The Root Beneath the Rot
The Root Beneath the Rot
We are a nation (and world) splintering at the seams.
Turn on the news, scroll social media, or just step outside your echo chamber, and you’ll see the symptoms: racial unrest, political fury, economic despair, cultural fragmentation, distrust in leadership, and a gnawing anxiety that none of this is sustainable. We blame red states or blue ones. We blame systems or people. We protest, legislate, vote, and rage. But nothing seems to actually change.
Because what’s fracturing this country isn’t merely ideological or political—it’s spiritual. It’s not just about left versus right, white versus black, or rich versus poor. These divides are real, but they are not the root. They are the fruit.
The root is evil. And no one wants to talk about it.
Evil: Not Just an Ancient Word
We’ve sanitized evil into myth or metaphor. It’s something in horror films or dusty theology books. But Scripture pulls no punches: evil is real, active, and deeply embedded in the human heart.
“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” - Jeremiah 17:9
The Bible doesn’t frame evil as merely “out there” in some distant villain—it names it in us. Every human heart is bent. Twisted inward. C.S. Lewis called evil “spoiled goodness,” and Cornelius Plantinga, in his brilliant book Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be, describes sin as “culpable disturbance of shalom.”
That phrase has haunted me.
We don’t just break rules—we vandalize God’s peace. We undo creation. We shatter relationships, systems, institutions. And we do it while pretending it’s progress. Evil isn't always loud. Sometimes it wears a smile and a three-piece suit. Sometimes it preaches tolerance while devouring truth. Sometimes it’s cloaked in religion. And often, it's sitting comfortably in our own hearts.
Why Politics Can’t Save Us
We’re so tempted to make messiahs out of politicians. Every four years, we’re told that this is the election that will define our future. And yet, somehow, every side leaves disappointed, disillusioned, or enraged.
Because no political system—left, right, libertarian, socialist, or otherwise—can cure what is fundamentally spiritual. You can’t legislate away evil. You can’t protest it into extinction. You can’t vote it out of office. Evil is not just a bad idea—it’s a power (Ephesians 6:12). A kingdom. A reality.
And the real enemy, Scripture reminds us, is not flesh and blood. It’s not your neighbor, your president, your boss, or your Twitter rival. It’s the powers and principalities behind the curtain.
This is why even the best policies fail. Because the world is broken not just by bad leadership, but by cosmic rebellion.
The Failure of Every Human Fix
The deeper we dig into human solutions, the more we expose our bankruptcy. Education can inform, but it cannot transform. Science can explain the how, but not the why. Activism can expose injustice, but not uproot it. And therapy can help us manage our wounds—but not forgive them.
Tim Keller was spot on when he said, “We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe.” And if that’s true, then the real problem isn’t just out there—it’s in here. There’s a line in Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago that should stop every one of us in our tracks:
"The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart."
Until we recover a theology of evil, we will keep treating cancer with band-aids.
The Hope of a Different Kingdom
The Bible doesn’t just reveal the problem—it proclaims the solution. Not a program, not a party, but a Person.
Jesus didn’t come simply to give us better morality or a ticket to heaven. He came to crush evil at its root. To disarm the powers. To rescue us from ourselves. “The reason the Son of God appeared,” John writes, “was to destroy the works of the devil.” (1 John 3:8)
And on the cross, Jesus did exactly that—not by wielding a sword, but by absorbing evil into Himself. By bearing the full weight of sin, death, and the devil, He broke their power.
The resurrection wasn’t just a comeback—it was a conquest.
This means we don’t have to be enslaved by the evil around us or within us. It means we don’t have to let the world define us by our tribe, party, or trauma. Jesus offers something far better: a new heart (Ezekiel 36:26), a new Spirit, and a new citizenship in a kingdom that will never be shaken.
A kingdom of shalom—not as sentimentality, but as deep, restorative justice and wholeness. The healing of everything fractured.
What Do We Do?
The most radical thing you can do in an age of evil is not to yell louder or fight harder—it’s to repent. Turn. Not just from wrong behavior, but from self-rule. From pride. From the illusion that we can fix ourselves.
Jesus is not recruiting fans—He’s calling rebels to lay down their arms.
If the root of our crisis is spiritual, then the solution is spiritual too. And only one man has defeated evil—not in theory, but in blood and resurrection.
His name is Jesus.
He doesn’t offer us escape, but engagement. He doesn't call us to comfort, but conversion. He doesn’t promise political victory—but eternal shalom.
And that, friend, is what we actually long for.
So the question is not, “Which side are you on?”
The question is: Have you bowed the knee to the only King who can actually destroy the works evil?
So What?
Our nation doesn’t just need better leaders. It needs new hearts. And only Jesus gives that. Only Jesus has faced the full weight of evil and crushed it without becoming it. He is our only hope, not just for personal salvation, but for national renewal.
Let’s stop pretending the wound is minor. Let’s stop blaming the symptoms. And let’s return to the only One who can restore shalom.
Because as long as we ignore the root, the rot will spread.
But if we seek first His Kingdom, and His righteousness—everything else will fall into place (Matthew 6:33).
Even now, He’s making all things new.
YOU ARE LOVED,
PastorPusch
“The fight against evil is real.” – CK
