Well, here goes. I've told by people with varying degrees of influence that I need to begin blogging. They have prevailed, even if long after their initial suggestion.
My first thought was to use the initial post as an invitation to suggest topics upon which to alternatively comment, muse, wax eloquent, offer my perspective, or crassly pontificate. And that offer is indeed hereby extended. But the events of the past 30 or so hours in and concerning Haiti have led me to a topic I'd like to engage and invite your responses.
We have heard of the devastating earthquake in one of the world's poorest nations, one not terribly far from our shores. It has spawned grief, desperation, pain, and helplessness the likes of which few if any of us have ever known. I pray that we will have our hearts open to God's promptings to provide what form of assistance He suggests to us.
Perhaps you have also heard of the comments from Pat Robertson, declaring that the tragedy is really God's retribution for a turn by this lowly nation toward the devil some 200 years ago. As many of you, I decry the unabashed hubris of the declaration. How does he come by such an assessment--not by any means the first of its kind from Robertson? Yes, the prophets in the Hebrew scriptures told of disasters to come upon a stubbornly sinful and haughtily rebellious people. But they spoke before the disaster, not with hindsight and a large dose of prideful grasp on the mind and intentions of God.
But my larger question is the perennial one of who speaks for God. What are the boundaries between proclamation and hubris, and how do we discern their crossings? Who gets to proclaim, and what is the content of that word? Is it only an exegetical explanation of the scripture? Does it extend to application in culture, or even into the specific events in the world, natural and humanly perpetrated? Quite frankly, it is a question we as Protestants, and more especially we as evangelical protestants, have long ignored--other than to say that "God told me to say this" in one form or another. Does it strike our notice that no one outside our already established boundaries is listening--except when a Robertson or a Falwell pronounces certain events as God's retribution at work? Or when a Baptist church in Kansas uses military funerals as occasions to declare God's hatred of homosexual persons.
There you have it. My initial foray into the blogging world, more as question posed than as position established. Let the opinions come forth.
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God speaks for himself, and he appears to have no problems doing so. Yes I realize he has used his prophets in the past and they have opened with a particular turn of phrase, but I haven't met too many of them in my rather extended travels. I HAVE seen his Word and His Spirit speak too many men and women of many tribes and many nations in those travels.
ReplyDeleteI'm with you on the hubris, as Amos described a future causality I also remember he had a plaintive cry: "they are too little". Honestly (and on a different scale) I would have preferred if "Rush" had said something like "My hope and prayer is that our President will do the very best that can be done in Haiti through the civilians and soldiers of our nation." Period, FullStop.
Paraphrasing Paul, it is time to prepare a response to when we are questioned about our Hope. One might assume here that our hope is lived. I was recently forwarded an email from a woman with cancer who was at a New Years Party and who said about a particular person, that when she was with him at the party, she felt that God was present. Since I was there, in the setting of kraut and pork and football, the hope was that God would hear prayer.
This afternoon at a meeting to discuss implementation of the church calendar through a set of preaching topics I recommended a responsive oriented single individual testimonial element that dealt with the preaching subject (next week is healing). A staff member immediately hated it because some people have not been healed in the church, and they would feel bad.
I told her that this was the human condition, birth and death, tears and laughter, pain and joy were the tensions that we inhabit. Hiding and anesthesizing them hadn't been working and wouldn't be working in our culture/church/kingdom. She so much wanted causality, a formula, an imprecation, failing that she didn't want God to speak in this area. A relationship with the creator of the Universe who might just say "your too little to know yet" didn't appear to be of interest.
Thanks, Marty. If I read you correctly, we speak for God when and to the extent that we act out Jesus. Which, I think, is the simultaneously the only way to know him.
ReplyDeleteI am all too well aware of the apprehension of speaking too boldly about healing inthe church, especially when there are multiple people who, in one sense, need to be healed of not being healed. You can chew on the nuances if you like, or tell me I'm all wet.
I've held off posting for a few days, just chewing on what was said here and cringing at what some "Christians" have said regarding the Haitian earthquake. Pat Robertson says the quake is retribution for turning against God 200 years ago? The first thing I thought of (well, maybe not the FIRST thing) when I heard that comment was the conversation between Jesus and the disciples about the man born blind--they asked who had sinned, him or his parents, that he was born blind. Jesus' response was that neither had sinned, "but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life" (Mark 9:3). My thought was that God did not *make* this tragedy happen to punish this alleged sin, but to allow His work to be done in that country.
ReplyDeleteLook at the opportunities we as Christians now have to minister to these people, to show them compassion, generosity, love. Look at the opportunities we now have to spread the gospel to people who may not have ever heard it before.
Hubris is a good word to describe the attitudes of Pat Robertson and Rush Limbaugh. To make such statements in the face of such tragedy and call it prophecy is indeed hubris. I don't follow much of what Pat says, but I wonder if he was warning them of their evil ways before this tragedy, or if he even knew of their evil ways before the quake. Or did he just come up with that accusation after the fact.
This kind of "prophecy" bothers me, and I think it should bother all Christians. I have some unsaved friends and acquaintances who hear the garbage that comes out of some Christians' mouths, and they form their opinion of God and Christ through that garbage. No wonder they want nothing to do with the Christian faith.
Thanks, Starfall. What I do know is that God is all about redemption in all kinds of situations. You are right to note that opportunity is present. And what that opportunity represents is nothing less than our call to be like Christ. "Greater works than these . . ." was spoken about what Jesus did before, not on or after the cross. We are slow to obey. Yet, in some cases, so quick with words, and too often self-serving ones at that.
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