Good God?
Good God?
It turned
out to be one of the better Bible studies. A group meets, mid-week, before the
midday Holy Communion service at an ancient Anglican church, in a coastal
village near where I live. It is lively, relaxed, well-facilitated and collectively
comfortable enough to ask questions, query responses, and always, challenge BS
(especially, religious BS) in anyone’s “answers”.
So as we
tucked into what, I guess, is a pretty standard (and somewhat well-worn) text
in the current catastrophe that is global news, right now (and, particularly,
in the Holy Land [sic]): 2 Chron 7: 12-14; 12 Then the Lord appeared
to Solomon in the night and said to him: ‘I have heard your prayer, and have
chosen this place for myself as a house of sacrifice. 13 When I shut
up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command the locust to devour the
land, or send pestilence among my people, 14 if my people who are
called by my name humble themselves, pray, seek my face, and turn from their
wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal
their land.
I’ll skip
the inevitable discussion about humbling, praying, seeking and turning, along
with the shoal of personal-to-Palestine red herrings that swirled around the
group, and focus on a question raised by a participant - most familiar with the
Bible and firm in faith – who, in essence, queried the kind of God who would
inflict on a people drought, locust infestation (and consequent famine), along
with plague for good measure.
This is the
kind of brave question that everyone wants to ask, right, but, in far too many “Bible
Studies”, folks are too scared to posit.
It’s the
kind of question the late Rachel
Held-Evans posed as a young Christian and recounts in the introduction to
her book on Bible study, Inspired (Nelson Books, 2018). She
writes,
“The more I learned about Scripture, [my professors] said,
the more confident I would grow in my faith and the better I would be at
answering the world’s questions.
But their assurances, however sincerely intended, proved empty
when, as a young adult, I started asking those questions for myself. Positions
I’d been told were clearly “biblical” – young earth creationism, restrictions
on women’s roles in the home and church, the certainty of hell for all
non-believers – grew muddier in the midst of lived experience, and the
more time I spent seeking clarity from Scripture, the more problems I uncovered…
How could we insist the Bible is morally superior to every
other religious text when the book of Deuteronomy calls for stoning of
rebellious children, committing genocide against enemies, enslaving women
captured in war (Deut. 20:14-17; 21:18-21)? What business do I have describing
as “inerrant” and “infallible” a text that presumes a flat and stationary earth,
takes slavery for granted and presupposes patriarchal norms like polygamy…”
(Op.cit pp xvi – xvii)
Our Bible Study questioner was clearly tracking the kind of
trouble that traditional dogmas about the Bible cause faithful, Jesus-loving
followers. I am not going into all the issues raised here concerning the Bible –
what it is, what it means to us, why intelligent, faith-filled people wrestle
with it, or how to resolve these matters as others have done a far better job. (I
recommend A More Christlike Word by Brad Jersak; The Bible Tells Me
So, by Pete Enns; What is The Bible? by Rob Bell and What Do We
Do with The Bible? by Richard Rohr – as starting places.)
To the woman’s question about the 2 Chronicles passage, I had
the bones of a response that would explain that the Hebrew Bible (that we call
the Old Testament) was written long after its time as an oral tradition; was
written by (mostly) men, who were people of their age and culture, and
certain assumptions lay behind what was written. Like, God is omnipotent, the
cause of all things and, above all, on Israel’s side! Like, the Abrahamic,
Mosaic and Davidic Covenants are different. That life was centred on
Obedience/Blessing; Rebellion/Punishment. Like, God’s love and grace allows Their
people to tell their story/history/religion as they understand it. And,
above all, the “Old” Testament needs to be read inside a New Testament
Christology whereby, Jesus the Christ is foreshadowed, incarnates and explains
what was written beforehand. (See Luke 24:13-49 and John 5:39, for example).
But I didn’t have the opportunity to infiltrate the
discussion, so addressed it at home and in an email to a man I trust: Dr
Bradley Jersak, via his Q&A page in Christianity Without Religion. I
was surprised to get a response very soon afterwards. And this is how he
explains it:
"Great question. That passage certainly
represents God as the direct cause of temporal blessings and curses. That
said, between the lines, we also see that the cause of these blessings and
curses is the obedience or disobedience of the people.
That speech says a lot about both the worldview of
those who recorded the account, but also, just how the language of
"cause" works in normal language. For instance, what causes a wooden
chair? (1) The need to sit somewhere, (2) the tree that provided the wood, (3)
the tools used to assemble the chair, or (4) the carpenter who built it?
So too, what caused a disaster such as a
tsunami? (1) Human sin? (2) the Laws of nature? (3) the tectonic plates and the
wind and the waves? (4) God?
The big problem with such language is that it's
partly right, but it also easily blames God for sin or blames sin for nature,
etc. Lots of sloppy finger-pointing going on there!
But on the other hand, aside from the cause, any
disaster or blessing can be an occasion to reorient our lives toward God and to
open our hands in praise and receptivity to divine grace.
In all of this, Jesus' brings his own perspective
in Matthew 5:
43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love
your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I tell you, love your
enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be
children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the
evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 If
you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the
tax collectors doing that? 47 And if you greet only your own people,
what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do
that? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Jesus saw his Father as the ultimate cause of all
good things, regardless of how we bring good things or bad things on ourselves.
For him, the Father is the "first cause" of every good thing (which
is different than micro-managing every breeze or sprinkle). And his point is
that God is generous and gracious without favoritism. As the Psalmist said,
"He is good to ALL and has compassion on ALL that he has made."
I forwarded
this to the people concerned, and they tell me that it was most encouraging.
I hope you
are encouraged (and educated!) as well.
Grace and
peace to you all. Go well, Wayfarers.
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