Thursday, March 24, 2011
Responding to Suffering
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Brian McLaren wrote a response to John Piper's interpretation of the Japanese earthquake and subsequent tragedies. Essentially, both authors are addressing the question, "What is God's relationship to suffering in the world?" The answers are detailed and complicated - Piper is staunchly Calvinist, and McLaren is spearheading the "Emergent Church." I would encourage reading the posts from both authors.
Brian McLaren wrote a response to John Piper's interpretation of the Japanese earthquake and subsequent tragedies. Essentially, both authors are addressing the question, "What is God's relationship to suffering in the world?" The answers are detailed and complicated - Piper is staunchly Calvinist, and McLaren is spearheading the "Emergent Church." I would encourage reading the posts from both authors.
But one section of what McLaren wrote stuck out to me. I agree with his focus on Jesus, with his interpretation of the actions and ministry of Jesus while on earth. What McLaren offers isn't so much of an answer, but rather a "turning of our attention" away from theological questions, and back to the heart of the matter, namely our relationship with God.
"This, to me, is part of the scandal of the Incarnation and the scandal of the cross: that God, when God shows up in Christ, doesn’t take control. God in Christ doesn’t institute “martial law.” Nor does God in Christ unilaterally eliminate all that we call suffering and evil. Nor does God in Christ cause any additional suffering and evil. He doesn’t fly into Jerusalem on angel’s wings or a fighter jet, nor does he ride in on a white steed or tank, nor does he enter with well-armed guards or even sticks and stones.
Instead, we see Jesus going quietly from town to town, confronting suffering and evil, calling people to repentance for inflicting suffering and evil on one another, and healing and liberating people from suffering and evil at every turn. He doesn’t unilaterally impose even this healing on them though: he allows their faith, whether great or small, to make room for it. Finally, in Christ on the cross we see God’s ultimate way of dealing with suffering and evil: to bear it with endurance, to suffer it with tears and agony, to take it into God’s own heart, and to heal it utterly, not by avenging it, but by forgiving it. The kingdom or sovereignty of God that Jesus proclaims, then, doesn’t come with the power of unilateral control but with a radically different kind of power: the gentle power (Paul dares call it “weakness”) of love."
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1 comment:
All I have to say is, "AMEN!". I responded on Brian's site.
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