Whenever I get into a debate I go until I can see am getting closer to hitting the last nerve and usually try to back off because once you lose someone, the debate stops no matter how good the material. I hope I do not ostracize myself in this post today.
I do not hold God responsible for the bad in the world. Phew, there I said it. I do not think it is God’s fault that bad things happen to good people. I do not think that it is God’s fault that good things almost never happen to good people and I do not blame God for the shootings, the embezzlement, nor the hypocrisy.
I am finding more and more that we have tailored our conversation about God to be non-invasive, all-inclusive, and, the most popular cultural buzzword, tolerant. (Do not worry, this should not be a conversation with me going off on how the intolerant always scream for tolerance… even though that seems to be the way it goes.) Back to the matter at hand, this will not be one of those. We do not discuss God in the way that He is portrayed in Scripture nor do we discuss God the way that Jesus came to show him to be. We get caught up in running Scripture through our own thinking paradigm, and maybe CS Lewis was right that at the root of all sin is man’s pride, because it seems to me that we get caught up leaning into our own understanding of how the world works (and we’ve been around for almost what, 20-40 years…? So I guess logically we should know better than anyone else who ever lived how the world works?) We have committed the cardinal sin (wrong doing) in a world fixated on the trustworthiness of intellect and scientific reasoning. We came into the argument with a bias. This bias has caused us to rewrite the image of God to fit into our box of who God is and what He is supposed to do for us.
I do not buy it. I’m sorry. For example, if a stranger came up to me and told me that they were, for no particular reasoning at all, going to pay off my student loans. I would not hold them responsible for my student loans, which I accrued, knowingly or unknowingly, to get a degree. So when bad things happen, and those bad things happen because of the reality of sin in the world; why is it that we hold God responsible for picking up the tab? It’s like we are all living in a college world (maybe that’s the problem?) where when good old dad shows up to take me and my buddies out to eat, he’s going to pay the tab, no matter what we put on there.
Our culture lacks responsibility. Not just the upcoming generation either. We lack responsibility for our actions across generations. We lack responsibility for our inaction across generations. We stare at our phones, laptops, tablets and such and expect someone to clean up the mess in the world. I do not want to live that kind of life.
Jesus saw it fit to start a revolution 2000 years ago with 11 dudes. He then recruited a guy named Paul on his way to Demascus (and what kind of guy goes complete 180 without something happening). And you can say what you want in your head to me about this Jesus guy but there is absolutely, no possible way, you can prove to me that something didn’t happen 2000 years ago because the most polarizing individual in the history of the world started a revolution that would redefine the way we talked about God for the rest of the lifetime of the earth and he did it after he was crucified by the Roman Government. The hardest question you have to wrestle with is, does that fit in your 20-40 year old box of understanding of how the world works?
So am I getting closer?
leadershape 
I know in my heart and in my mind that Jesus is not responsible for the bad things that occur in the world. The question people struggle with however, is not “why do bad things happen?”… but rather “Why doesn’t God intercede when they do?” Especially in things we believe are so little / trivial to an all-powerful, omnipotent, omnipresent creator… and I’ll take it one further … “Why doesn’t he intercede for ME… a Christian.” But I guess that’s that pride you were referring to. Of course were accustomed to believing someone else’s should pick up the tab. Even in your student loan example you referenced someone offering to pay them off… lest you forget someone lent you the money in the first place! You didn’t deserve it. But millions come to rely upon it and hence forms a pattern of expectancy. One assumes (or hopes rather,) this narcissism is worse in America than in other parts of the world but then again that is the audience you are writing to. So if the pride of man is the culprit I would argue its not responsibility that needs to increase but humility. Responsibility will just lead to pride again as we begin to ascertain its our actions that make the difference. Humility is the only “active” pursuit of both healing and hope that does not presume we are in control of our own destiny and therefore greater than Jesus.
Well said Dan,
I completely agree that the thinking we need to strive after is humility. Great thoughts on here.
Maybe there is something in culture that fixates us on “responsibility” versus “humility”?
I will concede that my assumption was to an American culture versus other parts of the world, though that is the only culture I could speak to with some certainty. This whole article, if you would be so kind to call it such, is leading to a bigger question I am brewing in a future writing… With this thought of sovereignty, responsibility and now humility… what is it that keeps me from believing such grace would exist to perpetuate all of the above?
This may lead to pride, or it may lead to deeper questions or insecurities to be faced. Thanks for the comment! I love it! Wish you were closer so we could chat more about it over some wings. 😉