“God on Trial… wrestling with the existence of Evil”

Recently a friend of mine sent me a film entitled "God on Trial."  It was extremely well done.  It was also gut wrenching and thought provoking.

The film is set in a WWII concentration camp.  The characters are primarily Jewish prisoners.  In their dim and dingy barracks they sit waiting to find out which ones didn’t make the latest cut; which ones will be the next to enter the gas chamber. 

While they wait, someone comes up with an idea… anything to take their minds off the inevitable.  Why not put God on trial?  God had promised to protect the Jews.  For some it was obvious that he didn’t keep his promise.  He should be prosecuted!

And they did.  I won’t give away too much information, in case you want to watch it for yourself, but the hour and a half long film is made up mostly of these inmates accusing and defending God until they reach a verdict.

I have to admit that there have been times when I’ve put God on trial myself.  For me it wasn’t so much an exercise to determine if he was guilty as it was to determine if he was there.  And there have been times when I decided he wasn’t.  Among other factors, the seemingly unchecked existence of evil in our world has, at times, moved me to pronounce God… “Nonexistent!”

Maybe you’ve been there and done that.  Maybe you’re there now.  If so, I hope you will read a little further.

I think serious reflection about the questions of suffering and evil in our world can actually help us go farther than our current questions and conclusions.  What if we used the reality of evil and injustice to move us to another, deeper question and conclusion? 

What if we asked the question like this… Since evil and injustice are unarguable realities in our world (I don’t think any rational person would argue that Nazi fascism was not evil), then isn’t that strong evidence that the opposites of evil and injustice must exist?

And if good and justice do exist, how do we know which is which?  I mean, how do we determine what is good and what is evil?  How do we know what is just and what us unjust? 

It seems to me that the topics of good and evil or justice and injustice are even more problematic for a naturalist (I guess we could use the term atheist or agnostic) than it is for a theist.  If I have no explanation for the existence of humanity beyond natural causes then how do I determine what is "good" or "evil," "just" or "unjust?" 

To a true naturalist, I don’t know how those categories make sense.  To put it another way, for a true naturalist, human suffering can't be good or bad.  It just is.

In fact, for an atheistic evolutionist (as opposed to a theistic evolutionist) human suffering and death, particularly death at the hands of a stronger power (in the animal or human kingdom), is simply the process of natural selection; the survival of the fittest.   It is not unjust at all.  It is evolution at work, a completely “natural” process.

But if we conclude that evil is real then there must be a reason we reach that conclusion.  There must be a cause (some would say a “great cause”) that moves us, like currents move ships, to that inevitable destination, that logical conclusion. 

I would argue that the “great cause,” “the one” who moves us to that conclusion is God.     

I know that answer is not very satisfactory for some.  But think about the alternative. If I reach the conclusion that there is no God, then I have to carry that thought out to the logical conclusion.  In reference to suffering, evil and injustice, that means that all suffering is meaningless. 

That means that there is ultimately no justice in the world.  That means that the lives of the 16,000 children that died today from hunger and hunger related causes meant nothing.  They lived briefly, they suffered terribly, they died and that’s it.  They passed into and out of a hellish existence and they’re gone.  For them, if there is no God, there will be no justice.

The Bible shares a more redemptive perspective that, for me at least, makes the most sense.  According to the Bible, there is suffering in the world because the world we live in is broken, imperfect, and in desperate need of healing.  From the Christian perspective that healing came into our world through Jesus Christ and someday the healing will be complete. 

I may be telling you stuff that you’ve already heard.  I know it stretches the modern (or post-modern) mind to its limits.  Some won’t embrace it as truth.  But for me it is the only conclusion that makes sense of the world we live in.

For me there must be a God who allows himself to be tried and convicted wrongly, who suffers with and for our broken world; for human beings who have decimated the planet we inhabit, who have violated one another, gone to war with each other and against our creator. 

As strange as it sounds, I believe that this God came to us through Jesus Christ; born to a virgin, laid in a wooden trough, nailed to a wooden cross, resurrected to bring healing to a broken suffering world.

I’m interested in hearing your perspective.

Hallelujahs on Halloween!

I think it’s important to be honest about how the church sometimes messes up.  If you’ve read this blog much at all you probably already know that.  But if I’m going to be honest about what we get wrong, I need to be equally honest about what we get right and on Halloween night one church (it happened to be my church) got something really right!

I have the privilege of being one of the members of Zoar Church in Shelby, North Carolina.

  For several years our church has hosted a Trunk or Treat event on Halloween night.  You may know how that works.  In a church parking lot – or in our case on the ball field – people line up their cars and give out candy to passing kids (and adults) from their trunks.  Ergo…“Trunk or Treat.” 

Each year the folks as Zoar invite anyone from our community, and surrounding communities, to come by and participate.  This year we gave out Bibles to all the children.  960 Bibles were given away, so that means around 2,000 people came through the line.  

This year my job was to help man the prayer tent.  Some people requested prayer on the spot.  Others wrote down requests on cards so people could pray for them later. 

One person wrote on their prayer card, “lost job yesterday.”  I hope she left with more than candy for her kids.  Maybe, along with candy, she received a renewed faith in humanity and God.  Maybe she was grateful to know that someone cared enough to pray.

And we will.  Prayer teams will meet.  Prayers will be offered on behalf of every individual that filled out a card.  Not generic prayers that can be applied to anybody, but real, heartfelt prayers that single out real human beings going through real struggles and need a real God to intervene.  Our faith is small but we will exercise what we have asking God to help.  Along with prayers for healing and strength, marriages restored and prodigals returned, we will be asking God to help this woman find another job. 

(I know we could get into a long discussion about why God seems to hear some prayers and sleep through others.  It’s a fair question but we’ll save it for another day.  Right now the point is that our people are praying for people because they care.  I think that’s important.)

Another woman was crying when she stepped into the tent.  She sat down and told me some of her story.  I won’t get into all the details.  It’s enough to say that she lost her faith in God and people.  She felt like both had let her down.  She was actually hesitant to come to our Trunk or Treat, but kids are persuasive and grandparents are pushovers so here she was, sitting beside me telling me her story.

Now, through her tears, she told me that she was touched by the love that our people shared with her.  She said she had forgotten that there are people in the world who really do care.  Maybe if she had been wrong about people she had been wrong about God too.  She was in the process of moving to the other end of the county and she said she hoped she found a church like ours.  I hope so too.

Between prayer sessions I stood outside the tent and looked across the field and the sea of people.

On a night when people try hard to look scary, I think our people looked saintly without trying to at all.  I saw people passing out candy, popcorn and coke…hugs, Bibles and prayers.  Some were dancing, some laughing, some crying, some praying and some seemed to be able to do all simultaneously.  That night I think I saw the church the way Jesus intended the church to be. 

As I looked around the ball field on Halloween night I whispered a heartfelt “hallelujah!” 

It seemed to be the appropriate thing to do.