God’s judgment

Scot McKnight over at Jesus Creed started a very interesting discussion on God’s judgment and our willingness to accept the possibility of God using nature, events and/or others to enact judgment.

I think there’s too much of an unnecessary and false polarity there to really tackle this issue effectively - at least the little bit that presented from the book so far.

I know of very few people in the Christian world who won’t acknowledge that the contraction and spread of AIDS is a consequence of sinful behavior either directly or a sin at some point down the line. I don’t know anyone who won’t acknowledge that 9/11 happened because men chose a path that included sinful choices. It would surely be folly to think that the fall is not in some small or large part responsible for much of the evil and suffering on this earth.

The fact is that we not only co-labor with Christ as creators and demonstrators of God’s grace on this earth in the eternal kingdom (which includes the here and now) but we also are able to work against God and his kingdom both knowingly and unknowingly with our choices that are tainted with selfishness and pride as a result of the fallen state of mankind. We also cannot deny the presence of evil and it’s ability to manipulate people’s choices.

Keep in mind that we are are conduits of reconciliation and redemption as ambassadors of Christ. So regardless of the source of “evil” or “destruction”, the redemptive process rests heavily on our shoulders as followers of Christ.

Mostly, I’m not really sure where the issue of God’s “right to judge” fits into the equation anyway. At least in American postmodern thought, the idea of a vengeful God doesn’t really resonate when it comes to people’s personal choices, ethics and morals. I couldn’t even get my non Christian friend to care about hell if I painted her a picture and sent her into a furnace. And besides, does it matter whether or not we know if God used nature or others to enact judgment - after the fact especially? If the tsunami was God’s judgment on an entire country, how does that knowledge help them recover? And when people have the audacity to say that they know it was God’s judgment, that proclamation itself bears negative consequences that do nothing in the way of living out the Great Commission - co-laboring with Jesus in the work of grace and justice.

Does God use natural disasters or fundamentalist terrorists to judge people? He certainly can and likely has done and will do - I am loathe to limit God in any case. I imagine it would depend on the likely outcome by way of bringing people to repentance (Jonah anyone?)

I think we have to bring more factors into the equation than whether or not God can or will use nature to destroy as a means of judgment. I also think it’s not really something that I personally find very necessary to have an answer for anyway. Maybe the book actually addresses the nuances and perhaps it will come up in McKnight’s subsequent entries.

Finally, I think it might be important to consider the role of Christians in God’s judgment - if we are willing to tell others that God is judging them, are we willing to pull the plank out of our own collective eye? For example, are we willing to consider that God is trying to use 9/11 to demonstrate to Christians our complicity in those events? (Which, by the way, I am not saying definitively, I’m simply using the illustration to make a point).

In Micah and elsewhere, God talks about how he does not tolerate injustice…from anyone and esp. not from his own people. So where is our responsibility in this? Has our treatment of Muslims demonstrated that we are unjust and worthy of judgment ourselves? Humiliation has been shown to be a major cause of people’s willingness to turn to terrorism within a culture/sub culture…how much more so humiliation of an entire culture?

We as a religion have done a good job at adding to the humiliation of the Middle East by our treatment of their culture and religions. Indeed, we Americans do a pretty good job at insulting, humiliating and standing in prideful judgment over pretty much everyone who is not like us. And considering how closely linked most evangelicalism is with American nationalism, it’s no surprise that these behaviors are clearly seen in American churches. So when we open our minds and sensibilities to the option of God using nature or events to judge, we better be open to the possibility that the judgment is on the Church.

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