Overcome Evil with Good

I remember where I was when I found out the twin towers were bombed. I remember where I was when I found out Donald Trump had been hit by a bullet. And I think I will long remember where I was when I found out that Charlie Kirk had been shot. I will remember the pit in my stomach while waiting to hear if he survived, the shallow hope that maybe by some miracle he was still alive, the growing dread as the minutes ticked by with no update on his condition, and the dark finality of hearing that he had indeed died, leaving behind a widow and two young children.

It’s been a little over a week, and personally I’ve had a lot of thoughts and emotions. Judging by the internet, so has our country. Scrolling through social media it’s clear that everyone is processing this situation in their own way. One of the reactions I’ve seen repeatedly rising up is a reaction that is to be expected: anger. People are angry. The political right in America is angry. Many Christians are angry. It feels as if there has been a deeply personal attack against all of us, and when there’s an attack the reflex is to fight back. So what do we do with that anger? How do we fight back?

In this article, I want to do a few things. First, I want to defend that anger and hatred are right, and at times even good. I then want to look to Scripture and examine what we are supposed to do with that anger. And then I want to give a battle plan of how we fight back against the darkness that seems to be descending upon our nation.

 

Anger and Hatred Can Be Good

That previous sentence might sound odd. It’s certainly controversial, even within Christian theology. Some who’ve thought carefully about this issue might disagree with me, but I think that some anger and yes, even some hatred, can be a normal, natural, and healthy response to the wickedness we see around us.

Why is that? Well, for starters, God becomes angry. Jesus became angry. Now, I realize that God’s anger is holy and righteous, and more often than not our anger is selfish, petty, and ultimately sinful, but I don’t think that anger itself is wrong. I think James is careful when he states that “the wrath of man does not produce God’s righteousness” (James 1:20, emphasis added). I think Paul was serious when he said, “Be angry and sin not” (Ephesians 4:26).

Beyond that, I think anger is not only permissible but at times right, healthy and good. If somebody tried to steal your child, or hurt your spouse, or deceive your close friend into joining a cult, your love should drive you to anger. To respond with anything less would be odd and, I think, unhealthy. Again, Jesus was fully human, and we can tell when something was important to Him in the gospels because He got angry.

What about hatred? Should we really hate? I think Revelation 2:6 is helpful here. Jesus says to the Ephesians, who had left their first love and were in deep trouble, “Yet this you have: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.” I find this to be clarifying. Hatred can be good, and even praiseworthy. And it’s not just in Revelation. The psalmist goes so far as to say, “Do not I hate those who hate you, O LORD? And do I not loathe those who rise up against you? I hate them with complete hatred; I count them my enemies.” (Psalm 139:21-22)

 

Anger and Hatred Must Be Properly Directed and Properly Channeled

But didn’t Jesus come and teach us not to hate? What do we do with a passage like Matthew 5:43-45? “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” So should we hate our enemies or not?

I’ll be honest. This is a tough one, and I wrestle with it. A few observations before giving my conclusion. First, I don’t think Jesus is overturning the psalm. He began the Sermon on the Mount by explicitly denying He was coming to destroy or nullify the law and the prophets (Matthew 5:17-20). “The law and the prophets” functioned as shorthand for the Old Testament, so I would include the Psalms in that. Second, we do see, however, that the normal pattern in Scripture is to hate the work or the deeds of the wicked, and this is true even in the Psalms themselves (Psalm 101:3; 119:128, 163). Third, the enemies of David were real enemies, people who literally tried to have him killed for outrageous reasons. And for his two main enemies, Saul and Absalom, David specifically did not seek to kill them. Finally, a study Bible I checked made a helpful suggestion that what Jesus is getting at in Matthew 5 is a personal, vindictive hatred rather than a hatred focused on God’s glory. The psalmist was concerned about God’s glory, we are often nursing our own wounds.

So where does that leave me? Despite Psalm 139, I don’t feel comfortable talking about hating people. There may be a legitimacy to that, but I don’t know that I could do that the right way without it being personal and sinful. I don’t know how I would do that and obey the Lord’s command to love my enemy, although there may be a way. But I personally have no qualms with hating things, activities, choices, and even the spiritually dark forces wreaking havoc in our world. I find it easier and clarifying to hate that which evil people do, and then do what I can to love the individual. That’s the best way I know to be faithful to the total witness of Scripture.

Now, you might think that my title for this section (Anger and Hatred Must Be Properly Directed and Properly Channeled) is a little redundant. Don’t directed and channeled mean the same thing? Well, while they could be used synonymously, here I intended a slight difference. Directed refers to who or what we are angry at. We should be angry at sin, at the actions and teachings which hurt others, and even at the wicked spiritual forces behind it all. Channeled refers to what we do with that hatred. For example, I hate the evil of abortion. That is hatred properly directed. But if I attempt to blow up an abortion clinic or resort to some other form of violence, that is hatred wrongly channeled. In other words, it’s not enough to hate the right things, we have to go about hating them the right way.

So let’s bring this back to the assassination of Charlie Kirk. I am angry, and rightfully so, at what happened. It angers me that a widow will now have to raise two children without a father. It angers me that a proponent of free speech and the open exchange of ideas was gunned down in cold blood before children. It makes me angry that there are dark corners of the internet out there that are, quite frankly, demonic and dark and that corrupt young men and women. All of that makes me angry, and I hate all of that, but how do we fight back?

 

The Bible Calls Us to Fight

I sometimes see concern on social media that people use war imagery for their cause. After all, they worry, such talk might incite actual violence. It makes them uneasy when others use language like “foot soldiers,” “we’re under attack,” “we will keep fighting,” or “battle cry.” It doesn’t surprise me when I see that concern coming from the secular world, but it puzzles me when Christians share that concern. After all, Scripture uses a lot of war imagery, from the armor of God (Ephesians 6:10-17; Romans 13:12; 1 Thessalonians 5:8), to the divine warrior motif throughout the Psalms and the prophets (Psalm 2; 76:6-9; 110; Isaiah 63:1-6), to Paul’s description of Christians as soldiers (2 Timothy 2:3-5; Philippians 2:25). The Bible uses battle imagery, but it carefully defines the kind of war we are in, and the weapons of that war.

Paul reminds us that we are in a war, but we aren’t using fleshly, tangible weapons (2 Corinthians 10:3-5). No, we fight in this war by remembering who the real enemy is – Satan – and by doubling down on our commitment to righteous and good living. We do so by recommitting to our gospel witness with friends and neighbors and by sacrificially loving our families. We fight by taking a stand for truth and by doing right, especially when it’s hard and costly. We fight in this war by being the kind of person we should be in public, and perhaps more importantly in private.

A post I saw on social media said, “Charlie Kirk was actually nice. He tried to converse with you. He went on your podcasts. You went on his. You won’t like who comes after Charlie Kirk.” Who does come next? Or perhaps from a different angle, what comes next? Where do we go from here? How do we fight back? Well hopefully, if God’s people have anything to say about it, what comes next is a counter assault on the kingdom of darkness that leaves our enemy reeling. If we are fighting the dark, then let’s let our light shine. That’s how we win this fight, and that’s how we honor Charlie’s memory. It isn’t through bitterness, or grievance, or “making the other side pay.” It’s by following the program of our Teacher and Master who told us to love our enemies and pursue righteousness.

The events of the past week should remind us that we are in an all-out war against evil. So yes, we fight back. We fight back against the darkness, against demonic ideologies, against political violence, and against the forces of darkness. We channel the anger and hatred we feel at this terrible act and use it to more faithfully follow Christ because we realize what’s at stake. We cling to the truth and move forward in love, pushing back boldly against pro-LGBTQ ideologies, against the darkness that lurks in Discord chats and 4chan boards, against spiritual wickedness in high places, and against everything that sets itself against the good, the true, and the beautiful. And we do it by following the example of our Teacher, who said we are to be salt and light by loving our enemies. And if we can do that with the help of our God, then by His grace and in His power we overcome evil with good.

 

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Ben Hicks is the Associate Pastor at Colonial Hills Baptist Church in Indianapolis. This article originally appeared on his Substack.

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Photo by Michelle Tresemer on Unsplash