My longtime friend Brad Hightower started blogging again. Brad's my token Christian friend. He's also a pastor, although he is in-between jobs currently. Brad's a smart guy. His posts are interesting and thought provoking. He even references me in a recent post on his current theological fanboi crush, N.T. Wright.
Such a view takes many forms in the popular mind. For example, I have an acquaintance, an intelligent and educated man, who believes that the most likely scenario is that Jesus didn’t even ever exist. This reconstruction starts with the idea that there is a gap between the historical Jesus and the Christian faith as developed by the biblical writers and takes this gap to its logical extreme.
He thinks I'm smart, so be nice.
Brad and I had one of our fundamental God disconnects today. We were discussing comments made by survivors and relatives of victims from a local commuter train wreck. 25 people died a horrible death. The local news is full of stories of people claiming the untimely deaths were "God's will", or stories of survivors who missed certain death because "God had a plan" for their lives. In one case, a woman who normally rides in the front car sat in the back of the train instead and thereby avoided certain death. When asked why, she said it was God's will that she live (instead of admitting that the car was full). I understand if people need a higher power to help in the grieving process, but thinking that God had a plan and it somehow involved saving your life while 25 other people were killed and another 135 were injured, well... that's just nuts.
I pressed on... so God has a plan, but he does not actually ever step in and do anything, right? Brad's answers are contradictory, and confusing. Apparently God sends messages to your heart and you know this through knowing the bible. But God does not ever actually step in and cause train wrecks. You see, people who believe that God takes an active hand in their life's don't really understand the bible. At this point my mind goes POP.
Dear Brad. I would venture a guess that 8 out of 10 Christians would disagree. They pray for a new car, or thank God when they survive a train wreck. They believe God guides their fate. You either have freewill or you don't. From where I sit it looks like Christians think they have both when they have neither.
Welcome back Brad. Now go forth and write.
Logging you in...
Jack 119p · 865 weeks ago
brad · 865 weeks ago
As for train crashes, I agree with most Christians that God is intimate with all these events in the fact that He is aware but it is also very rare that God intervenes. We live in a reality very far removed from God's will that is why Christians are to pray that God's will be done on earth as it is in heaven. We pray this because God's will is NOT being done most the time. In the mean time, Christians or at least some experience strength to remain loving and gentle in the midst of hardship as a result of their relationship with God. Some do this better than others..
brad · 865 weeks ago
Leslie · 864 weeks ago
You know I'm not a pastor and I don't pretend to be any sort of biblical scholar so I will only comment from personal experience. I don't know whether or not the horrible things that go on are the will of God. But I do think that the seeming randomness (ex. who lived and who died) you were describing above can be something else. For example, even if the woman who usually sat in the front car in actuality moved back because it was full, maybe that full first car was how God showed Himself for her in that situation. I think a lot of people are turned off and get their skeptic hackles raised when they hear the phrase "the will of God." But at least to me, that can be the little, not so obvious way things work out in the end.
Umm, yeah. That's all! =)
Mojoey 107p · 864 weeks ago
Alex · 863 weeks ago
kyle · 862 weeks ago
The point being, is that God is on a whole other level. Why people try to put him in a box amazes me. you can't physically put love in a box can you? the same goes with God. you can't mentally put him in a box. Things happen and you have to play with the cards you're dealt with, and accept it. make peace. Don't put a box on something that you can't put a box around, this is the problem with Christianity and people today. they want something they can see, feel or touch. well when you let me see, touch, or smell the love you have for your wife, kid, or brother, then i'll rephrase everything i just wrote.
Imagine and emotion, and try to put it into a physical form.
or try describing a color to a blind person.
So why question something you can't even begin to comprehend.watch and protect them. But isn't it in Love that God interacts sometimes, when we make our own free will choices?