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INTERFAITH SUMMIT: WHAT IS MISSING? EVIL

How can one find fault with a gathering that holds hands and chants peace peace peace?

What’s wrong with that picture?

Not much, of course. Peace and daffodils in spring and mom’s roast beef dinner — they are all quite nifty. Therefore, gatherings can endorse them without any fear of being kicked in the shins.

So it was that so-called Christian, Muslim and Jewish reps met in Chicago today appealing for the planet to turn to peace. Now isn’t that nice? And will the planet turn to peace?

“In a dark time the eye begins to see. We cannot afford to live in a decade of violence and war,” stated Bob Edgar, General Secretary of the theologically liberal National Council of Churches.

"We need to come together as we've done at this summit to think broadly about how we can model some new behavior here in the United States, to stand up and speak clearly — an alternative voice to some of those negative fundamentalist voices — and to also urge our colleagues around the world to model that behavior as well," he said, according to UPI.

"We're not going to be a very happy place if for the next century all we do is go to war with each other and think badly of one another.”

Of course, the underlining theme that was not all the difficult to get hold of was that United States President George W. Bush is out to lunch when it comes to religious faith and action. Further, he is out to lunch mainly because he listens to and companies with evangelicals and fundamentalists and charismatics—biblically grounded Christians.

Those who travel to an interfaith conclave such as met at the O’Hare Marriott Hotel are theologically on the other side from the biblically-moored evangelicals, fundamentalists and charismatics. Those at the holding-hands-for-peace sing-around are known in religious circles as theological liberals. Their counterparts are theological conservatives.

And when it comes to theological liberals, they simply adore such themes as peace and happiness and children at play, but realities such as evil, sin, Satan and personal accountability before a personal God who appeared in Jesus Christ are the last postulates of religion they would adhere to. In fact, they are not only the last postulates, they are ones that would never be scratched into their doctrinal chart to begin with.

What President Bush kept reiterating before and throughout and following the Iraqi Freedom conflict was the “evil axis” in this world. “Evil” was and still is an oft-repeated term when it came to President Bush’s public speeches. He considers the axis to be an evil that is actual. It is an evil that works from hell’s power. It is an evil overseen by demons who would destroy God’s creation and all living persons.

Theological liberals see the biblically-focused evangelical, fundamentalist and charismatic forthrightness regarding the Bible’s definition of evil as an evil. Therefore, theological liberals spend every ounce of so-called spiritual energy countering anyone who defends a biblical definition of evil.

For instance, there is the dean of a cathedral nearby who has spent much of his adult years fighting the “evil” that will not legitimatize homosexual actions. He defends practicing homosexuality in the name of “diversity.” Therefore, those who would disagree with him on biblical grounds are considered an evil presence in our community. They, the biblical definers of “evil,” are the enemy, not those who engage in homosexual acts.

And so the beat goes on and on and on. Take whatever moral and ethical issue you would like; when it comes down to defining it as evil or not evil, the theological liberal does not care a flip about the Bible data. The theological liberal cares only for his own politically correct, liberally acceptable definition. Period.

Therefore, when interfaith summits gather such as today’s Chicago’s sing-around for world peace, it is simply another opportunity for the forces of evil to rejoice. Why? Because they, hell’s demonic evils, will not be recognized at all by those at the summit.

Instead, they will be tolerated in the name of “peace” and “happiness for all.” Real evils will be sidelined in order to attack the very persons who define “evil” by the biblical definition, hence the summit not being any friend to President Bush and Company.