Why Evil Prevails

Dylann Roof

By now, everyone's familiar with the recent tragedy that took place in Charleston, South Carolina where a 21-year-old white supremacist named Dylann Roof shot nine people to death at an historic black church during a prayer service.

When the police spotted Roof driving around in his black Hyundai after the shooting, they arrested him without an altercation. That's unusual because the people who commit heinous crimes such as Roof rarely give up without a fight. What often happens is either the shooter and or innocent victims end up losing their lives when the shooter either commits suicide or tries to shoot his way out of his predicament.

Thankfully, Roof gave up without an incident. But indeed, the damage was done. Not only did nine people tragically lose their lives in a church of all places, but opportunistic politicians and corrupt, leftist media hacks exploited the tragedy by blaming it on white racism, "white privilege", and of course, the availability of guns. 

Some media pundits chose the more conservative route by labeling Roof a psychopath, nutcase, insane, crazy, deranged etc. That's the route most pundits take because it's nonjudgmental. A person who's crazy or insane is amoral and is unable to differentiate between right and wrong, good and evil. However, a person who's completely sane who commits a heinous crime has chosen evil over good.

How do we know that Roof is evil rather than insane? Because he displayed remorse--albeit minimal--when he was questioned by the police. He allegedly told police that he was reluctant to go through with the shooting because the people in the church seemed nice. If Roof really said that, then he showed that he had a functioning conscience--albeit a weak one--by recognizing that what he did was evil. A psychopath would've had no such convictions.

Roof's conscience wasn't strong enough to convince him to cancel his plan. He was so consumed by evil that he violated his conscience and murdered nine people. Why was Roof consumed with such evil? Because he had immersed himself in it via the hate websites that he visited on the internet.

But he was also enabled. By whom? By his family, whether they were his parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins etc. And certainly, it's likely he had friends and acquaintances who embraced the same evil he did. They influenced Roof to become the evil monster he became. When evil is camouflaged by selfish reason, then anarchy prevails.

Am I making excuses for Roof? Surely I'm not. But if he'd been brought up in a strong moral environment instead of in the morally-relative, secular environment he grew up in, he would've never have embraced the evil that he did. The Bible says this: "Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it." (Proverbs 22:6) And this: "Whoever spares the rod hates their children, but the one who loves their children is careful to discipline them." (proverbs 13:24)

The sad moral of this story is the increasing secularization of western civilization where the clear distinction between good and evil is blurred or obliterated and everyone does what's right in their own eyes. And the Christian church has played a significant role in the increasing moral bankruptcy of the western world by failing to contend for the faith (Jude 1:3) it was entrusted with by Jesus Christ 2,000 years ago. The Christian church has lost its influence in the western world and the results are obvious.

And the increase in evil in the time we're living in is prophetic. The apostle Paul wrote this nearly 2,000 years ago: "But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God--having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people." (2 Timothy 3:1-5)

Sadly, there will be more incidents such as the shooting in Charleston, South Carolina. When a society ignores the causes of the symptoms that plague it, then evil prevails. A society can pass draconian laws that restrict behavior and even disarm its citizenry. But it can't change human hearts. Only Jesus Christ can.