Tuesday 26 July 2011

Tragedy - Why?

Blogging has been very light here of late - mainly because I have not felt there was much I wanted to blog about but the news this weekend and conversations at work yesterday have brought me out of blogging sabbatical.
The question I heard yesterday in respect of the problems in Somalia, the killing in Norway and the death of Amy Winehouse was why? Some of my colleagues then sprung the where is God in these things and I have to admit I find myself agreeing with them in some senses. it is difficult to argue the concept of a loving God when such things happen and especially when the news seems to be saying the gunman is a 'Christian'.
I have to admit to not knowing the answer and just for a time being like Thomas because I am human and naturally wonder about these things.
Answers on a postcard perhaps?

1 comment:

Rev Tony B said...

The first comment is that the gunman is a nationalist first, Freemason second, and his Christianity is very much a cultural thing - Jesus obviously hasn't had much of a look in. The real keyword is 'fundamentalist' - it turns faith into an ideology, a theoretical framework in which every thing has its place; people are reduced to component parts to be slotted into place - believers, unbelievers, the good deserving of compassion, the bad deserving of judgment. The problem is that people then cease to be people - you can do whatever you like, because they're going to hell, or wherever. It's the theological equivalent of what we do when we start a war: the enemy must be dehumanised into the Hun, or Johnny Argie, so that you don't have to see him as a human being; makes it easier to kill him. Anything less Christian is difficult to imagine...

As to where God is in all this... Well, as a parent I have watched my children grow up. When they were little I could guide and protect them. Now they're adults, I can only love, watch and support - their decisions are their own. I don't stop hurting for them or celebrating with them, but that's the freedom we always wanted for them. God gave the human race freedom to be human. He doesn't stop loving us, hurting with us, celebrating with us - when bad things happen, he's with us in our grief, holding us until it passes. So I know where he was in this: with the suffering.

Some want him be the kind of God who would intervene, strike down the wicked, etc. What kind of freedom is that? We wouldn't be human, we'd be puppets. Living in faith means accepting the adulthood we've been given, and trusting that God is with us in that freedom.