Schoolchildren slaughtered in pews, a refugee stabbed through the neck and left to bleed, and now a leading political activist shot in the neck and confirmed dead — twice now we’ve seen the faces of men contorted by our oldest foe. Evil has been a constant in this world since Eden’s close, but these past few weeks have felt thicker with the humidity of hell than usual. I’m no demonologist, nor could I study that area for too long for fear of what it might do to my soul. However, one’s claimed lack of interest in that field does not mean that the fallen haven’t an interest in us. Anyone who has read The Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis’s fictionalized account of a demon’s correspondence with his protégé and nephew, can tell you that hell’s agents are covert rather than overt operators, and it is their greatest wish to separate man from man and, in so doing, separate him from God. (See also hell’s map in The Great Divorce.)

Children are not to feel safe in their churches, women are not to feel safe in transit among their fellow citizens, and we cannot speak with one another without reasonably wondering if we’re in danger. Our minds scream, “Trust no one, go nowhere, interact with creation as little as possible, and perhaps we’ll be safe,” but it’s when we’re alone and trembling that hell can exert its force so much the easier on our minds. The demon wishes to dissolve the good that God has made. We find ourselves once again in a time when salvation feels distant. Despair is attractive. Caustic blame and condemnation are momentarily cathartic. But there is nothing more perilous than allowing ourselves these things, as Job could tell us.

Civilization, this interdependent structure of support and trust, cannot be abandoned. We must keep the faith. We must hold the line.