FAQ Part 1: Why Do Bad Things Happen To Good People?

This past Sunday, I began a sermon series called "Frequently Asked Questions".  The premise is that I'll take the most common questions that people have about God, Faith, etc., and respond to them.  I'm not attempting to definitively answer these questions, per se, but I am publicly interacting with them.  As a part of that exercise, I plan on posting the audio as soon as its available during the week that each sermon is delivered, and I'm also dusting off my blog and writing a post that interacts with each week's question.  So, without any further introduction, I give you my first question:

Why Do Bad Things Happen To Good People?

It's a question I've been wrestling with a lot lately.  I could tell you the story of the 16-year-old girl that died when a tornado hit her High School a few years ago.  My father was the police chaplain and was also her preacher.  He identified her body, and then had to walk out to where her parents were waiting in the designated area behind caution tape, and inform them that their precious daughter was dead.  I could tell you about my wife's cousin who suffered from cystic fibrosis all of his life, and wasn't expected to live past age 6.  At age 38, he received a lung transplant that was supposed to give him at least another 10 years to spend with his wife and adopted son.  He developed an infection in his new lungs shortly after the transplant, and died less than a year later at age 39.  I could tell you about my friends from college Tony and Susan.  Tony was the best man at my wedding.  Susan stood in for my wife Dana at our wedding rehearsal.  Tony and I decided to go into youth ministry on the same day.  Susan and Dana developed the kind of special bond that often grows between those who walk a similar path.  About a month ago, Susan went in for an outpatient medical procedure.  Something went wrong, and by that evening the MRI showed no brain activity.  The next morning, my friend had to give the word to turn off the machines, because his wife was dead.  Then, he went home to their 3-year-old twins.  No matter who you are, and how strong your faith is, there are times when you look to the heavens and scream "Do you even know what you are doing???  Do you care???  Are you even there???"  Why do bad things happen to good people?

In order to Biblically engage with this question (as it is commonly asked), it seems to me that part of the question is itself questionable.  Bear with me, because I assure you I'm not trying to get God off the hook on a technicality, but I have to ask, "What 'good people'?"  Now before half of you give me the Mark Driscol/John Piper stamp of approval, and the other half slam your laptops closed in disgust, let me explain.  I do NOT mean that in the hyper-Calvinist sense of "we are all so evil and depraved that we only deserve for horrible things to happen to us in the first place, so its a miracle that good things ever happen."  I find such an explanation to be a theologically abhorrent cop-out.  I think that Scripture makes quite clear the value that God places on human beings, and that he deems all of his creation as "good" and "very good".  What I mean, is that followers of Jesus, who have accepted the grace of God, have essentially opted out of categorizing some people as better than others.  Paul appears to argue (Romans and Galatians immediately come to mind) that to do so is to invalidate the Gospel of Jesus, and that to continue to insist on putting people into categories (Jew, Greek, Slave, Free, Male, Female, Good, Bad, etc.) that somehow sort them in terms of value and worth is precisely to "fall from grace", as someone who claims not to need it.  To be Christian then, is to opt-out of the "US v/s THEM" system that deems some as "Good", deserving of blessings and protection from pain (because they've earned it), and some people as "Bad", rightly deserving all of the pain and suffering that might come their way.  

So, I think a re-framing of the question is in order.  The question isn't "Why do bad things happen to good people?" so much as it is "Why do bad things happen to God's people?"  Essentially, the question posed to God is, "If we are supposed to have this special relationship with you...if you are really a 'Father' to us, how can you allow these things to happen?"  I would argue that this is the most commonly asked question in the Biblical text, and much of Scripture is devoted to wrestling with precisely the issue at hand.  I hate to disappoint you but, even so, no definitive answer is given in the Bible.  The closest thing you get is found in the book of Job.

The book of Job is likely the oldest document in the Biblical text.  Moreover, despite the claims of fundamentalists that everything in the Bible must be interpreted literally, the majority of the book of Job is written in Hebrew poetry.  Many attempts at answering our question (even within the Biblical text) offer a solution that sounds a lot like Karma...Good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people.  While the opening scene of Job is Theologically odd to say the least (with Satan walking into God's throne room and engaging God in a wager), it does make one thing very clear:  What happens to Job is in no way his fault.  In fact, the text describes Job's righteousness in such an over-the-top kind of way, you would think he was Jesus.  As the narrative progresses, everything Job loves is systematically taken away from him, and even his relationship with his wife is twisted in a way that only adds to the misery.  Job stands strong for the majority of the narrative...until his religious friends show up.  In the beginning they do something that is very wise, observing a tradition by which they are present with the one in mourning, but do not speak.  (We could actually learn a lot from them, because in these situations many of us say the dumbest, most insensitive things possible.)  Then, after several days of this, they ruin it by talking.  They explain to Job that BECAUSE (A) We all know that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people (a.k.a. "sinners"), and (B) Bad things are happening to Job, THEN (C) Job must be "bad people"/a sinner.  Job assures them that this isn't the case, but they will have none of it, as their logic is perfect in their own minds.  Finally, Job has enough and screams at the heavens, demanding that God would come down and explain himself.  In humor that often escapes us, the youngest member of Job's band of friends speaks up for the first time, and explains to Job what a silly request this is, because God just doesn't do this kind of thing...Which is immediately followed by God showing up to respond to Job's question.  God's poetic response is fascinating.  He begins by establishing who is God and who isn't.  He speaks of his knowledge, his power, and his role as Creator.  He essentially asks Job, "Who do you think you are?"  This is commonly assumed to be the essence of God's entire response to Job, as if God is just a colossal jerk who happens to be really powerful.  Such a reading doesn't do justice to God or to the beauty of the text.  As God's response continues, you begin to notice a subtle shift in the language.  He begins to use very parental language (both paternal and maternal) to refer to his relationship with things like rain, dew and frost.  He describes Himself as being greatly concerned with even baby birds who cry out in hunger.  He depicts himself as counting down the days until pregnant goats and deer give birth.  He begins to talk about lazy wild donkeys who he appears to love, though they don't produce anything of value like a domesticated donkey.  He describes an ostrich as ugly, mean and sort of stupid...but then appears to take delight in how fast it can run.  God essentially moves from asking "Who do you think you are?" to asking "Who do you think I am?"  Not once in His response does God offer an answer or explanations.  He appears to suggest that Job wouldn't understand, and it wouldn't be that helpful anyway.  However, God follows all of that up by essentially saying "But don't you, even for a second, think that I don't care and I'm not suffering with you.  I am intimately involved and deeply concerned with the most minute aspects of creation.  Do you really think I don't care about your pain?" As Jurgen Moltmann says, a God who was impassive to our suffering "would not be a God, but a monster", and "God's power is not expressed by the fact that he controls all things (the opposite of love), but in that he bears all things and suffers all things."

In the Gospels, Jesus engages with the question as well.  In the sermon on the mount, he says:

"You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor  and hate your enemy.'  But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,  that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.  If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that?  And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?  Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

-Matthew 5:43-48 TNIV

This is a fascinating text to me.  By way of definition of his Father's perfection, he points out that he causes the sun to shine and also gives life-giving rain to both the evil and the good--both the righteous and the unrighteous.  Then, he tells us to go do likewise.

In essence, the Bible offers no conclusive answer or explanation to the question that it wrestles with the most.  Instead, it describes a God who suffers with us, and it issues a call for those who would follow this God to embody a response rather than offer an explanation.  As the people of God, we are to bring light to darkness, hope to despair, and even life into death.  We are not to spend all of our energy and resources insulating ourselves from pain and suffering, but rather we are to be the ones who enter into the suffering of others and help them to bear it.  When those who are suffering cry out "Where is God?", our role is not to convince them with apologetics.  As agents of Hope, it is our calling to reflect and embody God into the space where he cannot be easily seen or heard. 

God and Monkeys?

My friend Matthew Paul Turner asked me to write a review for of Evolving in Monkey Town by Rachel Held Evans, as a guest post for his blog, "Jesus Needs New PR".  I loved the book (which was provided to me free of charge).  You can read my review on Matthew's blog by clicking HERE, or you can just read it below...

The problem with polarized arguments is that both sides end up arguing for something stupid…against something equally stupid…with no way forward.  One of the major problems with Christianity in our day is that, in many ways we have begun to let polarized arguments define us.  We are in love with labels, and with categories of “us” versus “them”.  We proudly identify ourselves as “conservative” or “liberal” in terms of politics and theology and claim that if you don’t apply the same label to yourself, you must be one of “them”, and thus not a “true Christian”, like us.  We ratchet our categories ever tighter, to the point that if you even question any point of our collective unspoken creeds, we question your faithfulness and intentions.

This phenomenon has become particularly obvious in the dominant approach to Christian apologetics in America.  Having “faith” has come to mean having certainty about a particular set of beliefs.  It’s a sad situation in desperate need of a fresh perspective that dares to imagine a way forward.
Enter author/thinker/southerner Rachel Held Evans.  As a resident of Dayton, TN (the site of the infamous Scopes Monkey Trial), a graduate of Bryant College, and a former poster-child for apologetics-oriented faith, Rachel is uniquely positioned to be exactly the kind of voice we need hear.  In her book, Evolving In Monkey Town, Rachel offers a deeply personal and life-giving perspective.  The book isn’t exactly what you might think, given the title.  She doesn’t particularly attempt to settle the “evolution question”, so much as she argues that our approach to this and other questions like it has been deeply unhelpful.  Equal parts memoir and Practical Theology, “Monkey Town” proposes an approach that doesn’t equate “faith” with “certainty”.  Rather, Rachel advocates a faith that has room for ambiguity; that generates questions instead of fearing them; a faith that trusts and hopes even in the midst of doubt. She calls us to distinguish between questioning God and questioning our beliefs about God, and argues that, rather than being blasphemous, the later is both formative and necessary.  She argues that faith was never meant to be a static, unchanging thing; but that living faith is alive precisely because of its ability to learn, adapt, and…well, evolve.

It doesn’t hurt that Rachel is a profoundly good writer.  She’ll have you laughing one minute and in tears the next.  At certain points you’ll be unable to put the book down, while at other you’ll have to put it down to ponder the implications of what you’ve just read.  In a day when many would-be defenders of the faith are characterized by arrogance and ignorance, Rachel Held Evans may just be the humble and thoughtful kind of prophet we need.  The fact that such a description probably makes her uncomfortable, only strengthens my case.

Buy Rachel's Book

A Midnight Moment of Doubt and an Unlikely Glimpse of God

• I woke up in the middle of the night a few weeks ago, and I had no faith. I woke up in the middle of the night, and it was just gone. I think it had something to do with not being able to picture an afterlife, but to be honest I'm not sure where it came from. It lasted for about an hour...one terrifying hour where I watched the minutes click by on the clock and didn't believe. I eventually drifted off to sleep, and when I woke up, I believed again.

• Mondays are my day off, so I was home today. I was sitting in the living room and Oprah came on T.V. Honestly, it only stayed on because I couldn't find the remote. Then she told the story. Lysa was a typical, married, churchgoing mother of two in Charlotte, NC. One night she decided to take her children to a performance by a visiting boys' choir from Liberia. At the concert, she found out that all of the members of the choir were orphans. She further found out that their orphanage had been attacked by rebels and abandoned. The boys were now homeless. To make a long story short, during the concert Lysa says she felt God tell her that two of those boys were hers. On the way home, she called her husband and began to talk him into it. She shared the idea with her friends...who all tried to talk her out of it. She convinced them to attend another performance of the choir. Lysa and her friends all adopted boys from the choir...and some also adopted their sisters and friends from Liberia. Most of the husbands were converted to the idea in prayer groups. Actually, 14 families from this community have adopted 31 children from the same Liberia orphanage. They interviewed the former orphans who talked about how they used to pray to God for families. They interviewed families who felt called by God to do something that made no sense at all from the standpoint of their own security and comfort...families who followed that call and partnered with God in changing the world. And I believed. I sat on my couch, watching the stinking Oprah Winfrey show with tears in my eyes...and I believed. At that moment, any and all challenges to my faith were distant and laughable.

• No serious challenge to my faith has ever been the result of startling new information (though I routinely come across startling new information) or deep difficult questions (though I am daily asked them and daily pose them myself). My faith is challenged when the people of God ignore their calling in the world and faith becomes simply an intellectual exercise. When faith becomes simply an intellectual exercise, it falls apart...not because it can't, but because it was never meant to. My faith grows by experience...both by my experience and by others sharing the stories of their experience. Karl Marx called Christianity (and religion in general) the opiate of the masses. May we never prove him right. May we never turn this thing of beauty and power into simply propositions we agree with and a moral code we follow in order to obtain paradise after this life. May we embrace the Way of Jesus. May we experience the power of God. May we become the catalyst for the Kingdom of God that we were always intended to be. May we not be content with trying to get off out of this world and into heaven. Rather, may we embrace the experience of partnering with God in bringing a little bit of Heaven to this world. May we live our lives in such a Way that our afterlives are the natural extension of the faith we lived.

AE