In an effort to reconcile the horrific images that pass across my TV and the All-Powerful God I worship, I offer a resource that I found extremely helpful:
Isunami, Sovereighnty and Mercy
I would be interested to know how this resource aids you in developing a Biblical world view in the midst of this global tragedy.
By the way, if you think that this issue will not be surfaced by those who are in need of salvation when you are a witness of the Gospel, you’re not living on the same planet that I am. Get ready to give an answer for why you have hope since your credibility as a fellow earth-inhabitant may depend on it. Christians who answer these situations with quick, Sunday School answers will find themselves drowned out by the shocking roar of images showing thousands of people in real pain.
For me, 😉 it reinforces the other side of the idea of God being in control. The idea that we are NOT in control. Every haunting emotion we feel essentially crys out to God saying, “I wouldn’t have done it this way.”
It still seems so far away. I think we can all too easily isolate ourselves from the idea of such destruction happening to us with the false notion that we Americans are in control – the government would never let that happen to me.
As for the popularity of this topic, I was searching for the latest amature videos of the destruction and it is ALL OVER people’s blogs. Everything from shallow Christian answers to people claiming this event proves that God doesn’t exist.
As for my world view, I try to acknowledge that I have no idea of what suffering is (see below) and generally try to be mentally ready for the other shoe to drop at any minute.
Rwanda genocide numbers: more than 800,000 murdered in 100 days. Women, men, children. That’s 8,000 a day. That’s a little more than 300 an hour.
Great article you’ve linked to, Dan. To answer your question in one culturally relevant way, let’s start with the postmodern angle.
Postmodernism basically has at its core a rejection of “metanarratives,” or “big picture” stories that make sense of everything. It dovetails nicely with relativism, which concludes there is no absolute truth.
We see this school of thought manifested every day in often-subtle ways. Just today I heard it in the reporting of the President’s aid effort, which was described as an attempt to avoid looking “stingy;” the reporter focused on the small story (political forces intruding on humanitarian aid) instead of the big picture (millions of human beings in desperate need who will now get help).
But the ultimate big picture is that God is in control. To anyone drowning in a sea of postmodern, “nothing matters” malaise, saying that God is in control in the face of the tsunami leaves them with a couple possible conclusions:
A) Yes, God is in control, but if He is omnipotent and still allowed this tragedy, I reject Him with contempt as evil.
B) No, God is not in control, if there even is a God: either way, he wasn’t much use here.
Person “B” is jumping to conclusions. At best this person could say that the events of last week neither proved nor disproved anything about God. It’s basically the atheist position.
Person “A” is taking the truth and using it against God. This is the work of Satan. He tempted Christ by citing Scripture; he can take a kernel of truth and attack God with it in the mind of a man.
Note that it’s the same old scenario, the same old problem that is at the heart of every sin: the belief that God is not good, that God is anything less than perfect, holy, righteous, and worthy of all praise.
You can go the “it’s not so bad” route – for example, as David cited the example of Rwanda (perhaps ten times more deadly, and that at the hands of men) – and that’s true. Is it compelling?
For me, no… it’s just a “lesser of two evils” premise that supports a particular conclusion but doesn’t lead me to believe that the lesser evil can be reckoned “good.”
So how is God good in this?
If you start from a place that says, “I’m a good person,” you can’t see that God is good in this. After all, like David said above, “I wouldn’t have done it this way.” I would add, “(And I should know, ’cause I’m good.)”
You have to be brokenhearted… bankrupt… meek… humble. You must hit bottom, come to the end of yourself, see that your so-called “goodness” is as foul as the contents of an outhouse.
There’s no rational argument that will get you there.
It has to be revealed from above.
So now the postmodernist is shaking his fist at God, saying, “OK, you might exist, and you might be in control, and now you would shut me out because You haven’t revealed yourself to me?”
I would reply, “have you asked Him to?”
Now this person has a choice to make: either ask for revelation in all sincerity – and accept that there is indeed an absolutely true “big story” that makes sense of everything, or content himself with the hollow scorn that attends such cynicism – and commend himself on rejecting an argument without answering a single quesion.
It’s a tough choice – but we as Christians need to pray for people to seek God out for who He is, not who we would like Him to be.
Not trying to sound defensive here, just trying to clarify.
I wasn’t offering Rwanda as a lesser of two evils option but just to show that there is so much suffering around us yet we continue with our blinders on acting like this is some kind of exception. (I also think of the scene from Amistad where they tie the chains to rocks and start dumping slaves off the ship like cargo.)
I love your last line but would modify it to include Christians in who needs to be seeking as well – it’s a constant check we all need.
OK, I’ll clarify, too: it’s a lesser of two evils option — for me. 😉
Seriously, though, I wasn’t trying to invalidate your point (note I said it was true); I meant to address the question of whether such an argument gets us to a “God is good” conclusion.
There’s just nothing affirmative in the slaughter of a million people that bears out the goodness of God — unless you put it in context.
A) A race of six billion sinful people in various degrees of open rebellion against the goodness of their creator, and 99.99% of them are spared from genocide.
B) One million innocent, good people, just trying to get by in trying circumstances of poverty, are brutally massacred in a hideous slaughter at the hands of evil men.
The first is the big picture story — the metanarrative that postmodernism rejects. The second is the little story — the relativistic account that our postmodern age is drawn to. Or as you put it, David, the second account represents the postmodern “blinders” we have on that let us act “like this is some kind of exception.”
If you accept that God is good, you can make sense of the Rwandan genocide and the Indonesian tsunami in the same way: whatever the “big picture” truth turns out to be, incomprehensible though it seems, I will be utterly unable to point a finger at God and say, “You were bad.”
On the other hand, if you do not accept that God is good, nothing about this episode is going to lead you to a favorable conclusion about God.
What it boils down to is this: in your mind, who is the arbiter of what is good?
Is your goodness greater than God’s (if you even believe he exists)?
Or does goodness flow from the very nature of who God is, which leaves you with the only conclusion that suffering and death are somehow… just?
Here’s another way of looking at it: to any human being with half an ounce of heart, this kind of tragedy strikes one as somehow wrong — unnatural. And yet, these “unnatural” things keep on happening.
Before your “enlightened” mind convinces you to reject your reaction that this is unnatural, ask the obvious question: why does it seem unnatural?
Consider the Christian metanarrative: it seems unnatural because we were created for perfect fellowship with God, but we ruined it. Shouldn’t that make “unnatural” consequences like genocide and tsunamis (and God nailed to a cross) seem… natural?
There’s logic there, but I don’t pretend that it’s going to change anyone’s mind. What’s needed is to change people’s hearts.
If it were only about our minds, we could look at this like Mr. Spock and proceed without emotion. This thing grips us because our hearts are engaged. It’s pathos, and maybe some ethos… but the logos is really unsatisfying.
As Blaise Pascal said, “the heart has reasons that reason knows not of.”
So how do you engage the minds AND hearts of people the world over when it comes to God’s goodness?
How do we engage the minds and hearts of people…? Awe, now this may seem like a relatively safe place to give an obvious answer, but it is not. There are some who would say, “Pray for them.” And I would say “yes.” There are others who would say, “Give to/for them.” I would say “yes.” However, when does it become needful to respond the way Jesus responded to two tragic scenes in His day:
By the way, Jesus immediately launches into the parable of the fig tree and coming judgment on those who do not produce the fruit of repentance that comes from turning from sin to God.
When we mix prayer, meeting physical needs (water, food, shelter, etc.) emotional needs (finding loved ones, listening, etc.) and proclaiming the Gospel in the name of Jesus (spiritual need), we display a force that is aimed at all areas of the human condition.
We need to pray that the Christians in the trenches guard themselves from the natural tendency to aim at the immediate, most obvious needs in an effort to ease the despair of daily living and not mention the reality “sin” or the need for “repentance.” It’s the language of the enemy to meet all the temporal needs and yet not give the ultimate, eternity-minded cure – trust in Christ for salvation from sin.
If Hugh’s interesting analysis of trying to see God in the little story (localized narrative), while rejecting the big-picture story (meta-narrative) that grounds its context went past you, here is a good introduction to the concept of meta-narrative and how its rejection plays out in postmodernism.
BTW, I agree that you are not going to arrive at “God is good” by focusing narrowly on any tragedy outside of the context of the entire Biblical worldview (i.e. meta-narrative).
Thanks Eric – I should have made that link in my post.
Can you edit my comment to link one of my “metanarrative” citations to the wikipedia entry?
In passing, here are a couple other postmodern reads I’d recommend:
The Postmodern Crackup: Chuck Colson observes that September 11 was the beginning of the end of postmodernism. I think it’s a relevant read in light of last week’s tragedies.
Expository Preaching in a Postmodern World: John MacArthur is interviewed about bringing absolute truth to a postmodern audience. The second interview question is of special interest if you want a “guy in the pew” take on postmodernism.
Thanks to you all for articulating what I could not. In the mean time, I shall sit in my corner and continue to make monkey noises. :^P