Issue 17 Preaching and the CrossBlog | Recognising Evil
Recognising Evil
Author: Andy PeckPost Date: 27.12.18
It isn’t widely fashionable and it’s certainly not politically correct: ‘Talk of the devil’ sits uncomfortably in many church circles today.
One very old TV sketch jokes that the devil gets a bad press and deserves to be given a better hearing. But mostly he is simply ignored; dropped from our language along with outdated liturgies and medieval architecture.
Preachers and pastors, however, know a great deal about the devil and his system of evil. You don’t have to be in pastoral ministry for long before you start tripping over the effects of the wicked one and his toxic impact on countless lives.
Strangely it’s the popular press that does most to keep him current in our contemporary world. Faced with the butchery of ‘Islamic State’, the corrupt behaviour of a trusted surgeon, or the abuse inflicted on a generation of children, and the writers reach for the only word capable of describing it – evil. While neither the Apostles Creed or the Nicene Creed identify the devil specifically, the Lord’s Prayer is unequivocal: ‘deliver us from evil’.
