Evil: You Should Know It When You See It

The Golden Compass

 

But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost,

whom the Father will send in my name,

he shall teach you all things,

and bring all things to your remembrance,

whatsoever I have said unto you.

— John 14:26

             

            Maddy, 7, was balancing her green Water Weenie on her head, wearing her pink flannel Hello Kitty jammies, and rolling along on her new "heelies" - sneakers with roller wheels in the heels that leave long smudges on her mother's once-proud wood floors.

 

            I scoffed over how silly she looked. She retorted in her most humorous cartoon space alien voice:

 

            "YOU need to be REFUNCTIONED!!!"

 

            I thought, with dripping irony: "And YOU don't?!?"

 

            But you know, we all do. God wants it for us. That's The Plan.

 

            When you turn the keys to your life over to Jesus and get born again, He starts the "refunctioning" process. But it's not a joke; not a cartoon. It's how to stiffen up your character so that you're not such a slippery Water Weenie when it comes to moral choices. It's how to plant your feet on solid Biblical ground instead of the slip-slidey fads and idol-worshipping of contemporary culture.

 

            That's why Jesus came. It's the real deal behind Christmas.

 

            God's "refunctioning" is characterized by the recognition of sin and a firm resistance and repentance thereof. Discerning evil quickly and accurately -- being careful to avoid it and courageous to oppose it -- is how we can function in such an evil world.

 

            Exhibit A: the nine bodies in the mall shooting in Omaha last week. It's obvious that those murders and the gunman's suicide were evil. It's obvious that it happened because the gunman suppressed any empathy for the innocent people he shot to death so brutally. He viewed them as objects in one of those video games he was obsessed with, not humans with families and friends. He made a lot of bad choices, but in the end, this happened because he couldn't or wouldn't be guided by love to know right from wrong.

 

            Father, forgive him. But those of us who AREN'T whacked out on drugs or beat down by a lifetime of let-downs by home, school and work have no excuse for choosing sin.

 

            Because we have the Teacher . . . the Christmas Child.

 

            All the ism's out there rioting for our attention these days - atheism, relativism, nihilism, post-modernism - and many other religions tell the lie that there's no such thing as "good" and "evil." You know: that "yin-yang" thing. But God would have us know otherwise. Evil today is very tricky; it often has a pretty face. So God implanted a conscience in each of us. He gave us the Bible as a how-to book for life, prayer as a teaching tool, and, if you're born again, you get the Holy Spirit as a 24/7 in-house tutor.

 

            So He has equipped us for our duty, which is to do what's good . . . but also to point out what's bad. One of the things I promised God to do in response to the Omaha massacre was to try to get better at discerning evil, and to tell others, especially other parents, about bad influences that could push a child down that same slippery slope toward evil. The hubbub right now is over the movie, The Golden Compass, based on the first book in the trilogy, His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman. So I bought the 933-page trilogy, and here's a short report:

 

            -- First clue it's an anti-Christian book: the preprinted ad on the cover trumpets "A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE HOLIDAY 2007." Couldn't even bring themselves to acknowledge the word "Christmas," eh?

 

            -- The first book, on which the movie is based, might be tame and vague. But the bad stuff comes later, especially in the third book. It's the same principle as any other kind of sin: the glittery, attractive, false front hooks you in, and conceals the pain and suffering to you and others as a result of your bad choice.

 

            -- Almost every page has some kind of blasphemy or twisted ripoff of the Bible. Witches and demons are good. Angels are weaklings. Evil characters have names that actually stand for good, like "Serafina" the witch (seraphim) and the "Magisterium" (the Nazi-like bad guys in the trilogy; also a word for the authority of the Catholic Church). Helpful "familiar spirits" (banned in a dozen places in the Bible, including Leviticus 19:31) cavort throughout. The "good" bear makes his own armor, a rebuke to the whole armor of God described in Ephesians 6:13-17. A majestic tree suddenly uproots after a girl turns her back on her faith, symbolizing the rejection of God's Tree of Life and the most common euphemism for the Cross (p. 878).

 

            -- Authority is ridiculed, what's good is bad, and vice versa. Consider these quotes:

 

"But after that I never trusted children any more than grownups. They're just as keen to do bad things. . . . But I was glad when the witches came." (p. 489)

 

Then Mrs. Coulter found the angel's face under her hand, and she dug her fingers deep into his eyes. (p. 846)

 

Demented and powerless, the aged being could only weep and mumble in fear and pain and misery. . . . (H)is form began to loosen and dissolve. (The "death" of "the ancient of days," symbolizing God, p. 848)

 

"I thought physics could be done to the glory of God, till I saw there wasn't any God at all and that physics was more interesting anyway. The Christian religion is a very powerful and convincing mistake, that's all." (p. 871)

 

What about my vows? What about dedicating my life to Jesus and all that? Well, I don't know if it was the wine or my own silliness or the warm air or the lemon tree, or whatever . . . But it gradually seemed to me that I'd made myself believe something that wasn't true. (spoken by a former nun named Mary who lives with a series of men after renouncing her vows, p. 872)

 

 Will anyone be the better for making me miserable? And the answer came back - no. No one will. There's no one to fret, no one to condemn, no one to bless me for being a good girl, no one to punish me for being wicked. Heaven was empty. I didn't know whether God had died, or whether there never had been a God at all. . . . And I took the crucifix from around my neck and I threw it into the sea. That was it. All over. Gone. (on confession and repentance for sin, p. 874)

 

The lizard dragged the priest's body back to her nest, and her children feasted very well. As for the rifle, it lay in the grass where Father Gomez had laid it down, quietly turning to rust. (the fate of a priest who tried to stop the main characters, p. 901)

           

(For more about this trilogy and movie, see www.snopes.com/politics/religion/compass.asp)

 

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            Is that really the content that you want to fill the hearts and minds of the people you live with, work with, and . . . it must be said . . . shop with? Of course not. Do I want to censor this book and the movies that go with it? No. I want them to BOMB, that's all. If people would only connect influences like this with the evil that they see going on all around them in this world, purveyors of this kind of stuff wouldn't make another dime.

 

            We've got to start with the young, that's for sure. How about this plan: for every hour a parent lets a child play with video games or watch TV, that child should spend an hour in Sunday School or reading a God-pleasing, G-rated book, like - imagine this? - the Bible. Soon, that child will be able to discern good from evil, and we'll all be one step further away from a repeat of the Von Maur tragedy.

 

            I see it work in my own family. Maddy got praised by her Sunday School teacher this morning for understanding the symbolism of the evergreen Christmas tree (everlasting love of God) and candy cane (Shepherd's staff), and she held up a homely little Bethlehem star that she'd painted in class.

 

            The catch was, she decided to walk throughout our mega-church holding that star up in the air, and her parents were supposed to follow it, just like the wise men.

 

            Sigh. Since we are old and weak, we did it. She held that star up, and little groups of people, still with tears in their eyes over the pastor's powerful sermon about the Von Maur shootings, turned . . . and smiled.

 

            Face what's evil, work to defeat it . . . but look up to what is good, and be comforted.

 

            She lifted that star up high, and jig-jagged around the crowded central atrium, looking back over her shoulder with glee as we followed. We must've made quite a sight.

 

            (She's being "refunctioned," remember?)

 

            But I got a little thrill of what Jesus must feel like, when He sees His people following that Star that was sent to us at Christmas . . . that Star that still guides us today . . . that Star that loves us, and has never left, and never will. †