I'll bet you and I agree on a lot and maybe disagree on a lot more. There are a few things you probably don't want to ask me about. Politics, theology, philosophy, relationships, art and music and food and firewood are all important to me depending on the news, my appetite and the weather. The top of the list changes a lot.
Not to spark an argument, but consider this:
While survivors clung to anything that would float and whole families climbed as high as they could only to get trapped in the attic and die; while tens of thousands lost hope, happiness and everything else to a hurricane, some of our most noted Christian voices were saying it was because sin, homosexuals and abortionists had been given free reign in the city. A few who disagreed countered that it was sin all right, but it was the sin of greed and neglect and the war in Iraq that made God mad enough to take things out on New Orleans.
When we turned our backs on God, it was the unfortunate people who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time - in buildings, at work, on planes - who were the nation's scapegoats in September of 2001. That was the word from some of our most famous radio and TV preachers. It was God's punishment. Now just this week a group of Saudi preachers declared that that region's drought should be laid at the feet of the sinners there who do not strictly observe Islam's religious laws. Put those two thoughts together and holler if you have questions.
I've been thinking a lot lately about the folks in Missouri and Iowa and that whole area. My heart hurts for them. The rain and the storms just won't seem to stop. Rivers are beating down the levees. Generations of family farms, homes and businesses are being destroyed. What did middle America do to God? How about the the folks who've been burned out in California? This morning I read that parts of Oklahoma are facing drought conditions. Is this because of sin too?
Such proclamations could be dangerous. I'd hate to see it happen, but if one of those big multi-million dollar international ministry headquarters campuses found itself in the path of a tornado or a flood or a fire or was struck by lightning or felled by an earthquake, some might say that God did it.
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update: 6/29/08
A friend of mine reminded me of Ichthus, the huge Christian music festival that goes on every spring here in central Kentucky. Tens of thousands fill the hills and fields with worship and prayer. God is all over those grounds. His word is preached and taught and sung for days. It seems that almost every year the place gets nearly destroyed by a terrible storm either during the event or right before things get started. This year was no exception.
2 comments:
Kenny,
Interesting post.
Here is a quote from John Piper
"Job had discovered with many of you that it is small comfort to focus on the freedom of Satan to destroy. In the academic classroom and in the apologetics discussion, the agency of Satan in our suffering may lift a little the burden of God’s sovereignty for some, but for others, like Job, there is more security and more relief and more hope and more support and more glorious truth in despising Satan’s hateful hand and looking straight past him to God for the cause and for his mercy. " God, not Satan, is the final ruler of wind—and the waves. Jesus woke from sleep and, with absolute sovereignty, which he had from all eternity and has this very moment, said, “‘Peace! Be still!’ And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm” (Mark 4:39; see Psalm 135:5-7; 148:7). Satan is real and terrible. All his designs are hateful. But he is not sovereign. God is. And when Satan went out to do Job harm, Job was right to worship with the words “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”
Read it here http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/ConferenceMessages/ByDate/227_Ten_Aspects_of_Gods_Sovereignty_Over_Suffering_and_Satans_Hand_in_It/
I said much the same thing to someone the other day. It's interesting to note that there are large numbers of people in the areas hard hit by Katrina and Rita who take the views of those preachers. My question to them is, "Was God punishing their harsh attitudes and judgmental spirit?" Usually it quiets the argument considerably.
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