"No, thanks. I don't believe in evil. Don't convince me. I don't want to believe. The belief in evil is a dangerous thing. It promotes attack and counter attack. If we hope to create anything different, we must start with some other assumption."

"It's Halloween my friends and we are fighting a battle against the devil," pastor Denny angrily exclaimed from his television pulpit. "Right versus wrong, light versus darkness. There are those among us—witches—who celebrate Halloween as a religious holiday. We must take this very seriously. We must win the war against evil!"

Before I could find the remote control to change channels or at least hit the mute button, the good pastor—with very bad hair—identified, what looked like a sick and desperate woman, barely able to walk to the stage. At that very moment, an invisible source of power appeared to shoot from pastor Denny's index finger directly into the ailing woman, immediately knocking her from her feet—her body jolting from side to side as if someone had just yelled "clear!" and applied electrodes to her chest. Now grinning from ear to ear the woman rose from the floor as the good pastor and self-proclaimed general in the war against evil, pronounced her "cured" of her illness—right there on my TV!

"Ladies and gentlemen," pastor Denny continued, "I have just attacked and eliminated evil from this poor women's body. She has been healed! Do I hear an Amen!

The audience cheered with all the passion of an Amway meeting. Emotional music began to play. Men carrying large buckets began to collect money from the now dazed flock of followers; many who looked as if they had recently received a prefrontal lobotomy. I sat there—fully expecting to see a snake oil advertisement—while carving a face on a pumpkin and wondering if my recent purchase of a satellite dish antenna was such a good idea after all.

And the woman? Oh, she was healed all right—well heeled, I would surmise. It's anybody's guess how much they paid this actress for her 15 seconds of fame. Whatever amount it was, I am sure it was worth every penny—just the cost of doing business in the war against evil. I changed channels thinking Dan Rather might be a safer bet.

Through a constant parade of trick-or-treaters in search of their annual sugar buzz, I watched the news with the concept of evil (thanks to Pastor Denny) rolling around in my mind. I saw plenty of dangerous people—some adults, some children—many who had committed heinous crimes. Aha! These must be the evil people pastor Denny was speaking of, I thought. But as the newscast continued, I wasn't so sure.

By the time Dan signed off, I actually felt some compassion for these so-called "evil people". I realized that they certainly were not demon possessed, but rather had an improper and distorted view of the world and their place in it. A little like, well, Pastor Denny, I thought. I answered the door to find a vampire standing there, dropped a candy bar in his bag and pondered the thought...

Labeling something as evil has long been a powerful tool for many opportunistic religious zealots, in that it gives them something broad, ambiguous and undefined to be against. It allows them to point their finger at something they feel must be stopped—a blurred focal point by which to rally the troops and make it acceptable to destroy the evil they are so sure they have found. Hatred becomes part of the doctrine—part of the brainwashing. The tactic is as old as mankind itself.

Over the centuries, well-meaning followers who believe they have seen evil in the face of the enemy have waged many a war. Northerners fought the Southerners. The white man fought the red man. Church denominations fight each other. I can even recall an old friend claiming, during a heated argument, that he saw the fiery eyes of the devil in the face of another human being. That human being was me. Fortunately, the finger he pointed at me that night (not his index finger!) was as powerless as pastor Benny's!

There are many things in this world that I personally detest—war, hatred, racism and cancer, to name just a few. These things take away from the quality of life we all equally deserve. In many ways, they are the very opposite of what is good, just and true. In many ways they are things that can be very damaging to mankind. But by placing them in that big black hole called evil, we eliminate any possibility for understanding what may be at the heart of the problem. We eliminate any possibility for rolling up our sleeves and working to find a solution. We waste our time by seeking to destroy something that never existed to begin with.

Everything in the universe is the result of unconditional love-the energy of the God Force. God created everything with the energy of love. Nothing exists that was not created by the God Force; hence, nothing exists that was not created by love. Evil, as a power, cannot exist because love (God) would not have created it. Thus, evil as we know it, is a man-made creation. It is a product of our clever and fearful egos and as such, does not exist in the world of spirit but only in the world of the mind.

You see, our egos want us to believe in evil, because by doing so, our attention and focus gets placed on something outside ourselves. By believing in evil, we don't have to accept responsibility for the bad choices we make, we can simple blame it on the devil or some other figment of our imaginations. Evil becomes the ultimate scapegoat.

Recently, while on a flight from Denver to LA, I sat next to a medical doctor who is actively involved in the battle against AIDS. After the usual small talk required of two strangers suddenly occupying a space the size of a broom closet, I asked him what his greatest challenge was.

"Dollars," he quickly replied. " Because of the evil stigma attached to this disease, we have a very difficult time securing the necessary funding desperately needed for research. You see, many people are comfortable writing checks to fight MS or cystic fibrosis but because they see AIDS and everything attached to it as evil, they feel justified looking the other way and refusing to help."

"But what is truly evil," he passionately continued, "Is the sad fact that if we only had more funding, much more could be done to save those who are dying each and everyday. It's time to stop calling AIDS the evil disease, and start working overtime to find a cure." I shook my head in agreement. I knew that he was right.

I have no doubt that I will continue to see the war against evil being aggressively fought by pastor Denny and many just like him on my TV screen every Sunday morning. I have no doubt that countless followers will blindly pledge their allegiance and dollars to support "the cause". I only wish the enemy actually had a face. But, then again, maybe—reflecting back through the mirror in pastor Denny's dressing room—it does.

Some Things To Consider

Are there problems in your life that you have not addressed because you have placed them in that big black hole called evil? Consider for a moment that evil does not exist. Now look at those problems again and think about the appropriate steps that need to be taken to solve them. Enlist the help of others if you need to but come up with an action plan that you can implement within the next week.

All Rights Reserved © 2002 By Jeffrey Alan Hall