Who is winning, God or Satan?

After hearing American evangelist Joyce Meyers giving a Christmas-type sermon about the seductive temptations of Satan, I read RC Archbishop Jason Gordon’s repeated appeal for our citizens to resist evil habits and keep faith in God.

Two weeks ago, the tireless Archbishop Gordon, noting the collapse of the country’s “value system,” called upon our 1.4 million young and old citizens to help turn back the country from crime, wickedness and hedonism. Last year, he condemned widespread “disrespect, indiscipline, lawlessness, ingratitude and unaccountability” while pleading for better values and habits. Nothing changed. And I began to think.

How many times must the dutiful archbishop and other worried ones say the same things? What is wrong? Are Satan’s temptations so powerful? Archbishop Gordon, well-qualified in theology, author of three books affirming faith in the existence of God, backed up by his many years of dedicated community service to Belmont youths, cannot give up. But as my teacher friend asked me: Is Satan winning? Is evil necessary for the existence of goodness? Not many have the power to say: Get thee behind me, Satan.

Last week too, Rev Dr Joy Abdul-Mohan, moderator of the Presbyterian Church, in her Christmas message, repeated her pleadings against evil, also asking parents to instil good values in their children. But how many times must the same call for better habits and values be made? It is reasonable to ask: Why no change? God, in whatever written way or form worshipped, represents values of goodness, righteousness and virtue. Satan, in whatever description, represents values of evil, wrongdoing and vice. In fact, it’s said that Satan’s best trick is to have us believe he doesn’t exist.

So from the Russia-Ukraine war to our annual murder rate and the devilish reasons for them, it looks like God has serious challenges. Remember what started World War I and II and wars before these. In sum, it was ethnic jealousies, national “pride,” selfish ambitions for power and land with millions of followers falling prey to misguided, unholy leaders. Could you imagine, as reported, the Russian Orthodox Church “strongly supported Russia in its war against Ukraine and justified it on religious grounds"? What about the war-driven deaths and destruction of thousands of homes, schools, hospitals and churches?

Hence Pope Francis, at last week’s international conference of religions, called upon the church to fight for peace and against “the ‘childlike’ whims of powerful leaders who make war.” What really gets into such leaders who instigate such satanic wars without regard for the suffering of so many innocent people? Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, when asked about Russia’s invasion, said it was “to preserve Russia’s national pride.”

Quite a devilish explanation. It seems as if there is some sinister force behind such thinking, as it was behind Hitler’s massacre of Jews. We feel forced to wonder if it is Satan at work. What else?

The Russian-Ukraine war isn’t yet finished and there is a war-like atmosphere brewing between China and Taiwan, between North and South Korea, never mind the terrible killings now occurring in some parts of Africa. Of course, the murderous guns, tanks, bazookas, bombs, fighter-jets, etc, must be sold to warring markets – invented or discovered. The Pope recently called these manufacturers “merchants of death.” We get some of the rusty, discarded guns.

Repeated pleadings for peace and righteousness seem to mean nothing. Archbishop Gordon said: “Something is wrong in a beautiful nation like TT…The hedonistic culture that has overtaken the country, crime and violence and the lack of values that have crept right through the society.”

Who is responsible? Crime and school violence are saddening examples. As I pointed out to TV host Fazeer Mohammed last week, so many helpful proposals have been submitted to governments since 1977, but each one stubbornly ignored. Our intelligent ministers felt the wheel must be reinvented so, for example, the murder rate went from 84 in 1990 to way over 500 today: and school violence running amok. Corruption too.

Is Satan blocking our progress? What else? It seems more than just “political irresponsibility.”

But again, the archbishop and many others of the church have been repeatedly warning us over the crime-ridden years; every Christmas, every Divali, every Eid, hopefully wishing for peace, public safety and national harmony. Rather than getting better, things get worse, and citizens keep wondering why.

What is the force that appears to keep it so? There are godly prayers to let light remove the darkness, but the darkness persists year after year. It seems something is happening that we are yet to know. Noting the widespread crime, violence and corruption 40 years ago, the late Express editor Owen Baptiste, in his No Sacred Cows column, asked: Is God dead?

Whatever is done to help improve the nation and world, it seems that human nature possesses inherent Satanic dispositions – greed, envy, spite, selfish ambitions, etc, which overcome goodness in the spiritually weak. Even the well-schooled and wealthy fall to Satan’s temptations. What other explanation is there? The American comedian Flip Wilson, in explaining his misdeeds, used to say “The devil made me do it.” Today, we also use numerous excuses with devilish values.

Last February, Rev Abdul-Mohan, lamenting the “evils” that have befallen us, declared: “I have a dream of a world free of gender-based violence, a world and nation of honest and honourable leaders, of reconciliation and peace.” Then the Russia-Ukraine war started. Nothing has changed nor seems likely to change. Frustrated UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres warns: “World is heading to climate hell.” Our “Armageddonists” say it is worse. Barbados PM Mia Mottley, fed up with the same things being repeated, told an international climate conference last week: “Stop the talk and act now.” We will see.

So the hoping and praying will continue, year after year. It gets depressing sometimes if we don’t keep faith in this devilish environment. "We can make it if we try,” instructed calypsonian Black Stalin. Yes, but for how long? Then for the deeply troubled, Lord Pretender’s consolation: “Never ever worry, don’t mind how things looking hard …Always consider somebody suffering more than you.”

Like evangelic therapy, such consolation doesn’t get rid of the evil hardships; they merely advise you how to adjust to the never-ending wickedness around you. Certainly, citizens wish to be optimistic and hopeful. But when they see, near and far, the unstoppable destruction, violence, corruption, greed and gross inhumanity, they feel tempted to ask: Who is winning, God or Satan?

Neither criminology nor science can give the answer. It lies somewhere else.