I would like to write in defense of God. In my opinion we have abused him (or her) shamelessly. It’s high time we give God a break.
Biblical history has its own problems with fake news. “God reigned down burning sulphur on Sodom and Gomorrah,” the bible tells us in one epic account. Why? God abhors homosexuality. Lot’s wife became collateral damage: she looked back on the city about to be destroyed. God instructed her not too. She was reduced to a pillar of salt on the spot because she turned around to look. Disobedience? Maybe, but another possible transgression suggested is that she became too interested in what was going on there. In either case the punishments, in my view, did not fit the crimes.
With the advent of modern biblical scholarship and scientific archeology, many of these accounts of divine retribution are believed to be more mythical than historically credible. Historically credible or no, myths make their point and this one and many others like it are that God’s wrath can be savage and spiteful. Much of historic religion has targeted gays and lesbians for just such punishments.
I recall after 9/11, televangelists Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson were outspoken about how America’s tolerance of gays, abortion, lesbians and the ACLU caused God to open the gates to the terrorists allowing them to enter and cause this national tragedy to happen. In short, the attacks on 9/11 were God’s judgment against America’s growing liberal agenda.
Significant numbers advocating for this vengeful God have traditionally been associated with the Republicans who share their party’s contempt for liberals and their agenda. This has created a delicate situation now since the Republicans hold not only the house and senate, but the executive branch as well. Conservatives are more cautious about calling the disasters God’s retribution since Republicans are now in the driver’s seat and for the most part are setting the national agenda.
Rush Limbaugh, a loyal pundit of the right, got God off the hook this time by handling the recent hurricane tragedies this way. He just couldn’t help but blaming somebody.
“There is a desire to advance this climate change agenda, and hurricanes are one of the fastest and best ways to do it … All you need is to create the fear and panic accompanied by talk that climate change is causing hurricanes to become more frequent and bigger and more dangerous, and you create the panic, and it’s mission accomplished, agenda advanced.”
He seems to me to be saying that anyone even talking about the reality of destructive hurricanes makes the storms bigger and more frequent. He gives climate change talk the same power that God possesses; during the creation God only had to say ‘Let there be light”, and it was everywhere.
Televangelist Jim Bakker was determined to keep God active in the retribution mode and stated that “this flood is from God.” Why? To punish Houston’s former mayor for attempting to subpoena ministers’ sermons. Wouldn’t you wonder what the mayor knew about Texas clergy that God preferred to keep classified?
Pastor Kevin Swanson asserts that Irma’s path could have been altered had the Supreme Court only decided that abortion and gay marriage were illegal. God didn’t move the hearts of the Supreme Court in a timely manner. The pastor suggests that, the whole mess happened because God dropped the ball and didn’t act sooner. It doesn’t make God any less retributive but God is now also accused of not staying on top of things.
Ann Coulter, not averse to speaking her mind, interestingly wasn’t sure hurricane Harvey was God’s way of punishing Houston although she tweeted that the explanation was “more credible than attributing [natural disasters] to ‘climate change.’ ” I think she was uneasy attributing the hurricanes to God outright but she did so in a disingenuous way.
James Dobson of Focus on the Family fame, while describing the Sandy Hook shootings as God’s punishment for tolerating gay marriage and abortion, was curiously silent on the recent storms. He championed God’s wrath in the past. I wonder why he remained silent on the matter? Too busy with family business, I suppose.
Pat Robertson also did not comment directly on God’s role in the recent storms, but spoke to it obliquely. Robertson saw the hand of God in the Haiti and San Fernando earthquakes and suggested that the political pressures America puts on Israel, causes natural disasters. My guess is that he’s soft on Israel because Jesus was born there. He also warned that gay tourists at Disney World could cause a meteor strike. So much for star of wonder, star of night.
Michael Brown, a member of Trump’s Evangelical Advisory Board, cautioned that, “we must be very careful before we make divine pronouncements about hurricanes and other natural disasters.” He praised Houston for having stood bravely against the rising tide of LGBT activism concluding with this observation: “Why would God single out Houston for judgment?” One preacher suggested that Houston got it big time because they elected a lesbian as their mayor.
God gets portrayed as having sex on his mind all the time. I think those who champion his vengeful acts are the ones obsessed with sex and I would add, violence.
What are we to make of all this?
Four things come to mind.
One, we are still adolescent children in gaining a wholesome understanding of human sexuality. Secondly, nature, for all our scientific advances, remains mysterious and unpredictable. We try controlling it, but we can’t.
I don’t think we’ve grasped the reality that we are a global community and we have responsibility for each other, not to punish, but to heal. Finally, we keep trying to draft God into our causes, like selective service once called us up to serve in the military. We require of God that he do our bidding. It is very hard to grow into the knowledge that we’re made in God’s image when we keep trying to make God into our own. We fashion him in our own image, and unfortunately, not with our more endearing qualities: deceit, manipulation, coercion and violence. And for all that, would you believe, that at the end of the day God doesn’t punish sinners, but forgives, loves and welcomes them into his arms. Now that’s the real miracle.
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord”
Thank God for that.
Columnist George Merrill is an Episcopal Church priest and pastoral psychotherapist. A writer and photographer, he’s authored two books on spirituality: Reflections: Psychological and Spiritual Images of the Heart and The Bay of the Mother of God: A Yankee Discovers the Chesapeake Bay. He is a native New Yorker, previously directing counseling services in Hartford, Connecticut, and in Baltimore. George’s essays, some award winning, have appeared in regional magazines and are broadcast twice monthly on Delmarva Public Radio.
Wilson Wyatt says
Thank you for a thoughtful article…for some, perhaps an inconvenient truth.
JAN BOHN says
As always, you give us food for thought!