ISIS, Charles Manson, and Redemption

“Be not overcome with evil, but overcome evil with good.”
-Romans 12:21

It doesn’t sink in easily. Whole families are being slaughtered, children are executed in the most barbaric of ways, and the evil which is ISIS seems all too proud of what the rest of us recoil from. It’s very, very hard to believe the photos and videos making the rounds today are authentic. Surely it’s a repulsive joke; nobody could really do that.

And of course, we know better – aren’t all of us well versed in Holocaust atrocities? – but what we know and accept are often at odds. Regardless, the monstrosity titled ISIS is the terror of northern and western Iraq, and the disgust of the civilized world, targeting Christians and other minorities, Shiites and Kurds included, glorying and wallowing in blood. It doesn’t get more evil than this.

Acting and Reacting to Evil

We need to act, no argument there. As of this writing, today’s three airstrikes have garnered some success, and God bless the US efforts to provide humanitarian relief to trapped families, while strategically targeting ISIS forces.

We also need to pray; no controversy there, either. The glib “praying” message we often send to friends needs to become a muscular intercession for everyone caught in this unbelievable conflict. Members of the Body of Christ are risking and losing their lives for refusing to bend; humans, whether believers or not, are facing the same brutality. If as James said the “effective fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much,” (James 5:16) then everyone made righteous in Christ is mandated to use their righteous standing before God to plead for the madness to stop, and now.

But we also need to remember that evil can, amazingly and quite unexpectedly, be overcome with good. I say this because while Iraq’s horrors are rightfully center stage news, this weekend also marks the 45^th anniversary of the notorious Tate/LaBianca murders, orchestrated by Charles Manson and carried out by his zombied followers August 9-10, 1969.

The crimes took the lives of nine people during a spree of four separate episodes, including that of the stunningly beautiful, eight and a half month pregnant actress Sharon Tate.

But if the crimes were unspeakable, the defendant’s behavior during the trial was mystifying. I was fourteen years old in ’69. If you’re anywhere near my age you’ll remember news footage of the Manson girls skipping down the courtroom halls, laughing and singing and smirking their way through testimony in which they bragged about “killing for Charlie” with a glee which made many of us, myself included, want to drop the cyanide on them personally.

Who’d Have Thought?

Flash forward 45 years. Charles Watson, Manson’s right hand man who personally did the lion’s share of the killing, has been serving Christ since his conversion in the mid-70’s, holding himself up in numerous sermons and interviews as proof that God confounds the wise of the world by choosing the foolish. Susan Atkins, the most notorious of the Manson women who bragged horrendously about relishing the murders, received a Bible while on Death Row in the early 1970’s (they all faced death sentences, commuted when California temporarily abolished capitol punishment) from a concerned Christian. She began reading it, and privately came to Christ in her prison cell. Susan died five years ago of brain cancer; the last news footage of her life showed her reciting the 23^rd Psalm. Bruce Davis, an active participant in two of the murder scenes, was saved shortly before Atkins and witnessed to her before her own conversion, and Catherine Share, one of Charlie’s most fervent and articulate spokespersons during the Manson trial, has been an outspoken believer for more than two decades.

They’ve all expressed repugnance and deep remorse over their crimes, some of them writing best selling Christian books testifying to God’s grace in their lives. I’m no advocate for their release, but I can’t help but glory in the fact that over the years their testimonies, good works, and attempts to do something productive and God honoring with their lives has stayed intact. Evil was overcome with good in these seemingly unreachable lives, and it can happen again, whether to Mansonites or blind ISIS followers.

Light Wins

 I once heard a terrific theology professor explain that when Paul said “God commendeth His love towards us in that while we sinners, Christ died or us” (Romans 5:28) the Greek word translated “commendeth” was sometimes used in reference to the black cloth background displaying valuable jewels. Set against the dark, the jewels shined all
the brighter.

That still excites me down to my socks. God delights, I believe, in blowing everyone away by doing something redemptive against the bleakest, most hopeless background, sometimes redeeming the least likely; the most despised. So while my prayers go first and foremost to those in danger of ISIS, somehow I hope to find the ability to pray with integrity for those within ISIS itself.

For me, that’ll be tough. But I remember Holocaust survivor Corrie ten Boom writing about how she and her sister prayed for their country when the Germans invaded Holland, as dog fights raged over their rooftop. Her sister then began praying for the Nazis as well, that God would release them from their own darkness. And Corrie, a woman after my own heart, silently prayed, “Oh, Lord, listen to her, because I cannot pray for those people at all.”

 Still, she eventually did, and I will, too. Evil can still be overcome, whether in the national arena or the most defiled heart. This weekend, may God grant that we see, against this miserable current backdrop of the dark, some jewels reminding us that what was true when Jesus came remains a solid fact: The Light came into the world, and the darkness overcame it not.

 And I’m sure it’s also appropriate to say the obvious: Come quickly, Lord Jesus.