It’s Our Fault
Recently, I watched this video of a panel discussion / debate titled, Does the God of Christianity Exist and Why Does it Matter? It was sponsored and put on by a Christian publisher and it featured one atheist, Christopher Hitchens, author of god Is Not Great, and three Christian apologists (the only name I recognized was Lee Strobel). To say that watching the discussion left me frustrated is a severe understatement.
Mr. Hitchens, in answer to the first question posed to him, raised the issue of human suffering and specifically talked about the gut wrenching recent news story of the Austrian man who imprisoned his own daughter for more than 26 years, subjecting her and the children he fathered with her to unimaginable horror in an underground dungeon. The implications being, if there is a good and loving God somewhere up there, how could this evil inflicted upon such purely innocent people be explained?
I’m sure you know that each of the Christians on the panel had well thought and well articulated responses to the problem of innocent suffering and a loving God. I’ve heard all those before, and so have you. No one said anything I disagree with. In my opinion nobody handles the questions and complications of suffering better than C.S. Lewis in The Problem of Pain, and his infinitely more personal story of A Grief Observed. I’ve read both of those books more than once. So the guys on the panel certainly weren’t saying anything new and weren’t even saying it as well as I’ve heard it before - but that’s not what bothered me this time. I couldn’t escape the emptiness of the whole argument. Mr. Hitchens raises the raw human horror of a particular story and these guys start talking about free will and God’s desire to have people who “choose to love him.”
Is that it? That’s what we want the suffering and the innocent of this world to know? We’re sorry you were subject to such hell and evil but God couldn’t stop it because that would have violated your monstrous beast of a father’s free will? People, believe me when I say that if that’s all we’ve got on the “Christian side of the argument,” I’m out!
My frustration over this debate and my prayer and meditation ever since I heard the story of the Austrian has convinced me that this is not “all we’ve got.” But the consequences have been painful. Bottom line: These horrors have happened on our watch - on my watch.
1 Peter 5 says that the devil is seeking whom he “may” devour. He’s seeking for permission - for access. Who may I subject to agony and pain and unthinkable suffering? I’m coming to grips with my own responsibility toward humanity. We are Christ’s ambassadors - representatives given authority to establish his kingdom to the ends of the earth. In his kingdom, these things do not happen. But the keys of this kingdom have been given to us. We blew it!
I think that Nehemiah 1:6 provides us with the Christian response to suffering; “…Both my father’s house and I have sinned.” We have sinned. Access was given to the destroyer because the kingdom in which he has no power was not established in these places. The way we have been given of establishing that kingdom is repentance. Repent for the kingdom of God is at hand.
Hear me: I’m not saying that this horror took place because no one came to this Austrian and said, “Repent of your sins or you’ll go to hell.” Read Nehemiah again. I and my fathers have sinned. These horrors have occurred because I remain unrepentant. God has given us his kingdom in a mystery. I don’t know how my repentance establishes his kingdom, but I know that’s what does it.
2 Chronicles 7:14 “If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”
We do the humbling. We do the praying and the seeking. We repent of our wicked ways. Then he does the forgiving and the healing of the land. Instead of some academic debate about free will and God’s sovereignty, I long for someone to fall on his knees before Christopher Hitchens and say:
You are absolutely right! This is unacceptable. Please forgive me… on behalf of all Christians given the authority to establish Jesus’ kingdom, I repent as one who was taught to pray, “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is heaven.” I confess that I have failed to establish God’s kingdom in this situation. This never should have happened. Evil should have never been given this kind of access. Please forgive me.
I don’t know if that would have made a difference to Christopher Hitchens or not. It might not have changed his outlook or his worldview at all. That’s not the point.
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