Amid our nation’s terrors, we should remember that our neighbors need comfort and hope, they need useful religion.

The bad news is that religion gets a bad rap in the West.

The good news is that religion is on the increase globally, providing plenty of opportunity to make religion more useful.

A Barna Research study reports that the number one barrier to faith is: Non-Christian believers have a hard time believing that a good God would allow so much evil or suffering in the world. This study shows that thought is held by 18% of Baby Boomers, 22% of Generation X, 30% of Millennials, and 28% of Generation Z.

Can religion offer a better understanding of God and evil?

I think so.

I, too, don’t want to believe in a good God that allows evil and suffering, mainly because it doesn’t make sense. It only makes sense that a good God destroys evil and suffering, therefore, it’s opportunity to make this logic clear to the public.

The issue of a good God allowing us to overcome evil and suffering has been fully addressed in Christian Science. God did not create a mortal existence; God did not create human beings with good and bad instincts and inclinations. God created an immortal existence with spiritual beings imaging forth goodness, the image of Good, God.

If we’re going to be surprised, don’t be surprised by the terrors and old-time rhetoric that boasts God works through evil. God doesn’t work through evil.

Evil is what the human mind knows, or better said, it’s the good it doesn’t know. Just like we don’t know everything about the universe or even our self, the human mind needs to learn Good, God.

Instead of fearing or excusing an environment of terrors, we can face them with God, Good. We can find solutions to protect our comfort and hope. We can make religion useful.

From 21^st Century Science and Health:

“Error in statement leads to error in action. The term “evil spirits” resists the fact that evil is not Spirit, for there is no evil in Spirit. Evil spirits or beliefs are removed by truth. As we advance spiritually, evil becomes more apparent and more obnoxious until it disappears in the reality of Spirit.

“God is not the creator of an evil mind. Indeed, evil is not Mind. We must learn that evil is the awful deception and unreality of existence. Evil is not supreme; good is not helpless; nor are the so-called physical laws primary and the law of Spirit secondary. Without these lessons, we lose sight of the perfect Source or divine Principle of spiritual selfhood.”