Paul of Tarsus told the early Christians, “Do not be overcome by evil.” How can this biblical wisdom guide us as a country under attack?
The events of the first two weeks of the Trump 2.0 administration have left very few untouched.
You may have noticed that no matter how hard you’re trying to be positive, you can’t shake this feeling that something is off, something is amiss. If you’re feeling that way, you’re not insane, and you are not alone.
Because something is terribly wrong.
We are facing an administrative coup with Elon Musk seizing control of the U.S. Treasury.
Planes are crashing.
Environmental disasters are intensifying and accelerating as Trump pulls the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Agreement.
Transgender people are being targeted.
J6 criminals are now released while the prosecutors are purged.
Trump’s tariff war is set to send us into a global economic crisis.
And a Joker’s gallery of criminals in the Cabinet and appointed positions are gleefully dismantling government infrastructure from the inside out.
All of this is to say that the christofascist Project 2025 playbook is fully unfolding while Putin-guided psy-ops are maneuvering us into checkmate.
In other words, the feelings of anxiousness, fear, and even dread some are experiencing are normal and healthy. Because they are your mind and your body’s way of telling you that something is not right, and something must be done about it.
When someone messes with your sense of reality, manipulates your perception of truth, and uses techniques and strategies to overwhelm and disorient you to the point where you question your own sanity – and does so in a way that affects an entire nation – this means that something wicked is at work.
What good can the Bible do?
It may seem preposterously namby-pamby, then, for me to pull out a Bible passage and suggest that it can be helpful at a time like this.
But there is surprising grit in a teaching from Paul of Tarsus that I have found helpful. Maybe you will, too.
Romans 12:14-21
14Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. 15Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. 16Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. 17Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. 18If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. 19Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’
20No, ‘if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.’ 21Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
Romans 12:14-21 can help us to diagnose what’s going on and give us guidance for what to do about it.
In these verses, Paul is giving the Christians in Rome ethical instructions that are meant to guide them. He’s helping them manage the boundaries of ethical behavior. He’s also giving them the basis for their relationships interpersonally, as a community of faith, and with the society around them.
In verse 21 he says: “Do not be overcome by evil.”
My friends, a great evil is happening in this country because there has been a turning away from the most fundamental ethics – especially by some who claim to follow Christ.
Just a few months ago at the Republican National Convention, they held up signs that read “Mass Deportation Now.” Over the past two weeks, ICE began the first stages of ethnic cleansing. Immigrants are being rounded up while Trump announced plans for concentration camps.
This is evil, full stop.
The Christians in ancient Rome understood what it meant to live in a time when something wicked was at work, when things were fundamentally not right.
Paul’s wrote at a time when Christians were reeling from persecution from imperial Rome. But they also experienced horizontal persecution from their friends, family members, and business associates who were shunning them for not going along with Rome’s propaganda.
So Christians in the first century knew what it was like to live in a time when lies become normalized and reality itself seems to crumble. And they knew what it meant to live with brutality.
The center cannot hold

There’s a section of a poem by William Butler Yeats (1865 – 1939) entitled “The Second Coming” which, for me, uncannily captures the feeling of this time:
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Yeats wrote these words at the conclusion of World War I, and they eerily describe our own era.
Because what we’re experiencing now in our country and our culture is like an auto-immune disorder. The very systems that have served human society (flawed though they were) are now turned against us, resulting in self-destruction. Something sinister has overtaken us from the inside. And it is attempting to unravel the fabric of human community, like a disease that is attacking us at the cellular level.
Roman society was also subjected to that kind of societal unravelling.
The idea of Pax Romana, that violence is the only way to peace, was a myth that more and more people were no longer accepting. But that meant that the emperor and his minions doubled down on persecuting truth-tellers like Paul.
The vision of a Beloved Community and the ethics of God were in danger of being forgotten and lost in the midst of a very chaotic time.
Recognizing what was at stake, Paul wrote a letter to the Roman church so that there would be a record of what it means to resist an idolatrous empire and hold fast to the teachings of Jesus and the prophets. He wrote to keep the teachings alive because they were essential for revitalizing faith.
Today, Paul’s teachings can help restore the ethical foundation upon which society can function.
My friends, we have a Pauline task before us today.
The Christian church has a duty and a responsibility to remind ourselves and our society that there was once – and still must be – a moral and ethical center. That there were – and still are – standards for responsible leadership. That there was – and still is – accountability to truth.
Our Pauline task in the face of this latest iteration of chaotic wickedness is this.
We must re-establish a moral and ethical center based on resistance to evil. At the same time, we must support life-giving values shared with other religions and non-religious people of goodwill.
In other words, we must get back to basics of ethics that give us the non-negotiables when it comes to human decency and what it means to live without fear of the strong overtaking the weak.
Paul’s teachings embody radical integrity and a sacrificial love that puts your life and your body on the line to protect those most vulnerable.
The basics of prayer and worship and service an help neutralize this evil and begin to return ourselves, our churches, and our world to a place of centered sanity and re-integration.
And we are to do so without hate in our hearts (Romans 12:19). There’s the rub.
Because I don’t know about you, but the anger I have felt over the last few weeks – months, years even – has been so strong. My rage rises like bile after accidentally ingesting something foul. It almost makes me choke on what has been put inside of me.
I don’t think I’m alone in this feeling. Because from what I have seen on social media and on protest signs, the righteous anger people are feeling is finding expression in all manner of ways.
How else are you supposed to feel when every day you wake up to find yet another attack on everything you value, every principle you hold dear?
And let me tell you, that was one of the strategies of the Third Reich: never allow the public to cool off.
The firehouse of fiendishness is an intentional tactic to overwhelm us so that we don’t have time or energy to organize and pushback.
This is why Paul’s teaching, “do not be overcome by evil,” is essential for a society under siege.
So how do we avoid being overcome by evil?
There are some resources that I’ve found helpful.
- One is the Authoritarian Regime Survival Guide, practical wisdom collected from those who survived oppressive regimes in Eastern Europe.
- Another is an article from Psychology Today on how to create a psychological go-bag when facing those who are targeting our resilience.
- A third is an article by my colleague, the Rev. Lauren Grubaugh Thomas, who wrote a helpful article about not obeying authoritarians in advance. She received a lesson in this from one of her three-year-old twins who powerfully illustrates what noncooperation and resistance look like.
Finally, there is the second half of Paul’s instruction:
Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
He based this on a teaching from Jesus of Nazareth: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,” (Matthew 5:43-48; Luke 6:27-36.)
What?!? How do we overcome evil with good? How do we love our enemies when they’re trying to destroy us?
That’s a topic I’ll cover in my next piece.
In the meantime, if you are a preacher wanting to addressing social issues in a sermon, you can take this 5-minute assessment of your strengths and vulnerabilities here.
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Are you a clergy person looking to connect with other Christian leaders in the work of resisting and disrupting Christian nationalism? Check out the Clergy Emergency League, a group I co-founded in 2020.
Read also:
11 Lessons for Preachers from Bishop Budde’s Sermon
Mercy Plea by Bishop Budde Mirrors 3 Bold Biblical Women
Immigration Ministry: 8 Things Churches Should Do in 2025
The Rev. Dr. Leah D. Schade is a co-founder of the Clergy Emergency League. She is the author of Preaching and Social Issues: Tools and Tactics for Empowering Your Prophetic Voice (Rowman & Littlefield, 2024), Preaching in the Purple Zone: Ministry in the Red-Blue Divide (Rowman & Littlefield, 2019) and Creation-Crisis Preaching: Ecology, Theology, and the Pulpit (Chalice Press, 2015). She is the co-editor of Rooted and Rising: Voices of Courage in a Time of Climate Crisis (Rowman & Littlefield, 2019). Her book, Introduction to Preaching: Scripture, Theology, and Sermon Preparation, was co-authored with Jerry L. Sumney and Emily Askew (Rowman & Littlefield, 2023).
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