There’s a lyric in a song by Gordon Lightfoot which tries to interpret the struggle going on in the heart of Miguel de Cervantes’ mythical hero, Don Quixote. His goodness separates him from the world, even as he understands that wickedness has the same source, namely, that both “the wise and wicked feed upon life’s sacred fire.”

And there’s perplexing irony here, both the wise and wicked, saints and sinners, feed off the same sacred source. The same energy that fuels the dedicated selflessness of the saint who dies for the poor, fires the irresponsible acting out of the pop star who proudly boasts of thousands of sexual conquests. Both feed off the same energy which in the end is sacred. Godliness in this world is used for very different purposes.

For example, one of the major criticisms made of religion and the churches is that they frequently use God to justify every kind of war and violence. We commonly see terrible violence being fueled by faith and religion.

And Christianity is hardly exempt. In the Crusades and the Inquisition, we have our own history of violence in God’s name, and there is more violence than we dare to admit being justified today by Christians who draw from their faith both their motivation and their energy to justify violence, racism, and inequality in the name of Jesus.  We can protest that, in these cases, their energy is misguided, perverted, or usurped for self-interest, but the point remains the same. It’s still sacred energy, even if it is being perverted.

John Lennon, in his song Imagine, famously suggested that we would move more easily towards love and peace if religion were eliminated (“Nothing to kill or die for, and no religion too”). There’s a dangerous naiveté in that, though he’s right in saying that the sacred energy found in religion often works against peace and love in this world. Misguided religious zealots also feed upon life’s sacred fire.

However misguided, misused, or perverted, religious energy does not witness against God’s existence. The opposite: The very awfulness of its power, its blind grip, its capacity to totally take over someone’s life, and its sick over-confidence, point precisely to its godliness, its awe, its sacredness, and its roots within a reality and energy that dwarfs our own.

Sick religion is so powerful precisely because it’s real, not a fantasy. It may be sick, but it’s real. That’s why religious cults are dangerous. They’re dangerous because they’re real, monstrously so. People often die in cults because the divine fire that its misguided leaders channel is as real as the electricity that burns up a body when someone sticks a knife into a high voltage electrical outlet. Metaphorically, that’s what cults do: they feed off sacred fire, off divine energy, but without the proper precautions and filters that the great spiritual traditions have taught are necessary in accessing the divine. Cults are dangerously naïve as to why scripture warns us to approach the divine with care: “No one can see the face of God and live!”

What we see in bad religion is mirrored in our personal lives. This is sometimes hard to admit, but what seems wild and wicked inside us is also fueled by life’s sacred fire. Our over restless energies for creativity, for sex, for achievement, for enjoyment, and to know and be known within human community, are often used irresponsibly, excessively, narcissistically, manipulatively, and destructively. Moreover, those with sufficient nerve and insufficient conscience, the wild and wicked ones, often simply take what they want from life, without regard for morality or consequence. Their lives are often driven by wild, powerful, creative, and erotic forces that can look like the very antithesis of sacred energy.

But, again, the very power, seeming irresistibility and wildness of this energy is not an indication that these narcissistic, sexual, and seemingly self-centered energies are secular and devoid of holiness, or, worse still, at odds with what is holy and sacred within us. The opposite is true: Their very power and seeming irresistibility lie precisely in their godliness and sacredness. Their fire is so powerful because it is sacred, divine, God’s energy inside of us.

Scripture tells us that we carry within us the image and likeness of God and that this is really our deepest identity and the source of our deepest energies. But we should not picture God’s image within us as some beautiful Andrei Rublev-like, icon stamped inside our souls. God is fire, infinite energy, infinite creativity, infinite freedom, wildness beyond our imaginations, and an energy that is boundless and fuels everything that is, that lives, that breathes, that searches for meaning, that loves.

There is only one source of energy. Sacred fire fuels all of life and infuses everyone, saint and sinner alike. And God has given us the freedom to use it as we choose, wisely or wickedly. Feeding on the same sacred fire, we can become a warmonger or a peacemaker, a killer or a martyr, a hedonist or a saint.