For June I am continuing the series of articles trying to explain Methodism in an easily understandable way, through my ministerial experiences. I hope these articles will help you better understand Methodism and confirm and develop your faithful identification as a Methodist.

Q) What Is Our Understanding (as Methodists) of Evil as It Exists in the World?

We believe God is perfectly good and all-powerful. God created the best of all possible universes (Genesis 1:31). However, humans fell down to sin and evil because they used their free will, given by God. Human disobedience to God leads to evil. The immoral human nature brings evil.

First, systematic evil causes social problems like unemployment, homelessness, crime, and the gap between the rich and poor. It is not only a personal problem, but also a national and global problem. When I was a missionary, I witnessed this systematic evil in the Chechen Republic in the south of Russia. The nation of Chechen had some wars with Russia. Even though the war was finished, many people still lived in poverty and suffering. Yet there were many millionaires who were oil tycoons and had political power in Russia. Their houses looked like palaces. They had security through terrorism. Many Chechen people called them the Modern Tsars. Due to this broken system, the majority of the Chechen people live in poverty. Also, many children, youth and young adults follow and fall down to extremist Islam ideas. One of the main reasons for this is the economic hardship and injustice experienced by so many in the Chechen republic. Clearly, systematic evil causes human suffering and misery in the Chechen republic and all over the world.

Second, evil is both an individual and collective action. According to Genesis, humans were created in the image of God. However, the image of God in humans was broken because of the disobedience of humankind. This means individual evil is rooted in human disobedience towards God. Human corruption causes selfishness, greed and maliciousness. Violence, murder, racism, and discrimination came from human corruption. Beyond human evil, there is collective evil like Islamic State (ISIS), the extremist Islamic terrorist group in the Middle East. This is news to us. Several years ago, they captured some American and Western European journalists and cut off their heads. They even uploaded a video of it on to YouTube. Many people could not repress their astonishment. Of course, the Islamic State is only a small minority of Islam, so we should never make the mistake of hasty generalizations about the religion of Islam, but it shows how extreme theology and groups can be evil in the world.

Even though we have some problems in the world, I believe we will overcome our problems with God’s grace. One of the most important things in the good news of Jesus Christ is that God gives us the power to overcome evil through God’s grace (Romans 8). Also, we need to be self-controlled and alert to the evil power that is around us. Jesus taught us to pray “lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” We should seek holiness and try to achieve Christian perfection as United Methodists and as Christians.

Posted in From The Pastors