Deliver Us From "The Evil"
I recently had the opportunity to post this on my Facebook "wall":
CO2 as a "pollutant" is, as you know, a fairly recent labeling. The war against it is contemporaneous and consistent with their (liberals') war against capitalism, their war against the unborn, their war against the traditional family, and their death sentence on the poor of the southern hemisphere who die by the hundreds of thousands for want of DDT, to name a few.This wingnut (me) wonders whether there is a common thread, namely the Malthusian fear of human population growth... a fear which I discount. But even if not discounted, you and I must know that the immeasurably high value of human life lies in the fact that we are loved unconditionally... because that is the nature of our heavenly Father. Allowing the innocent and the defenseless to die so that we might live is the inexcusable cruelty that liberal orthodoxy hides from eyes of those who ask to be delivered from "the evil". c.f. The Lord's Prayer.
Since it is my birthday, I'm going to allow myself to expound a little on the words "the Evil" from the Lord's Prayer.
In the "King James Version" (KJV) it says simply "deliver us from evil", and many modern English translations say "deliver us from The Evil One". But in Young's Literal Translation it says "deliver us from The Evil". I believe this third translation is the most faithful to the original Greek (and to the Hebrew in which Jesus would have given this lesson); Matthew 6:9-13 and Luke 11:1-4
More importantly for us, "The Evil" gives us a better understanding of the world in which He asks us to live and the dangers which He asks us to face. It suggests that:
- Evil comes in many varieties and does not always appear to be as such.
- Evil is both close to us and far away.
- Evil is both pervasive and pernicious.
- Evil operates with intent and does not randomly "happen".
- Evil has the personality of one (Satan) and the personalities of many (a legion of well led demons).
- Evil hunts us as a pack (of wolves).
