Unfortunately, once I clicked through I discovered that they simply allowed two local religious leaders to give insipid stock answers for a few paragraphs each.

First we have Reverend Fran Cary:

I do not believe that God has allowed evil to succeed. Many will disagree with me when they think of the likes of our current economic crisis and crime rates. I will concede that evil does hold a major place in our world today; however, what we see now will not always be.

We can sum this answer up as “the Bible says things are going to get better in the future, therefore evil has not technically ‘succeeded’.”

This is a clever trick that I hope to use in my own life:

SYDNEY
Why do you treat me so terribly?

JOEL
In the future I’m going to treat you better, therefore I don’t actually treat you terribly.

For an alternative point of view, we visit Rabbi Mark Levin:

Knowing the divine mind is always tricky business. If we primarily know what God is not (via negative), then how can we possibly claim to understand God’s purposes for creation?

[...]

God, who witnesses the big picture over centuries rather than our limited time and space perspective, understands how justice plays out when we do not.

We can sum up this answer as “Evil doesn’t succeed, it only seems like it does, mostly because of your poor cognitive skills.”

This is also a clever trick:

BOSSMAN
Your report doesn’t even make sense!

JOEL
It makes complete sense! You just don’t understand it because of your limited time and space perspective.

It’s too bad that they didn’t ask the question to a broader variety of faith traditions, as it would have been more enjoyable reading answers like “because people aren’t sufficiently diligent about exorcising their body thetans” and “because naturally-occurring emotions like pain and anger inexorably lead to Bogan, the dark side of the Force,” and “because you didn’t sacrifice enough goats.”

Maybe I’ll write a letter to the editor. (“As a practicing Jedi, I’m quite disappointed in your latest column…”)

Theologians have proposed a number of unsatisfying solutions:

• Evil is a necessary consequence of free will, which god needed to give us so that our worship of him would successfully stroke his ego.
• God is still pissed off about the whole Eve/apple/snake situation.
• Many apparently-good people actually sold poison milk to schoolchildren.
• Maybe god will make things right after we die? You can’t prove he won’t!
• In the cases where evil doesn’t kill you, it actually makes you stronger. When it does kill you, well, then, sucks to be you.
• It’s all part of god’s larger plan, which you’re too stupid to understand.

And now, in the wake of a horrific multi-fatality wrong-way freeway accident, religious leaders have proposed a new solution: “stop trying to make sense of the world!”

“Being there, there is just no way to make sense of it,” [Rev. Paul Egensteiner] said. “You can’t. It was an accident. If the question becomes ‘How could God let this happen,’ I say ‘It happened.’”

Not wanting to be outdone, Rabbi Mark Sameth offered his own head-in-the-sand message:

Sameth, who leads Pleasantville Community Synagogue, cautioned against seeking answers or meaning after such a tragedy.

“Tragedy is no time for theology,” he said.

What is the appropriate time for theology? The article doesn’t say, but based on my research I’m pretty sure it’s “the 13th century.”

The Vatican lauded the latest Harry Potter film on Monday, saying Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince made the age-old debate over good vs. evil crystal clear.

Wait, crystal clear? I read the book, and I’m pretty sure that the battle between good and evil was anything but crystal clear.

I suppose it’s possible that the movie changes all those parts. But I’m guessing it’s a reasonably faithful adaptation.

Which means that the Vatican must be referring to their own idiosyncratic notions of good and evil.

For instance, perhaps they consider Dumbledore “evil” on account of his support for gay marriage and euthanasia. And maybe they consider Voldemort “good” because his pursuit of horcruxes demonstrates that (unlike those nasty Darwinist muggles) he believes in an immortal soul.

Or perhaps the priests are merely using moral language to disguise an affinity for watching horny teenagers:

The Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano even gave two thumbs up to the film’s treatment of adolescent love, saying it achieved the “correct balance” and made the stars more credible to the general audience.

However, I also suspect that, like me, you’re getting frustrated that Reverend Graham never answers the questions that you dutifully send him several dozen times a day. As a stopgap solution, I threw together the Graham-o-matic 2000, an “artificial” “intelligence” that I “seeded” with decades of Graham’s writings.

After several hours of computation (and a disturbing amount of smoke emitted from the computer), the Graham-o-Matic produced the following all-purpose answer. I checked, and (if you just fill in a couple of blanks) it pretty much does provide a Grahamian solution to almost any theological quandary you might have.

(I asked it everything from “Why is it that all the literary agents rejected my book?” to “Why is it that the food truck is always sold out of enchiritos by the time I get there?” to “Why is it that people keep spitting at me when I tell them the name of my blog?” and got seemingly-authentic results each time.)

I hope you find it as useful as I do.

Q: Why is it that _______________________________________? This doesn’t seem fair. Why does God let this happen? – Y.R.I.F.

A: Your question isn’t new; centuries ago, one of the Hebrew prophets cried out, “Why then do you tolerate the treacherous?” (Habakkuk 1:13). We don’t always know why God allows things to happen; some day we’ll understand – but not yet.

But we do know this: We live in a world that has been torn and twisted by sin and evil. This present world isn’t the way God intended it to be; God meant for it to be a place of peace and joy. But human rebellion and greed took over, and all around us we see the results. And behind it all is the terrible reality of Satan, whom the Bible calls “your enemy” (1 Peter 5:8).

The ultimate answer is Jesus Christ, who came to defeat the powers of evil and Satan. What difference can He make? First, He gives us hope right now – hope that even in the midst of life’s worst trials and injustices, He is with us and will help us. No matter what happens, we are never alone if we know Christ.

But Christ also gives us hope for the future. Some day, this life will end – but if we know Christ, we know we’ll be with Him in heaven forever. Some day, the scales will be balanced … wrong will be judged … Satan will be defeated … and all evil will end. Don’t put your hope in the passing things of this flawed world, but put your faith in Christ and trust your life into His hands.