Dealing with Evil

Extract

Our previous conference had been held in Leeds on 9-12 September 2001 and during the course of the last morning but one, word came through of the spectacular assault on tens of thousands of civilians in New York. Some had watched it live on television after breakfast. By midday we had learnt that the twin towers of the World Trade Centre had collapsed with many people inside. Outrageous and brilliantly executed as it was, we quickly realised that it was one more example of an assault on innocents in a political cause to add to Srebrenica, Tel Aviv, Jenin, now Bali and so many others. Whatever the political injustices, real or perceived, they could not justify such an assault on ordinary people. Here evil was at work.

Suggestions for the next conference inevitably included: forgiveness, reconciliation, Christian-Muslim relations, but in the end the committee decided to pull several themes together under the topic Dealing with Evil. The purpose was to have a moment of theological reflection on an ever-present theme without getting caught up excessively in the crises of the moment.

The conference opened with the paper by John Hemer on how God dealt with evil through Jesus on the cross. Here, we were told, is God’s rejection of an apocalyptic overcoming of evil in some dramatic resolution. The God incarnate in Jesus Christ is no deus ex machina who stops the forces of destruction in their tracks. Jesus confronts evil by suffering it and refusing to perpetuate it. Karen Kilby examines the tradition of ‘theodicy’ where philosophers of religion try to answer the question of why an omnipotent and loving God allows evil to flourish in our world.