What About Haiti?

January 18th:
Let me take a stab at a difficult question. You should never try to do theology in 500 words or less, but I’ll give it a shot.

The day after Haiti was devastated by a massive earthquake the Rev. Pat Robertson made the following statement:
"They were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III, or whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, we will serve you if you'll get us free from the French. True story. And so, the devil said, okay it's a deal."

I have never thought of Rev. Robertson as much of a theologian. He has a history of making statements that seem to be based on nothing more than private revelation. Private revelation is a part of the process, but it always needs to be tested. I’m not sure he feels the need to go to that next step.

Anyway, his statement has raised a couple of questions that many people ask after disasters like this one. “How did this happen?” and “Why did this happen?” The two questions always seem to be connected.

Rev. Robertson implies that this earthquake was the direct action of the almighty God (that’s the “how”) and that it was a punishment for the behavior of the Haitian people (that would be the “why.”) This is actually a fairly popular assumption, just not on this scale. There are a lot of people who expect that God will (or should) reward them for their behavior and since they see themselves as basically good they are expecting a nice, three bedroom ranch in heaven, after a long, fulfilling life, which ends with them slipping away peacefully in their sleep. So, then if they don’t get what they expect, the assumption is that God didn’t come through. So, anything short of our expectations becomes proof that God hates us.

Most people are a bit repulsed by the idea that the same God who is supposed to reward might decide to punish. However, no matter how unnerving it might be for us, knowing that God cares enough about our good behavior to take notes, assumes that he will be making note of our bad behavior as well. I guess what we want is a God who cares about the nice things we do and ignores everything else. That doesn’t make a lot of sense.

Having said all of this let me offer a slightly different model for all that we have seen happening around us.

Let’s picture God as our heavenly Father. He wants the best for us. He wants us to choose to do the right thing. He could (but won’t) choose for us because it would make us into puppets and any love or faith we might express would be a sham. So, he gives us a certain amount of control over how we live our lives. He could take it away at any time, but because he loves us he lets us choose and then holds us accountable for the choices we make. What He wants most of all is for us to trust Him. He offers us a relationship with Him that is built upon trust.

This Father doesn’t need to micro-manage every wind that blows or storm that comes. This Father has set up a system that is, for the most part, self-sustaining. Why do I say that? Because, it is observable. He “could” micro-manage if He wanted to but if He stepped in and changed the rules every time he felt like it, we would all go nuts, literally crazy. So, we live in a broken world where, sometimes, continental plates shift and the earth moves, buildings fall down and people get hurt.

This heavenly Father wants us to know Him. To know that no matter what happens around us He will love us and sustain us. This heavenly Father wants us to “love our neighbors as we love ourselves.” Which means that when the earth moves and people get hurt it should move us to do all we can to care for them.

Ok, 700 words or less.