(Ephesians 6:12)

By Kim Thoday

I have long felt caught between liberal and conservative approaches to Christian theology and practise. I often find myself sympathising with some aspects of either side. I recently attended a lecture by the controversial Bishop John Spong who made a lightening visit to Adelaide, South Australia. I warmed to much of his critique of traditional Christianity but found myself objecting to his liberal-rational paradigmatic dismantling of some major tenets of the Christian faith. He is certainly a gifted communicator and is able to affectively relate old liberal theological conclusions that date back to David Strauss and others. One aspect of his presentation particularly troubled me; namely, his treatment of evil. Spong basically argues that evil is a by-product of human evolution. He accepts the scientific approach of darwinian evolution and from this he develops the idea that “evil” is really the negative phenomena of the human teleological struggle from its primordial beginnings toward some higher order. I hope that this is a fair summation of Spong’s argument. If it is, then I think there is a whole host of ethical and theological issues at stake that go well beyond the scope of this article. But I would want to say at the very least that this understanding of evil would undoubtedly have played into the hands of certain national-socialists of the 1930s.

One of my important mentors in Christian ministry and discipleship is the late Dr Athol Gill. He was an inspiration to many both in Australia and internationally. He was a Baptist pastor who was a leading figure in the radical discipleship movement in Australia during the 1970s and 1980s. He founded a number of intentional Christian communities in Australia and was appointed Professor of Biblical Studies at the Whitely Baptist College in Victoria. Athol had previously studied and completed his doctorate under Professor Eduard Schweizer in Ruschlikon in Switzerland. So Athol was steeped in the very best of germanic biblical criticism. Yet one thing, amongst others, impressed many of his students and that was: though he approached the Bible and Christian theology from the point of view of rigorous historical-critical methodology, it was never a closed paradigm. Athol would always allow for and seek the wisdom and insights of other methodologies. In this way he was healthily postmodern. And he was healthily sceptical too; the result of an enormous intellectual capacity. So, being aware of Athol’s sceptical mind but his warm Christian heart, I relate the following story that Athol told in order to caution anyone thinking they have at last explained and solved the problem of evil.

I have no written source for this story. It is from one of the many Athol Gill lectures I was privileged to attend in the late 1980s. He spoke of a time when he and his wife were travelling through Poland with some friends to visit a Baptist pastor. It was a long trip through a remote part of Poland. It took them all the day to reach their destination. They set off early in the morning. Half way along the journey they travelled along the edge of an enormous pine forest; magnificent in all its splendour and rugged isolation.

All of a sudden the four of them, travelling in the one car, were simply overwhelmed with a sense of foreboding. All had the experience quite independently. Athol said he had never experienced anything like it before or since in his life. For about a kilometre it lasted. Athol said it was like a suffocating presence of evil and misery – a lurking sinister presence. It was a physical and spiritual experience. It was difficult even to speak at the time. After that kilometre stretch the feeling subsided as quickly as it had arrived. But they were quite haunted by it for the rest of the journey and spoke of it as each had experienced it.

Finally their journey ended. So affected were they by their unusual experience, they soon spoke of it to their hosts. The polish pastor became intrigued by the story and brought out a map of the way they had come. Using the map they could pinpoint the kilometre stretch with some precision. Gathered around the map came the horrifying revelation. The map quite clearly revealed that, unknown to these foreign travellers at the time, upon that kilometre stretch they had passed alongside the edge of the ruins of one of the Nazi Death camps, hidden behind some of the dense pine forest.

It seems to me that we Westerners often do not fully appreciate the power and nature of evil. Nor to we perhaps recognise the reality that spiritual realities – both positive and negative – can reside in physical places. I am coming to realise and experience at times that there is in fact a thin veil between the temporal and the spiritual. Indigenous peoples it seems have a far deeper appreciation of some of these realities with their designations of sites, sacred and corrupt. Not that I believe physical places or objects themselves generate or harbour good or evil. The source is a spiritual one; more to do with the human heart. What I am suggesting is that the spirit realm, for good or evil, has a bearing upon all things. I do not want to return, either, to some pre-Enlightenment epistemology or cosmology. Who really would want to resuscitate a world-view of medieval superstition. I think that we do need to recognise that more than one paradigm might be necessary to minister the Christian Gospel in holistic ways to a broken and searching humanity.

So while I am “Enlightened” enough to realise that much evil is human-made and needs to be addressed through rational, scientific, humanitarian approaches, I also believe that evil has a deeper spiritual genesis that requires a holistic resistance. I am reminded of the great words of the Epistle to the Christians in Ephesus: “For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” (Ephesians 6:12)

Blessings in Jesus’ name

KIM THODAY

HEWETT COMMUNITY CHURCH OF CHRIST, SOUTH AUSTRALIA

http://www.hewett.org.au