
Like us, Jesus felt the sorrows generated by evil’s effects. Jesus
spoke to us with human language, with human emotions, and with terms
humans could understand. Jesus was someone that humans could listen
to and be listened to by. Jesus Christ was the living expression of
God’s redemption in terms that we could see, touch, and understand.
Jesus was God-translated-into-flesh.
If God, who holds all authority over humanity, saw fit to translate
his work of redemption into a person who “humbled himself and
took on the very nature of a servant” (Phil. 2:7), how much more
willing should we be to communicate the gospel in the same way? When
Christians speak of the gospel as something that moves beyond the individual
and into culture and community, or as a message that moves from one
culture into another, it must be communicated with this same sort of
humility and service. In order to speak the gospel, we must become the
incarnation of Jesus Christ; we must remove ourselves from a position
of competition and enter instead into one of service and of love. We
must speak it in terms that others can understand: not simply in language,
but in experience and culture as well. We must speak the gospel compassionately.
And when we speak, we can speak with compassion because we, too, have
suffered under the harsh dominion of evil. We speak as the victims –
and even as proponents – of evil’s perversion. But we speak
to those who wish to be freed of the same. The word “compassion”
is derived from the Latin words cum (with) and pati (suffer). The commonality
of our suffering under evil means that we can also share in the commonality
of liberation from it. We can seek the same hope and joy inexpressible:
the chance to see Christ redeem and transform our broken lives, cultures,
and systems into something that mirrors the beauty of God.
1 David Kim, “On Confessions of an Economic Hitman,” Revisions
(Winter 2006). http://campuscgi.princeton.edu/~manna/journal/article.cgi/winter06kim
2 Bryant Meyers, Walking With the Poor (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books,
1999): 45.
David Chen ‘05 graduated from the Department of Electrical
Engineering and will be attending medical school in the fall.