Thursday, May 23, 2013

Moore on the whys of faith

I'm forever trying to spark good conversation, and Tuesday's piece about the storms in Moore, Okla., seem to have done a bit of that.

I got two whole comments, which is about twice more than normal, and they were this:

From someone I believe I know well, Sometimes -- like now -- I think we're just plain wrong to ask "Why?" so dang much. But we humans just love things to have a meaning that our simple minds can grasp - which leads to superstition, the stupidest sort of fundamentalism, and all sorts of easy and wrong answers. The world is what it is; that's just what the deal is! Maybe the only meaning we can give to some things like unfathomable suffering is by responding to it with the Love and Grace God provides. Seems like THAT's what God

From someone I don't know the identity of at all: Events like Moore Oklahoma are why I lost all faith in a personal God many years ago. Is there even a God? The question transcends our ability to understand. All religions were started to give an answer to a question that cannot be answered.

I wanted to deal with these individually, but I also want to make sure anyone reading these know that God allows any and all conversation and so do I. Feel free, as I've written many times, to disagree.

Why is a tough question. I tried to deal with it in this context: When these things happen, and writers write in real time (as it is happening), you get the why question often with suffering. My point is that some of the answers are never going to appear on this side of eternity. Just aren't. Further, my point was that some of the quick answers we try to give are so very shallow we'd be better off not saying them, i.e., God must have needed more angels, I'm sure there is a reason for this, we'll know the answer by and by. Stuff like that simply doesn't help those grieving, no matter how well-meaning the statement might have been.

This whole notion of God spared me -- to me -- is like the one where a football player scores and points to the heavens in thankfulness. Does that mean God favored one team (or one player) over others? Of course not. But we can be thankful to God for our lives, everything in our lives, without saying anything that might not be that comforting to those who were one house over and lost their kids. Why this happened? Well, stuff happens. It really does. God doesn't necessarily pick favorites as near as I can tell, and if God saved everyone, every time we prayed for that, no one would ever die and we'd run out of food and supplies very quickly.

Adam Hamilton of the Church of the Resurrection wrote this of some tornadoes a while back: To find the answer to the "Why?" question, these pastors will suggest, one must turn not to a theologian or to the Bible, but to a meteorologist. The meteorologist explains that tornadoes are naturally occurring events that can, with varying degrees of accuracy, actually be predicted (it was the prediction of the tornadoes by meteorologists that saved hundreds if not thousands of lives last Wednesday night). These pastors may even take the time to explain the weather conditions that give rise to tornadoes. It is not God, they will say, but the collision of hot and cold air, that is the answer to the question, "Why?" ... They will note that a religion whose founder was crucified cannot be construed to teach that God's people will never suffer. God seldom suspends the laws of nature, just as God does not remove free will to keep evil people from doing evil things. ... Many Christians do not believe God sends tornadoes. But they do believe that God walks with his children through the storms, that he sends his people to help after the storms, and that with and through God there is always hope."

I think that says it better than I did, or could.

As for the second comment, we must agree to disagree. I believe so very strongly in a personal God who loves me, because He created me, because He loved me first, because He sent a savior, because, because, because.

I know how hard that might seem to believe if you don't, for I was in the don't column for a long, long time. But I know what I was. I know what I am. And I am reasonably certain through faith of what I will become.

Those things don't change, even when I'm devastated by scenes on television. I can grieve without knowing the whys. That doesn't necessarily stop the whys from coming. But it does provide what we Christians declare to be hope.

Don't stop commenting. Don't stop thinking. The notion that Christianity means checking your brain at the door is an invalid one.


2 comments:

Kevin H. said...

Not that it matters to the conversation, but Moore is my home town. I went to Moore schools for every grade except 1,2, and 5. All the friends and family who still live there that I know of were not directly hurt. For that I am thankful. But even they themselves -- as holy as they are -- would never say they were spared because they were more deserving than those who were not spared.

Unknown said...

Amen