What Would C.S. Lewis Say to Osama Bin Laden?
by Joseph Loconte Editors’ Note: Joseph Loconte is the William E. Simon Fellow on Religion and a Free Society at The Heritage Foundation. He recently gave this address at the Trinity Forum, a leadership academy largely supported by Evangelicals, whose purpose is to help young leaders engage in the key issues of their personal and public lives in the context of faith. For some liberal commentators, September 11 became an opportunity to portray religion as an engine of wickedness, their hostility arising because they construe the history of Christianity and all religion as oppressive. Loconte spars with that idea and then asks the really haunting question: How should Christians respond to evil? He looks to C.S. Lewis for the answers. The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 and what they represent demand from all sensible, civilized people clear thinking about some big moral questions. What do we mean when we call anything evil? Isn’t religion, itself, a reliable source of wickedness? Does the
