>The killing of the Reverend Fred Winters is another evidence of the excess of evil that prevails in our world today. Winters was a Southern Baptist minister and the pastor of the First Baptist Church of Maryville, Illinois. He was killed on Sunday, March 8, 2009.

Winters was killed by Terry J. Sedlacek, a 27-year-old man from Troy, Illinois who, according to a news report, suffered bouts of erratic behavior caused by Lyme disease. While Winters was preaching at the early Sunday morning service, shortly after 8 a.m., Sedlacek entered the sanctuary, exchanged a few words with Reverend Winters, then fired a .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol four times. Winters, 45, and the father of two daughters, died of a single shot to the heart.

Winters came to the pastorate of the First Baptist Church in 1987. At that time the church had an average attendance of 32 people during Sunday worship. Today the church has about 1,200 members with three worship services on Sundays.

This tragic death was unnecessary and reflects the contempt and disrespect that some people have for human life. Many people in our society today do not understand that God values human life and that God has established laws that protect human life.

God values human life because every individual was created in the image of God (Genesis 1:26). Since every person bears God’s image, the killing of one person is an affront to God.

The sixth commandment is a prohibition against the willful and deliberate taking of a human life: “You shall not murder” (Exodus 20:13). This commandment concerns the taking of our own and our neighbor’s life. Killing is never right, but the sixth commandment does not forbid killing in war, in self-defense, not even when the state puts a criminal to death. What the commandment forbids is taking life out of malice, hatred, revenge, anger, or any reason that results from human interaction.

As tragic as the death of Reverend Winters was, this is not the first time nor it will be the last time that such an event will take place. Killing inside a church or a temple has happened before and it will happen again.

When Solomon tried to kill Joab, the commander of the Israelite army, Joab, fearing for his life, “fled to the tent of the Lord and took hold of the horns of the altar” (1 Kings 2:28). The tent of the Lord was a place of refuge and safety. But Solomon, when he was told that Joab had fled to the tent of the Lord and had taken refuge beside the altar, ordered Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, to go inside the Lord’s tent and kill Joab (1 Kings 2:29-34).

Zechariah, son of Jehoiada and the prophet of the Lord, was also killed in the temple. When Zechariah stood before the people and told them about their rebellion against the Lord, the people, by order of king Joash, stoned him to death in the courtyard of the Lord’s temple (2 Chronicles 24:20-22).

Even the king of Assyria was killed in the temple while he was worshiping his god. According to 2 Kings 19:36-37, after King Sennacherib of Assyria left Judah and returned to his palace in Nineveh, “as he was worshiping in the house of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer killed him with the sword, and they escaped into the land of Ararat.”

How can we explain the death of Reverend Winters? Seeking to understand what had taken place, Nate Adams, Executive Director of the Illinois Baptist State Association, said:

“Our great God is not surprised by this, or anything. That He allows evil and free will to have their way in tragedies like this is a mystery in many ways. But we know we can trust Him no matter what, and draw close to Him in any circumstances.”

Adams’s statement can be one reason why someone may choose not believe in God, but the presence of evil in the world is a good reason to believe in God, since the existence of evil also presupposes the existence of good, for God is good (Psalm 73:1).

It is evil that unhinges human beings into committing the kind of atrocity that took the life of the Reverend Winters. When that kind of evil happens, nothing can be controlled and nothing can be understood, thus our search for answers when at times answers cannot be found.

Evil is the result of human sin but only people who believe in God can truly understand the awful nature of sin and that the consequence of sin is the suffering of the innocent. This is the reason there are laws, both human and divine. Law is the process by which God and human authorities try to ratify the crooked effects of the madness of evil.

When human laws and divine laws fail to establish a society in which people live under the law, the result is the triumph of evil and the imposition of the will of outlaws.

It is in the arena of good and evil where we find God. However, people who do nor fear God may not fully understand that evil is a consequence of their rejection of God. Paul said that people who not acknowledge God do things that should not be done. They are filled with evil. They murder, they are heartless, ruthless, and inventors of all kinds of evil (Romans 1:28-31).

God and God’s people are in no way strangers to the horrors of evil. Jesus suffered by the hands of evil men (Hebrews 13:12). Jesus also said that his disciples would be persecuted (John 15:20). In the list of faithful people in Hebrews 11, we find many who suffered for their faith. These were the people who “were tortured, refusing to accept release, in order to obtain a better resurrection. Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned to death, they were sawn in two, they were killed by the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, persecuted, tormented” (Hebrews 11:35-37).

Evil is a reality in the world and the death of Reverend Winters is evidence of the reality of evil. People try to understand the presence of evil in the world, but the reality is that alone, human beings cannot understand the problem of evil. It is only when people and God fight together against evil, that goodness can happen. If a person walks alone, then evil becomes incomprehensible, understanding fails, and fear and horror triumph. Alone, a person cannot hold the key that unlocks the mystery of evil.

The explanation of this paradox, how can evil exist in the presence of a holy God, is only explained when one walks with God. People will escape from the depths of despair and the horrors of evil if they walk in harmony with God.

Under his light everything becomes clear. As Jesus said: “You don’t understand now what I am doing, but someday you will” (John 13:7).

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Evil, Fred Winters, Murder, Ten Commandments, Theodicy

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