Using Evil Against Evil Can Never Be Good

2/11/2024

Warning: This post resides in "beating a dead horse" territory, but here goes nothing...

And behold! in our need chance brings to light the Ring of Power. It is a gift, I say; a gift to the foes of Mordor. It is mad not to use it, to use the power of the enemy against him. The fearless, the ruthless, these alone will achieve victory. What could not a warrior do in this great hour, a great leader? What could not Aragorn do? Or if he refuses, why not Boromir? The Ring would give me power of Command. How I would drive the hosts of Mordor, and all men would flock to my banner!

The passage above — taken from the final pages of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring — reveals the spiritual dangers inherent in what Dr. Charlton has frequently referred to as the Boromir Strategy.

The Boromir Strategy — using the power of the enemy against the enemy — is straightforward and easy to comprehend. On the surface, Hey lads, let's use the One Ring to fight Sauron!, comes off as a veritable no-brainer, a golden opportunity, an unquestionable gift that, in the name of all that is Good, should not and cannot be passed up.

Yet Tolkien wastes no time revealing the negative spiritual implications of harnessing the power of evil to fight evil. After Frodo escapes Boromir’s attempts to secure the ring, he pauses in the sunlight and resolutely states, “This at least is plain: the evil of the Ring is already at work in the Company, and the Ring must leave them before it does more harm…”, which is followed by the acknowledgment that “...Boromir has fallen into evil.”

As noted above, the initial allure of the Boromir Strategy is straightforward and easy to comprehend, but the spiritual insight and warning Tolkien communicates — if you use the power of evil to fight evil, you become evil — should be even more undemanding and lucid, provided one’s spiritual orientation and discernment are firmly in place.

Something to think about the next time (and countless other times) you hear a fellow Christian insist on the necessity of using the enemy’s (insert contemporary replacement for Ring of Power here) against him to win the spiritual war.

7 Comments

bruce g charlton

2/11/2024 19:40:29

“If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favorable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.” Winston Churchill

https://www.defensemedianetwork.com/stories/churchills-deal-with-the-devil/

There is the Boromir Strategy, of a kind - rather as if Aragorn had made an alliance with the orcs and trolls of the Misty Mountains to fight Sauron!

The above is often quoted (or misquoted) favourably, as if Churchill was being merely practical and senisble; but it was a serious mistake, in both the medium to long term - to build-up the Soviet Union's military *at the expense of Britain* (and even send food abroad when Britain nearly starved).

Churchill gave most people the impression that the USSR were "good guys" and our friends - plus the situation was exploited by the many powerful or otherwise influential "fellow travelers" among the UK ruling classes.

One result was that more than would otherwise have been the case of Europe (which we supposedly keen to "liberate" ended up with a tyranny every bit as bad as Hitler's, and lasting for more than 40 years.

2/12/2024 10:57:55

I'm afraid I didn't seem to link my comment to your post very well! I had been reflecting on WWII and the one-sidel "ally" attitude of Churchill (and Roosevelt) to the USSR - while thinking about the Boromir Strategy - so the link seemed obvious to me!

What is interesting about the Churchill example is that it reveals the Bormoir Strategy is always itself tainted by evil; and this is probably why the evil consequences tend to increase with time (...unless there is repentance - as with Boromir!)

Francis Berger

2/12/2024 11:35:30

@ Bruce - No, the link is very clear -- at least to me. I just didn't have time to respond yesterday.

WWII is still trumpeted as "the good war" by the victors, primarily, I assume, because the lines separating good from evil were all very solid and clear and people fighting on the side of the allies could all tell themselves that they were fighting to keep the world free, safe, democratic, etc; however, your example shows that actions taken back then have definitely led to bad consequences.

I find the modern acceptance of "realpolitik" and other such attitudes to be the main culprits. Within such frameworks, using evil means such as the Boromir Strategy are not only welcome but actively sought.

What a pleasure it is to re-read the Fellowship of the Ring and revisit characters who do not embrace or rationalize when it comes to things like using evil to fight evil!

JMSmith link

2/14/2024 13:41:19

The Boromir Strategy does not work because anyone who tries to use the Ring will be used by the Ring. This resembles the way that a politician who sets out to reform the system becomes part of the system. To put this in everyday terms, one cannot be an honest man who lies, because lying makes a man a liar--and a liar is more than a man who just happens to lie.

With that said, we cannot recognize the Boromir Problem without simultaneously recognizing the Beautiful Loser Problem. The tern is from the old paleocon Sam Francis, who said conservative politicians are Beautiful Losers when they are happy to lose if they are able to keep their hands clean.

The Beautiful Loser Problem does not vitiate the Boromir Problem, but neither does the Boromir Problem vitiate the Beautiful Loser Problem, I think the parable of the worthless servant who buried his talents speaks to this. God wants us to keep our hands clean, but he is not impressed when we keep our hands clean by keeping our hands in our pockets.

2/14/2024 20:43:18

@ JM - Any servant with talents who actively chooses politics or some other similar system role today is actively choosing to bury his talents or have his talents buried. As far as I'm concerned, that's worse than doing nothing. I'm convinced that God desires we invest our talents elsewhere.

2/14/2024 20:58:21

I'm not proposing to rally a crusade to take back the country, the culture, or the churches. But even quietists must defend the space within which to practice quietism. Returning to the LOR analogies: they cannot simply hide the ring. If there is a lesson for us to draw from Tolkien, it is that we must eschew and destroy the Ring at the same time. You are right to say that we cannot use politics because, if we try to do so, politics will most certainly use us. But neither can we ignore politics, because politics will not ignore us. I have not answer to this riddle, only a conviction that I want to leave my children and grandchildren a world in which they are free to be something like me. Not replicas, but showing a family resemblance.

2/15/2024 05:48:20

@ JM - "I'm not proposing to rally a crusade to take back the country, the culture, or the churches."

Good, because it's not going to happen. Moreover, it shouldn't happen.

Concerning LOR, unlike the Sauron of the trilogy, our Sauron has the ring firmly in his possession and rules over all accordingly.

"One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them. In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie."

We don't have to worry much about destroying the ring materially. Sauron is taking care of that himself. Our task is to destroy the ring and its associated power spiritually, within ourselves, which entails moving beyond all of Suaron's ring-machinations and recognizing that our only hope lies in our spiritual activity outwith the ring-system, in Sauron not finding, bringing, and binding us in the darkenss.

Since the material is just a subset of the spiritual, our activity does and will affect the ring-system, but not in the way Sauron expects or foresees.

You often use the term quietism here. I don't know why. I reject quietism, but the opposite of quietism is not "hey, let's stay politically active in Sauron's totalitarian one-ring System so he can find us, bind us, and bring us in the darkness."

"only a conviction that I want to leave my children and grandchildren a world in which they are free to be something like me. Not replicas, but showing a family resemblance."

Forget abstractions like "world". Focus on your children and grandchildren as beings you love. That is the world. Motivate them to recognize that their freedom does not depend on Sauron and his ring-system. Understand that you can't give your children or grandchildren a free world -- it must be won by each individual. Understand that without that freedom, no individual can pursue the good. Understand that their future will inevitably differ from yours regardless of what you do because agency, motivation, causality, etc. Have faith that God will always leave open paths to goodness, beauty, truth, and, ultimately, salvation regardless of what Sauron does or doesn't do.

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Using Evil Against Evil Can Never Be Good

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