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San Bernardino... |
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Mass Shootings at Christmas. Attacking God? |
| by Craige McMillan |
| It's a common thought—even if it is largely unspoken in our day and age. "Why doesn't God do something?" The latest shooting was at a San Bernardino Christmas party in a facility that helps the disabled. Nice, huh?
Whether we read the Bible as a fable or factual account, the book of Genesis tells us that very early on the man and the woman traded a perfect world and a daily walk in the Garden of Eden with the Creator of the Universe for something we felt was much more important. What did we trade for a perfect world? The ripe fruit hanging on one of the two forbidden trees in the Garden of Eden. Satan offered the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and that's what Eve chose. Since that time we have all known the difference between good and evil. Some call it a conscience. Some of us are missing it. Others know but choose to do evil anyway. Each of us now makes our own decisions. The effects are passed on down through our lineage…forever. Now we are all just like God, right? As God gave humanity the boot out of the Garden of Eden, he was off the hook for good and evil in the world. We willingly accepted responsibility for it. Whether that responsibility occurs on an individual or communal level, humanity now owns the problem of good and evil. God might choose to fix the effects, if we honestly and earnestly ask. But we own the problem. There is a subplot running through this tragedy, just underneath the surface, that I find unsettling. This Christmas party was in a facility for the disabled. The Bible teaches that the poor and disabled have always been high on God's concern list. Christmas marks that point in history when God chose to enter the world he had created, but as a human being, in the person of his son, Jesus Christ. During the years of Jesus' earthly life the disabled were healed by him on an almost routine basis. This attack came at a Christmas event, in a facility that cares for the disabled. Doesn't this suggest to you an attack not only against those present—but also against God himself? God is attacked daily in our culture, in entertainment, the media, public schools, government bureaucracies, the courts, and by atheists and people who worship other deities created by mankind. Many Christian churches in their teachings now deny or attack God as well. Or they twist what He has told us into something unrecognizable. The members of these churches seem to value more the approving voices of their friends and neighbors than God's approval. I wonder: Is the war against God once again heating up? First Jews, and later Christians (because we came later in history) have always been popular targets of those dissatisfied with the condition of the world—but more often their particular place in it. Blaming God is an easy out. It is a small step from blaming God to taking revenge on his representatives on the earth, the Jews and the Christians. Jews had their turn under the National Socialist Worker's Party (Nazis) in Germany. The Nazis blamed the Jews because Germany wasn't utopia in the aftermath of World War I. Now it appears Christians are having their turn under the "secular and progressive" governments of the western world. Some in the West, especially in America, want to blame Christians for their political failure to usher in the promised earthly utopia. By all means, pray for the victims of any war—but pray especially for those who are victims in the war against God, the war which the rich and powerful are now mounting. As you remember the dead and injured, pray also for a world that sees no need for God, because mankind has become his own god. The results speak for themselves. Images in the Public Domain or Creative Commons |
