Evil At Saddleback

A revealing bloggingheads exchange between Bob Wright and Ann Althouse. Both realize that McCain's vow to "defeat evil" at Saddleback was both asinine machismo - like we haven't had enough of that after eight years of Cheney - and deeply unChristian. There's no way a president of the United States or any country can "defeat evil." Evil is everywhere and always for Christians - until the Second Coming. Particular manifestations of evil can be defeated, but not evil itself. That endures, and is part of us too.

In this, of course, Obama's theology is far more mainstream than McCain's bravado. And Christians are first reminded that we too are capable of evil - even as we try to do good. And so a genuine effort to spread democracy and human rights can even allow some leaders, divorced from real Christianity, to commit absolute evil in the name of good.

Like, say, torture.