Is there social evil?

Mott, in his article, “Biblical faith and the reality of social evil”, argues that social evil is just as real as personal sin.  But American Evangelicals see evil as primarily a personal thing and not a socialite reality. But Mott claims that in the New Testament the Greek word ‘cosmos’ refers to the order of society and that evil has a social and political character beyond isolated actions of individuals.

“Whereas for classical Greece cosmos protective values in life, . . . in the New Testament cosmos represents twisted values.”

“The most widespread social aspect of cosmos in the New Testament is a system of values which are in opposition to God.”

In America, the American Trinity of individualism, materialism, and racism would represent a system of values in direct opposition to the kingdom of God. 

The following is a historical example of social evil in the American cosmos.  How devastating was the American conquest of the Philippines? 

The editor of “The Philippines Reader” summarized the human cost of the war as follows:

“How many Filipinos died resisting American aggression?  It is doubtful if historians will ever agree on a figure that is anything more than a guess.  The figure of 250,000 crops up various works; one suspect it is chosen and repeated in ignorance . . .. Records of the killing were not kept and the Americans were anxious to suppress true awareness of the extent of the slaughter in any case, in order to avoid fueling domestic anit-imperialistic protest.  How many died of disease and the effect of concentration camp life is even more difficult to assess . . . .

General Bell, who, one imagines might be in as good a position to judge such matters as anyone, estimated in a New York Times interview that over 600,000 people in Luzon alone had been killed or had died of disease as a result of the war.  The estimate, given in May, 1901, means that Bell did not include the effect of the Panay campaign, the Samar campaign, or his own bloodthirsty Batangas campaign (where at least 100,000 died), all of which occurred after his 1901 interview.  Nor could it include the “post-war” period, which saw the confinement of 300,000 in Albay, wantan slaughter in Mindanao, and astonishing death rates in Bilibid Prison, to name but three instances where killing continued. 

A million deaths?  One does not happily contemplate such carnage of innocent people who fought with extraordinary bravery in a cause which was just but is now all but forgotten.  Such an estimate, however, might conceivably err on the side of understatement.  To again quote the anonymous US Congressman, “They never rebel in Luzon anymore because there isn’t anybody left to rebel.”

Is there any way to reconcile this last quotation with a speech given by President McKinley to Methodist Church leaders on November 21, 1898?

The Spanish had been defeated, largely by the Filipinos themselves and a last low by the US navy; the Filipino people were free from over 300 years of Spanish domination.  McKinley’s speech drips with religious piety and ethnocentrism to justify our conquest of the Philippines:

“When I next realized that the Philippines had dropped into our laps I confess I did not know what to do with them.  I sought counsel from all sides---Democrats as well as Republicans---but got little help.  I thought first we would only take Manila; then Luzon; then other islands perhaps also.  I walked the floor of the White House night after night until midnight; and I am not ashamed to tell you, gentlemen, that I went down on my knees and prayed Almighty God for light and guidance more than one night.  And one night late it came to me this way---I don’t know how it was, but it came: (1) That we could not give them back to Spain---that would be cowardly and dishonorable: (2) that we could not turn them over to France and Germany---our commercial rivals in the Orient---that would be bad business and discreditable: (3) that we could not leave them to themselves---there were unfit for self-government---and they would soon have anarchy and misrule over there worse than Spain’s was; and (4) that there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them, and by God’s grace do the very best we could by them, as our fellowmen for whom Christ died.  And then I went to bed, and went to sleep, and slept soundly, and the next morning I sent for the chief engineer of the War Department (our map-maker), and I told him to put the Philippines on the map of the United States, and there they are, and there they will stay while I am President.”