South Carolina and The Folly of Evil

Christians aren’t dualists. We do not believe that good and evil are two equal, opposite, and codependent powers. Evil in its purest form, as Augustine pointed out, is nothing. It cannot exist apart from the good. By nature it is parasitic - devouring, twisting, living off the good things created by God who is goodness and the source of all that is good. Good can and does exist apart from evil but were there no good, there could be no evil.

This is why the serpent entered the garden. This is why the Devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. This is why the church is always persecuted. This is why heretics eat away at the church like a gangrenous wound.

With Satan and all beings, human and otherwise, under his sway there is an irrational, ravenous, parasitic hunger to corrupt and devour the holy.

In her response to the incredible decision by the leadership of the Episcopal Church to press charges against the Bishop of the Diocese of South Carolina, Sarah Hey correctly identified bitterness, resentment and rage on the part of the ruling heresiarchs as the prime motivators of their attack. Strategically, tactically, rationally speaking, there is no explanation for a shrinking, aged, monochrome, moribund denomination to lash out against one of its few remaining vibrant dioceses…a diocese that has, despite her uncompromising orthodoxy, expressly stated and demonstrated her loyalty to the denomination.

The only explanation is malice.

But what lies beneath the malice - the cause of its folly - is familiar enough. It’s the same hellish desire to consume and destroy the good that drives all evil to its final end - an End God has already revealed to us. On display, humiliated, its “victory” is its greatest blunder, nailed to the cross for all to see. The crucifixion of the Good will be and has already been the destruction of evil.