Facing the Tidal Wave

January 6, 2005

Spoken after the Asian tsunami of December 26,2004

in which more than 225,000 people lost their lives.

I haven’t said anything up to now about the terrible tragedy of the earthquake and tsunami that have taken so many lives in Southeast Asia and caused so much suffering. With the wall to wall coverage we have been getting, it was hard to get a word in. Every news channel, every news magazine has film, pictures, explanations, scientific summaries of the physics of what happened.

But something banged into my mailbox yesterday that forces my hand. I have to say something. A friend was calling my attention to an op ed piece by Joseph Farah taking the Archbishop of Canterbury to task for something he said about the disaster.

Dr. Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, says the earthquake and tsunami in South Asia should and will shake the faith of all Christians. “The question ‘How can you believe in a God who permits suffering on this scale?’ is therefore very much around at the moment, and it would be surprising if it weren't—indeed it would be wrong if it weren't,” he says.

Now I am not sure what the archbishop meant in this statement, but I am sure that Joseph Farah didn’t get it. At first blush, I was prepared to accept what Farah said at face value. I lived in England for nearly seven years, and I got used to seeing one or another of the bishops of the church of England make some truly outrageous, even heretical statements about the Christian faith. It finally dawned on me that all these statements were occurring as Easter was coming on. I figured that the good bishops drew straws every year to see who could stir up some publicity for the church at Easter time. After all, it is axiomatic that negative news coverage is better than none at all. They probably got some people to come to church on Easter Sunday just to see what the uproar was all about.

Before I went off half cocked about what Archbishop Rowan Williams said about the Indonesian quake and tsunami, I thought I would look it up in context. I am glad I did. I can’t repeat everything he said in this message, but two full paragraphs will serve to clarify.

To be completely fair, I will include the complete statement and then will comment. From an article written for the Sunday Telegraph, January 2, 2005, emphasis mine:

Every single random, accidental death is something that should upset a faith bound up with comfort and ready answers. Faced with the paralysing magnitude of a disaster like this, we naturally feel more deeply outraged—and also more deeply helpless. We can’t see how this is going to be dealt with, we can’t see how to make it better. We know, with a rather sick feeling, that we shall have to go on facing it and we can’t make it go away or make ourselves feel good.

The question: “How can you believe in a God who permits suffering on this scale?” is therefore very much around at the moment, and it would be surprising if it weren’t —indeed, it would be wrong if it weren’t. The traditional answers will get us only so far. God, we are told, is not a puppet-master in regard either to human actions or to the processes of the world. If we are to exist in an environment where we can live lives of productive work and consistent understanding—human lives as we know them—the world has to have a regular order and pattern of its own. Effects follow causes in a way that we can chart, and so can make some attempt at coping with. So there is something odd about expecting that God will constantly step in if things are getting dangerous. How dangerous do they have to be? How many deaths would be acceptable?

I think it is apparent that Joseph Farah took the archbishop out of context. He plainly did not understand what the gentleman was saying. Let me take the first sentence from this excerpt: “Every single random, accidental death is something that should upset a faith bound up with comfort and ready answers.”

Note this well. Rowan Williams was not saying that things like the death of 200,000 people should upset the faith of all Christians—only the faith of those whose faith is bound up with comfort and ready answers. Or perhaps he was thinking only of a certain kind of faith that has a way of creeping up on all Christians. A faith bound up with comfort.

What the archbishop was saying is that there are some misplaced faiths that should be upset. They are wrong. And in this, I entirely agree. Yes, I know we aren’t allowed to say that any kind of faith is wrong, exactly. We are supposed to think multiculturally. But sooner or later, someone has to tell the truth that is there for all to see. Now for the statement that Farah took out of context:

The question: “How can you believe in a God who permits suffering on this scale?” is therefore very much around at the moment, and it would be surprising if it weren’t—indeed, it would be wrong if it weren’t.

I think he means it would be wrong if people didn’t ask the very real questions that haunt them at times like these. It is right to ask the question so it can be answered honestly and without pretense. “How can you believe in a God who permits suffering on this scale?”

Rowan Williams is right. Traditional answers will only get us so far and then we run into problems. I thought his discussion was thoughtful and helpful. He wasn’t trying to give us all the answers. He was trying to help us ask the right questions. One of his more pointed statements:

If some religious genius did come up with an explanation of exactly why all these deaths made sense, would we feel happier or safer or more confident in God? Wouldn’t we feel something of a chill at the prospect of a God who deliberately plans a programme that involves a certain level of casualties?

Exactly. Are we to find it possible to believe in a God who will allow a carload of teenagers to be killed, but will stop short of allowing a tidal wave to kill 200,000? The bishop is right. We should ask these questions. The world we live in is a beautiful place. It is a gift of God to be cherished. But at the same time, it is a very dangerous world. And it is the danger that makes us ask why God made the world such a dangerous place. We have tornadoes, earthquakes, volcanos, and if that weren’t enough, we know the world has been bombarded with meteors and asteroids in the past and will be again.

Couldn’t God have made a world for man that was not dangerous? Well, of course he could have. Actually, he did. We call it the Garden of Eden. To be accurate, God created two worlds, one within the other. There was the world inside the Garden where it was safe. The climate was temperate—they needed no clothes. There was plenty to eat. There was work to do. By all indications, they could have had children in the Garden without pain and in total safety.

At the same time, there was a world outside the Garden that was not safe at all. I know. We want to know why that dangerous world was out there. It would have been irrelevant if Adam and Eve had made the right choice. But it was there, and logic suggests that it was there to give man a choice. Some movies have come out on DVDs that have two different endings. It is a really novel idea, and at first blush, it seems silly. If the author was trying to make a statement, some kind of point, leave it alone. But it underlines a point I think we need to make.

When God placed Adam and Eve in Garden of Eden, he wrote two endings and gave them a choice. In the one scenario, Eden grows and expands and consumes the whole earth. The dangerous and hard world outside ceases to be a threat because there is no outside. In the other scenario, Adam and Eve make a choice that forces them to leave the Garden of Eden. And the Garden ceases to exist as the world swallows it up.

And we all know how the story ends. It is not a DVD where we can click on a button and change the ending if we don’t like it. They made a choice and we are stuck with it—for now. You may be annoyed with Adam and Eve and think you would have made a different choice. You might like to rerun the movie, but you can’t.

Now for a very uncomfortable truth. We live in the dangerous world because that’s the way we want it. A world with hurricanes, volcanoes, tornadoes, tsunamis, meteors, and asteroids is what we have, not because it was what God wanted, but because we wanted it. Do you doubt that? Visit some of the coasts of Florida that have been devastated by hurricanes. What do you think you will find? People are building back. We know it is dangerous to build a house on the beach and we build it anyway. If God placed any one of us in the garden of Eden, we would become bored with the place and want a change. You may not think so. You may not agree. But what I am laying out for you to consider is that the world is what it is because “we” wanted it that way.

Now hold your argument for just a moment to look at another angle on this. A woman once asked me why God didn’t make us so we could not sin. I answered her that God could have done so. He actually did make creatures that could not sin. We call them cows. Would you rather be a cow? God made creatures capable of choice. And if you can’t choose to sin, you aren’t free to choose at all. If you have to live in a safe, secure Garden, you aren’t free.

Well, you ask, why didn’t God explain all this to Adam? He did. He said don’t eat of this tree. If you eat of it, you will die. God is willing for us to be here, exposed to this danger, because he isn’t interested in having mere specimens for his zoo. He wants sons who are capable of facing adversity and winning.

Trees are dangerous, you know. I used to drive my mother crazy climbing a tree in our back yard. Why didn’t my dad cut down that tree and remove the danger? Well, sunshine is nice, and so is shade. He chose to take the risk of leaving a tree there for beauty and for shade, even though I might get hurt. And, I would like to think, he wanted me to be able to have the sheer joy of climbing a tree and taking the chance. So parents create things for kids to climb even when they know kids can get hurt. Why do they do that? Consider what God once said to Cyrus, the King of the Persians:

I am the LORD, and there is no other; apart from me there is no God. I will strengthen you, though you have not acknowledged me, so that from the rising of the sun to the place of its setting men may know there is none besides me. I am the LORD, and there is no other. I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the LORD, do all these things (Isaiah 45:5-7 NIV).

But wait, why does God create disaster? Because we choose to face the danger. We will build a house on a beach in hurricane country. We will live in the shadow of the volcano. Why? Because we really don’t want a safe and secure life. Each of us chooses the level of danger we are willing to live with, but none of us is truly safe and secure. This is why I say we would leave the very Garden of Eden. Too tame. No hurricanes. No thunder. No lightning. Boring.

And I cringe every time I hear a politician in these post 9/11 days use the words “safe” and “safer.” Safety is an illusion, and the politician who promises it can never deliver. Now back to the question of shaking our faith.

Do disasters like the earthquake and tsunami in Indonesia shake the faith of Christians? I don’t know, but I do know this: You will see more of the faith of Christian people in adversity than in any other time. There are some things that Christians are good at. We weep with those who weep. We move heaven and earth to take water to the thirsty and food to the hungry. We take blankets and tents. We fly stuff in by helicopter and carry out the sick and hurting.

Why do you think we do this? This isn’t what evolution would call for. Evolution would say, “Let them die. Improve the gene pool. More food for the rest of us.” Utilitarianism would say, “Let them die. It isn’t useful for society to spend valuable resources trying to save these few wretches.”

I don’t know what Islam says, but I do know what Christianity says. Let’s move heaven and earth to save what we can. Let’s relieve suffering where we can. And through all of this, God learns what kind of people we are. And more important, so do we. We learn that we are winners only when we overcome adversity.

And if we can accept that God is turning losers into winners, perhaps we are beginning to understand why God gave us that choice of worlds to live in. The choice of returning to Eden will come to us once again: “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God” (Revelation 2:7 NIV).

It is the winners, those who overcome adversity, who finally get to live in the paradise of God. It is the tree climbers; those who go in harm’s way; those who face down the Devil and win. We need to learn to stop whining about adversity and go out there and win against it. Even if we go down fighting, we are winners. The only way we can lose is to choose safety, comfort, security.