Tag: evil

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I Teach My Kids to Hate (And You Should Too)

The Bible, through the words of Jesus, instructs us to love our enemies (Matthew 5:44). If your enemy is hungry, we are told to feed him. If he is thirsty, we should give him drink (Romans 12:20). Point well taken. But the Bible also gives us another vital instruction. It’s one that we don’t take seriously enough, in my opinion. We don’t even like the word. Yes it’s true; we are told to hate. We’re not instructed to hate people, but to hate what is evil. Romans 12:9 (NIV) says, “Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.” This particular word for hate appears only here in all of the Bible. It is the strongest word for hate. It literally means “to have a vehement dislike for something.” It is likened to a state of rage. In contrast, we are to “cling” to what is good. That word means something like “being glued to; to be inseparable.”

Do we have a vehement hatred for evil? I mean, really–does the thought of evil make us rage inside? I’m not so convinced that it does. Neither am I convinced that we’re teaching our kids to hate evil. Let me give a little backdrop for why I hate evil. When I read story after endless story of abuse, especially abuse of children, something snaps inside of me. After hearing stories of shame, humiliation, and torture, Evil is no longer an abstract concept. It becomes personal. Extremely personal. People sometimes ask me, “Why do you subject yourself to all these stories of abuse and surround yourself with people who have been abused?” My answer is, “Why do you not?” Avoidance makes abuse no less real to the people it’s actually happening to. The vast majority of people in our nation choose to ignore this evil, and so it continues.

In my frequent travels, I hear lots of gut-wrenching stories of young children being sexualized and used for pervert predators’ own little sex experiments. Let me be clear–this is not an “attraction” or “addiction.” It is evil. Pure wickedness. Attraction means exactly that–someone is attracted, for whatever reason (I’m not arguing causality here), to children. Attraction turns evil when there is intent to act out. The word “addiction” does not properly explain child molestation either. There is a vast difference between addiction and abuse. Addiction is a craving for something. Abuse is a craving to act out on someone. Children are not drugs. They are humans. They have a soul. They are precious. When they are used, manipulated, sexualized, tortured, emotionally screwed with, brought to orgasm, forced to perform sex acts on adults, and thrown out, we cannot ethically say, “Boy, Eric was addicted to Jennifer.” Let’s not cheapen the child by referring to molestation as an “addiction.” Acting out on a child is always evil because every time molestation happens, an innocent child is harmed.

I am very cautiously optimistic about the epidemic of child sex abuse. The optimistic part comes from shaking hands with people like myself who are speaking out against abuse on a national (and some an international) level. Many people are listening and are willing to take strong measures to prevent abuse. This is commendable and hopeful. The very cautiously part comes from my experience speaking at churches. Church leaders are generally still naïve and are way too willing to give people the benefit of doubt. This reduces the likelihood of church leaders reporting suspected abuse in a timely manner. In fact, I’ve witnessed on several occasions strong resistance by church leaders to report alleged abusers because “they just don’t seem like the kind of guy who would do something like that.” I often tell people who respond this way not to confuse their desire for people to be pure and innocent with them actually being pure and innocent. I could wish all day long that my own father had not committed atrocities against multiple children. But that doesn’t change the fact that he actually did. We’ve got to stop pretending like evil is not around us. We can’t cower in fear, either.

Ephesians 5:11 says, “Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.” And so we unapologetically expose the works of darkness and shed light on the people who are abusing children in the dark. But more than exposing this darkness, we hate the evil. And we should have no embarrassment or apology for teaching our children to hate what is evil and cling to what is good. Let’s start raising up the next generation to be kind, loving, and opposed to evil.

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Tenancingo: Home Grown Sexual Abusers

Trucking had always been a dream of mine. I’ve always liked operating heavy machinery and traveling, so trucking was a natural fit. I drove truck coast to coast for one year in between college and seminary, while I was still single. My first time across the Rockies was in a bad snow storm. Dropping down a hill in a semi truck from 11,000 feet when it’s hammering snow is quite an experience! What makes it more adventurous is looking down and seeing other tractor trailers that have careened off the interstate to the bottom of ravines from years past. It’s an eerie feeling to see multiple unrecovered trucks at the bottom of a mountain. Once a truck has fallen so far, it’s impossible to tow it back up to the top of a mountain, so many of them end up being left there permanently.

I believe evil is the same way. Once someone has fallen so far down, it becomes impossible to tow them back to the top. I had a Bible professor who has another helpful analogy called the “chained dog” theory. Evil is like a dog that’s chained up. It has boundaries set by God. Evil still exists, but the chain restricts evil’s reach. We can either stay outside of evil’s reach, or we can taunt it and risk it latching on to us and dragging us deeper into its territory. Have any of you ever been to a place that is so dark, you can “feel” the evil?
chained dog

God warned the Israelites, “But be sure to fear the Lord and serve him faithfully with all your heart; consider what great things he has done for you. Yet if you persist in doing evil, both you and your king will be swept away” (1 Samuel 12:24-25 NIV). Romans 12:21 says, “Do not be overcome with evil, but overcome evil with good.” The Bible mentions evil and its variants (evils, evildoer, etc.) just shy of 500 times. There is a consistent message throughout the Bible that many Christians deny. . . there is a level of evil that creates a suction point, a trap, a point of no return.

The small town of Tenancingo, Mexico is one of these places. It is the breeding ground for a major pedophile ring and sex trafficking to the United States. Young children are saying that they want to be like their dads and sell women for sex. There is no remorse, and darkness plagues the town. Psychologists are divided on what “makes” a perpetrator act out on very young children. Is it psychological factors, environmental, genetic, addictions to pornography, etc.? To be fair, nobody really knows for sure. If we are honest, we would admit that there are many hidden factors, both in the brain and in the home, that we will probably never figure out as far as causality. But one thing we can probably all agree on is that perpetrators who sexually act out on children are committing an evil. And once you begin messing with the dog, eventually it’s going to bite. And in Tenancingo, the dog has claimed its territory and is dragging people all over the place. I highly recommend watching this documentary on Tanancingo’s trafficking of sex slaves to the US. It is worth every minute.
****WARNING: We need people to watch this and raise awareness that this stuff happens all the time****

So what’s my point? Or rather, what’s God’s point? At the top of the list, remember the old saying, “If you play with fire you’re bound to get burned?” Well, if you play with evil, you’re bound to get bit. According to Scripture, we’ve all done evil. But it’s the perpetual toying with it that leads to the point of no return. There is, however, great news in all of this. For those who struggle with pedophilic thoughts at a younger age, rehabilitation is quite successful. I’d encourage parents who have allegations come against their children to not be so quick to defend them. Rather, get them the help they need.

I’ve received several phone calls with similar scenarios–a 13-15 year old boy was inappropriately saying things, doing things, or was infatuated with young children. And in all the cases (so far), the parents or guardians defended the perpetrator, not the alleged victims. Folks, if you see your child getting too close to a chained dog, don’t tell everyone else to buzz off. Help pull your child from that evil. Seek professional guidance from a sex-specific therapist. Help your child get out before it is too late. The more children learn to keep this a secret, the more they will be emboldened to act out. Help them get out. Help them find a way to deal with their attraction and aggression toward younger children. Love does not defend evil. It helps pull people from it before they become so debased that they cannot stop.

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I Am Legion, For We Are Many

Every day my news feed is bombarded with stories of pedophiles preying on, and attacking innocent children. When you allow your eyes to be opened, it becomes evident that this is beyond epidemic status. There are an estimated over 40,000,000 survivors of child sex abuse in the US alone. Wrap your mind around that number, if you can. I recently wrote about child molesters hiding in plain site. But there is another dimension I’d like to add to abusers–there are a lot of them. Unfortunately, most child molesters will never get caught. While this is a grim fact, I believe we can turn it around.

We’re reminded of the story when Jesus and his disciples get off the boat in the country of the Gerasenes. There was a demon possessed man who met them “in the tombs.” I have to wonder why evil spirits were lurking in the tombs. My best guess is that graveyards are a place of great pain for living family members. Visiting gravesites is a solemn and reverent occasion. For many people, the grave is a reminder that the person we love and held so dear is no longer with us. Evil exists to disrupt the very places where people go to try and make sense of, and overcome tragedy. Imagine the scene at the Gerasene tombs–anyone who wanted to bury or visit their deceased loved ones couldn’t because this violent man was screaming and shouting obscenities at the gravesite. It was an added insult to the injury of death.

Another thing that’s striking about this story is the power and persistence of evil–“And no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain, for he had often been bound with shackles and chains, but he wrenched the chains apart, and he broke the shackles in pieces. No one had the strength to subdue him” (Mark 5:3-4 ESV). People who are familiar with abuse know the lengths that perpetrators go to in order to continue abusing. Hiding, secrecy, shame, and manipulation all allow abuse to continue right under our very noses–in our churches, schools, daycares, sports events, and homes. Confronting a child molester and telling them to stop does not work. It has never worked. Evil is persistent. It doesn’t care about you, children, or God.

Night and day this man was back and forth between the tombs and mountain tops, blatantly causing fear and disruption. I have to wonder if the residents of the town were so used to his presence that they learned to ignore his actions. The thing that grips me most is his eerie response when Jesus asks his name: “My name is Legion, for we are many” (Mark 5:9). A Roman legion was a military term and could be up to 6,000 men. I’m not trying to create fear here, but this is the only category that fits for how many child sex abusers are living among us. They are everywhere, in plain view of us. And my experience tells me that we have, for various reasons, chosen to run and hide from them or have ignored that there are legions of them among us.

In his 2001 book Beyond Tolerance: Child Pornography On the Internet, Philip Jenkins entered chat rooms of pedophile rings to observe their secret community. He placed filters so that no images could be viewed, since the viewing of child pornography is highly illegal. What he found was astounding and shocking to him. There literally was such a large community of pedophiles sharing stories and pictures of the hundreds of victims they each were abusing, that Jenkins’ conclusion is that child pornography is not police-able. Keep in mind, this was 2001 when the internet wasn’t even close to being as accessible as it is today. As one pedophile in a chat room put it:
“When you think about it, just how many lola lovers
do we have here, maybe? 10,000 15,000 visit this
board, what about the other boards, and what of the
others that can not find this and the other boards? I
have seen some of the log files from some of the
net’s search engines, and the top search is childporn
and all the Lola lovers that don’t have a computer,
there must be millions out there some where ;)”

I think of Elijah Fernandez who, just last month, raped his girlfriend’s 4 month old baby then punched her in the head twice, rendering the child brain dead. The baby died shortly after at the hospital in Albuquerque. Here is a statement from the police department: “And I literally cannot explain to you what happened because it’s so graphic, you would not be able to air the charges,” said Simon Drobik of the Albuquerque Police Department. “Calls like this always effect officers and the unsung heroes of this department are the Crimes Against Children Unit. They see this all the time, day in, day out.”

They see this all the time, day in, day out. Talk to any police department. Give your local department a call. Ask them if this statement is accurate. I assure you that you’ll find this same response whether you live in a village or metropolis, in a satanic gathering or orthodox church. Do a search on “4 month old baby raped.” This story is not unique. It. Happens. All. The. Time. It’s time that we’re honest with ourselves and admit that this beyond the status of being a problem. We’ve got to stand up and face evil. Let’s call evil what it is. I remember when President Bush was mocked for his famous term “evil doers.” Are we going to mock people who call evil what it is? Is it funny? As I type this, I’m not laughing.

The interesting thing about the story of this demon possessed man is that Jesus didn’t allow evil to go on. He confronted the legion and cast them out. They were no longer welcome to terrorize the village, enter the tombs, or scream on the mountain top. Jesus didn’t say, “Karma will eventually get them.” No! He stood up against evil and essentially said, “You’re not welcome here any longer.” This is called justice. Can you imagine if our churches and communities unified and said, “This evil is no longer welcome in our town”? I believe we can, and we should be doing it. Let’s all join efforts to free the innocent of the effects of this evil.