Why We Should Question God In Response To Evil And Tragedy
Very interesting article!
"The Midrash Detective"
I’m assuming the author gets to these points, but in case he doesn’t… A better question is where was God the other 364 days of the year? Answer: graciously restraining the evil He was still graciously restraining on the evil day in LV. Still? Yes. Without Him, it would have been worse… and would have been all. the. time.
Whenever any violent evil doesn’t happen between humans, He is abundantly gracious.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
John 5:17, “In his defense Jesus said to them, ‘My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.’”
My own hypothesis is that the spiritual vacuum in our culture spawns monsters. “We” created them.
In the West, we often have a very myopic view about suffering and hardship. Look at what’s happening in Bangladesh, with the refugees fleeing from Myanmar. This is a tragedy which dwarfs anything that has happened in American in the last several decades. Compare Hurricane Harvey (and the media coverage it received) with the flooding going on in India, Bangladesh and Nepal this monsoon season.
We’re very self-centered. The Las Vegas shooting is not the worst thing going on in the world - not even close. We’re insulated from death and despair here, to an extent we often don’t realize. We had a missionary at our church a few weeks ago. He told us about a missionary doctor on their team who recently passed away, on the field, from Lassa Fever. They medevaced him to Germany, for advanced medical treatment, but he still didn’t make it.
Our perspective in the comfortable US of A is often not very broad.
Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.
TylerR, thank you for this reminder. We are indeed insulated.
"The Midrash Detective"
Jay Adams answers all this in his book The Grand Demonstration. It is one of my favorite books by Jay. Check it out. If you live here in the upstate of SC, stop by. I will give you a copy.
Donn R Arms
I bought that book for next to nothing when Timeless Texts had their big sale earlier this year. I haven’t read it yet, but I will!
Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.
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