Extra: Watch Darnell Ishmael bring the house down along with accompanies Andrew.

As a pastor, I am exposed to the rhetoric of evil more than most.  From addressing horrors from the pulpit, to caring for individuals and families who have suffered personally from some expression of what they would label evil, to mourners at the graveside of loved ones lost, I’ve seen and heard people in their lament.  Culturally, we have shared language which suggests widely held beliefs about the nature of reality related to evil.  There is no shortage of theological jargon being expressed when people experience or witness what they deem evil. Based on our common language, God shares a significant level of responsibility for our suffering.  Do people come right out and blame God for the tragedy they are enduring?  Sometimes.  Most of the time it is more subtle than that.  “This was all part of God’s plan.” “It was their appointed time to die.” “God allowed this for some greater purpose.” “God allowed this to teach us something.” And even if someone directly blames some form of Satan for the evil – although this is rare in the ecclesiastical space I usually inhabit – the implication remains that God either could not do anything to stop it (which hardly anybody will say out loud) or that God allowed it for some greater purpose.

     Of course, there are some biblical references that support our vernacular.  The Garden of Eden temptation scene in Genesis 3 is viewed by many Christians as the moment when sin entered the world – the result of Adam and Eve caving to the temptation of the snake in the grass Satan figure. Innocence was lost, death entered because of the devil’s scheming.  In addition, Job’s story supports such conclusions – the most faithful guy in the world was tortured to within an inch of his life by the Satan figure.  In both stories, the antagonist was allowed by God to wreak havoc, even mildly encouraged in the case of Job so long as his life wasn’t taken (but his children were fair game). 

     While the personification of evil in the Satan figure isn’t very pronounced in what most in the Christian tradition calls the Old(er) Testament, the New(er) Testament certainly makes up for it.  Following his baptism, Jesus was tempted by Satan during his 40 days in the wilderness, setting up more showdowns to come and resulting in his own death. The Apostle Paul wrote that our battle is not against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places (Ephesians 6:12). The apocalyptic Book of Revelation offers plenty of fodder as well, describing the work of Satan and his minions, culminating in his final destruction.  In the end, at just the right time, God brought (or will bring) home the final victory. While most folks are fuzzy on the details, they’re familiar with the ending, which leaves them with the conclusion that God is, for reasons not fully known to mere mortals, allowing Satan and evil to run rampant until some foreordained time.

     For many Christian believers since the end of the first century C.E, the synthesis of the above overview provides a cosmological framework that works for them on significant levels.  Believers know who to pray to, who to pray (and fight) against, and though there is much that will never be fully understood, the faithful are called to trust God with the mystery.  To be clear, I do not minimize the power of such a cosmology or faith.  At an earlier age I benefited from such a framework.  My fervent prayers drew me closer to God and I was serious about living my faith in real life, including my role as a pastor.  Even though I have never given the subject of Satan much attention in my teaching doesn’t mean that the first century paradigm wasn’t informing my thought.  I would imagine that for most Christian churchgoers today, the paradigm still offers structure to make sense of the world and even offers hope for the future.  If you are reading this and are content, you may want to stop.  But if you or someone you know is still struggling with the problem of evil, you are not alone.

Modern Problems with the Dominant View.  The above biblical overview is incredibly brief, incomplete, and without any critical commentary.  Volumes have been written over the centuries wrestling with the texts and their implications.  Volumes that everyday people will not likely ever study. For churchgoing Christians there may be sermons and songs and studies that help people craft more nuanced understandings of evil. But what about the 70% of people who claim to believe in God (90% of the United States’ population) but don’t attend religious services?   What are they left with?  Not much.  Sound bites.  Bumper sticker theology. Catch phrases heard and reiterated at funerals and vigils.  An unprecedented number of people are leaving not just faith communities, but faith itself due, in large part, to the problem of evil.  If what they have gleaned from catch-phrase Christianity reflects God, they can’t believe in God any longer.  If the first century paradigm of an all-powerful God waiting for the appointed time to eradicate evil and suffering is the best the faith tradition can offer, should anybody wonder why such an exodus continues?  If God is the Heavenly Father – the Parent of the Year every year – why would God not do something immediately to prevent the suffering of God’s innocent children?  Is the future date, the plot of human history, so precious that billions must settle for resting in peace only after death?  The problem of evil (among other things like the ongoing apparent battle between faith and science) seems to be an insurmountable obstacle to maintaining faith.

     Yet there is good news.  The dominant, culturally understood rendering of Christianity is not the only expression of the faith available to consider and embrace. We live at a time of unprecedented capacity to learn and share ideas and insights that have led to new – and in some ways ancient – constructs of faith that allow room for modern worldviews and a meaningful, powerful God to coexist. Open and Relational Theology (ORT) offers a response to the most difficult challenges to faith.  Theologian Tom Oord, in his book God Can’t, claims that Open and Relational Theology even solves the problem of evil.

Theological Alternatives.  The way we think about God matters.  Our thoughts about God make their way onto our lips and then our prayers. Some popular thoughts about God don’t square well with our life experience or our contemporary view of the cosmos.  The ancient world view envisioned God as residing in the heavens – “up above” where professional athletes point after a home run, touchdown, or no-hitter.  The Big Guy upstairs, in this framework, breaks into our reality from time to time to save the day or help win the game.  This becomes a point of confusion for many believers today. Many believe that God is very present, yet prayers are directed to a God “out there” somewhere.  We simultaneously believe that God is with us and yet we ask for God to break in and grant our miracles.  Open and Relational Theology offers a panentheistic view of God, where everything is in God.  There is no “above” to point to depicting God’s space.  God is everywhere, present to and in everything. This is not to be confused with pantheism, which claims that everything is God or God is everything.  Panentheism changes our language which alters our prayers – we no longer ask for God to break into reality because God is already present.

     A related linguistic issue that involves much more than semantics has to do with God’s primary identity.  While many Christians would say that God is loving, the prayers often articulated depict power as God’s primary character trait.  The idea that God is omnipotent – that God has all the power to do anything God might want to do – is pervasive.  Tom Oord, in his book, The Death of Omnipotence and the Birth of Amipotence, makes the claim that such command of total power as we use the term omnipotence in Western contemporary culture is not supported biblically.  Further, Oord claims that while we may want to believe that God is all powerful and all-loving, we cannot have it both ways.  Any healthy parent, full of love for their child, would move heaven and earth to protect their child from harm.  If God has all the power to do anything and yet allows children to suffer, then God cannot be truly all-loving.  Even our mere mortal minds can make that conclusion.  Oord, in several books, claims that God’s primary character trait is love, which he terms “amipotence” to describe the most potent expression of the trait.  The ramifications of love being God’s primary character trait are far reaching as it changes how we view the future as well as our relational dynamic with God as we move forward through time.

     The Open aspect of ORT refers to God being present in real time with all of creation as it continually unfolds.  God is not already ahead of us in the distant future with full knowledge of everything we will ever think, say, or do.  The future is not written but is truly unknowable and continually unfolding. If we truly have free will, then God cannot know with certainty what we will do next in our lives. Everything that can be known is known to God, so God’s bets are usually pretty good regarding what we are likely to do next with our lives. Yet because we are truly free, the future is unknown and unknowable. By the way, this does not mean that there is no hope. The presence of God is everlasting – even beyond the shelf-life of our bodies.  Hope beyond the grave remains because Life is more than flesh and blood, we have cells and souls.

     The Relational aspect of ORT refers to God’s responsive dynamic with all of creation. God is in real relationship with everyone and everything, even being affected by creation along the way.  We impact God.  God is affected by us.  God evolves along with us. Because God’s primary characteristic is love – and not power – God does not force God’s will on us.  God does not overpower us.  God is powerful, but not controlling.  God is the most powerful being in all of creation as it continues to expand, yet the most God can do is lure us, woo us, invite us to follow the Way that leads to life. That’s a real relationship. We are not pawns.  We are players with moves to make. Our choices. A future we create in part with our decisions, in tandem with every decision everyone else makes as well.  We do not live in isolation – our decisions affect more than our own lives just like the decisions of others affects our lives. God is intimately involved in relationship all along the way, nudging, wooing, luring, inviting us toward the fullest and deepest expression of love.  The Jewish tradition calls this Shalom.  Jesus called it the Kingdom of God that he worked to usher into the world with his life and teaching.

     To summarize, four claims from Open and Relational theology include the idea that God is not separate but in everything and everything is in God, that God is not omnipotent the way we have thought but is truly all loving (amipotent), that God’s uncontrolling love means that the future is unknowably open and our relationship is truly that – relational – whereby we are affected by God to varying degrees and we affect God as well. Taken together, how does this address the problem of evil?

     First, understanding God’s primary trait as being love and not power, the idea that God allows evil to happen is removed.  To allow implies the power to control.  God does not control because God is loving. When faced with tragedy stemming from expressions of evil, we should remove language from our lips that blames God because God is not in control and does not have the power to override characters in creation (which includes you and me).  Evil is not “allowed” as if it were God’s choice.  Evil is not God’s will.

     Second, given God’s primary trait being uncontrolling love, we respect that the future is open and unknowable, which means we can erase the idea from our minds and lips that our death date and time is not predetermined, even if the truly lovely poem of Psalm 139 states otherwise.

     Third, given that God is relational, wooing free agents like ourselves toward shalom at every turn, we recognize that we may not always say yes to the loving invitation.  We choose against shalom. Sometimes quite defiantly.  More often, we unconsciously choose what is familiar, which means if shalom’s expression is foreign, we may not naturally choose it despite God’s pleading.

     Taken together, this means that evil in the world is not caused or allowed by God – or a Satan figure, either – but by decisions against shalom individually and collectively.

     When I was a little kid – maybe five years old – my older brother, Mark, caught me stealing some of his Halloween candy.  I wasn’t totally cruel – I left him a full third of his score from our Trick or Treating – and may have even let him have a few of the precious snack-sized chocolate bars that were always most-cherished.  What was going on in me? When I was caught, I didn’t think to blame God (and neither did Mark).  My parents wouldn’t have been convinced if I played the mystery card, either.  This was not God’s will.  This was Peter’s will over-riding the woo of shalom, driven by greed, lust for candy, and a host of other variables I could not appreciate then or even now.  My malevolent act was self-centered for sure, yet impacted others.  It didn’t do much for my relationship with Mark for that day.  It didn’t make his day or my parents’.  It also didn’t serve me well.  Halloween candy is one safe example.  Replace it with much more consequential, painful subjects.  Our decisions for or against shalom matter, not just for us but for everyone we affect and everyone they affect.

     Extrapolate this reality and apply it to entire cultures and we get an explanation for the evils of slavery, racism, sexism, classism – and every other ism – without the need to blame God.  In fact, it would be inappropriate to do so because such egregious disturbances of shalom never came from the heart of God in the first place – we made our own beds despite God’s pleading.

     There is hope.  Panentheism means that God never leaves us.  God can’t leave us. And since God’s character is fully loving, we can be sure that God will continue to woo us toward shalom at every moment, no matter how many times we’ve refused to accept the invitation.  God can’t stop inviting us toward shalom.  The question beyond that of the origin of evil is one that we face daily with massive implications: how will we as individuals and as a collective respond to God’s invitation toward shalom with our hearts, minds, hands, and feet going forward?