In his first Inaugural Address, President Abraham Lincoln appealed to “the better angels of our nature.” That is what our political and religious leaders should always do — appeal to our best angels. But at the other end of the moral spectrum, political and even religious leaders now often appeal to our worst demons: fear, anger, resentment, greed, prejudice, division, and hatred. And the danger we are discovering is that our demons in America have been lying just below the surface and have been aggressively brought forth in the past few years. We see white supremacists marching openly with torches aloft in Charlottesville and elsewhere, and a growing white nationalism feels emboldened by the White House. We see children in cages and families torn apart at the southern border because of policies made in the same building where they call immigrants “invaders.” We now see the worst elements of America’s history rekindled by some who see these elements as their plan for this nation’s future, often with the language of Christianity painfully deployed in defense of that.

The crank of the Jack-in-the-box has been turned, and Jack’s not going back into the box.

So mere political activism (as important as that is) won’t defeat our demons alone. The moral, religious, and political battles between our angels and our demons have become the “spiritual warfare” of our time, using the language of the Apostle Paul.

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