Spiral of Violence: The World, the Flesh, and the Devil

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Spiral of Violence The World, the Flesh, and the
Devil

• Fr. Richard Rohr,
• OFM

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Premise Evil gets away with its game by
disguising itself as good.

• The devil needs to wear the mask of God.
• Evil appears to be moral and even religious.
• Evil defends some great purpose.
• We need to understand these things about evil in
  order to develop a capacity for moral
  discernment. Where does the truth lie?

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Three sources of evil the World, the Flesh, and
the Devil.

• 90 of the churchs and societys attention has
  been oriented toward the flesh.
• Moral thinking is focused on the sins of the
  flesh.
• If this is our focus, we miss seeing the other
  two, the world and the devil.
• If we dont recognize evil on the lowest level
  (the level of the world) then the flesh and the
  devil are inevitable consequences. They are out
  of control.

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Prophets

• The prophets were the unique group in Judaism who
  named all three evils (world, flesh, devil).
• Therefore they were ignored or persecuted in
  history.

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The Worldthe lowest level of the spiral of
violence the system.

• This is the way cultures, groups, institutions,
  and nations organize themselves to survive.
• This is not inherently a bad thing.
• These cultures, groups, institutions, and nations
  are where we derive our identity.
• These groups always move toward self-perpetuation
  and self-protection. (All systems protect
  themselves.)

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• The evil at this level is hard to expose. There
  is no one bad person. It is hard to name and
  see.
• Systems and institutions circle the wagons to
  maintain themselves.
• They create their own inner logic and truth. This
  truth has little to do with the larger truth.
  (The scandals of the last decade show that even
  the Church is not exempt.)

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• Once we are inside our own system, there are
  things we cannot see or say. Good people cannot
  see.
• (Example nationalism. God bless America. Why
  not God bless all peoples?)
• Unless the lie is exposed at this level of the
  world, most people will be fooled, because we
  cannot see beyond our own self-interest. If
  were safe, if we look good, it feels right.

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• The prophetic instinct is the ability to
  self-critique.
• Systems protect themselves and the status quo
  (business as usual) because they are the status
  quo the system.

Tiananmen Square Beijing April 15, 1989
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• Then they lose their soul, purpose, goal, and
  identity.
• They self-destruct from within.
• The prophets pointed the finger at Judaism.

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the way everybody thinks (in the system) and the
way everybody is supposed to think.
Dominant Consciousness

• We cant see the problems because were looking
  at them from the inside.

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Capitalisman example of dominant consciousness

• No sermons on the 10th Commandment (do not covet
  your neighbors goods)
• In the U.S. we may fail to see this as a moral
  problem.
• Capitalism and advertising are the name of the
  game. The only game is buying and selling

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• The one thing that drove Jesus to violence was
  when buying and selling took over the Temple. He
  said that this was the death of the religious
  instinct, the death of spiritual understanding.
• Everything becomes mercantile.
• At this point we cant
  read reality at the
  level
  of the spirit
  and the soul.
• Andwe cannot critique what
  we are
  
  benefiting from.

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The Fleshindividual sin, personal mistakes

• Religion puts its energy at this level.
• But if we blame people, expecting them to change,
  were wasting our breath.
• Even the threat of eternal hellfire doesnt work.
• Shame is located in the body, so we localize sin
  in the body.

Rev. Pat Robertson
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• We reward things at the corporate (institutional)
  level but condemn the same things at the personal
  level. (We glorify war but criticize local street
  violence.)
• What happens when you cant see the true nature
  of evil and what it is that destroys the human
  heart?
• We tolerate the objectification of people in
  business, advertisements, and relationships. We
  become impersonal. We use each other.

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Conservativesput all the energy into this 2nd
level

• Everything is about individual sin.
• We get righteous, arrogant, upset.
• We try to make people feel guilty and change but
  we never critique the system.
• Cant critique country, church, legal system,
  prison system, banking system, military system,
  etc.
• We get our identity from those systems.
• (Careful! Dont make anything an idol.)

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Liberalstend to blame the system but never the
victim

• Individual sin is always connected to systemic
  sin
• Personal responsibility is taken away from the
  individual
• Labels the individual a victim

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The Devilis the personification of power that is
hard to name the spirits of the air the way
everybody thinks.

• The Devil is disguised to look as something very
  virtuous.
• There is 1) the world, 2) personal evil and 3)
  the good that emerges to control the personal
  evil.
• Devils are always fallen angels.
• When we worship them, they can wreak havoc with
  us.
• They are the kings, the government, the law, the
  legal system, the penal system

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• Devils refuse to be critiqued.
• They must wear the mantle of God.
• They are formed to bring about good the tax
  system, the military system, the economy itself.
• Once weve bought into this system, we believe we
  need these Devils to control personal morality.

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Jesus is Lord

• No one told us that this is a political
  statement.
• Contradicted the statement Roman citizens had to
  say, Caesar is Lord.
• Undermines the World, rearranges the Flesh, and
  exposes the Devil.
• When you dare to critique the system you start
  looking like a dangerous person a rebel, an
  iconoclast, a heretic.

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• People dont see that they are on bended knee
  before the World, the Flesh, and the Devil.
• When you expose the World and the Devil, you will
  be hated.
• This is why they had to get rid of Jesus.
• Jesus had no undue loyalty to his religion or his
  state.
• His loyalty was to God.
• In Hebrew scripture the only real sin is idolatry
  to worship things as God that are not God.

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There Is a Crack in Everything

• Good things can also be bad things, like fallen
  angels
• This leads us away from either/or thinking to
  both/and thinking
• Everything is broken and fallen, weak and poor
  you, me, your relationships, your parents, your
  children, this institution

Thats how the light gets in
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• You dont have to wait for them to be perfect to
  fall in love with the world, or youll never love
  anything.
• Recognizing that everything is a partial good
  reflects original sin.
• This allows us to critique and not make idols.

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God Saves You

• This really means that your are liberated from
  the lie, the domination of the system, from
  needing to be perfect or right or wonderful.
• This liberates you to be who you really are
  naked and poor underneath your clothes, like all
  of us are.

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• This is the great liberation.
• The Kingdom of God gives us this other realm of
  identity a new status, security, citizenship,
  and inner authority.
• This is the real basis of discernment.

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John 167-14

• The holy spirit will show the world how wrong it
  was about evil, how wrong it was in its
  judgments, and how wrong it was about who was in
  the right and who was in the wrong.
• In the world you will have trouble, but take
  courage, I have conquered the world. (Jn 1633)

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• Get ready to be surprised.
• The last are going to be first and the first are
  going to be last.