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Dear Folks,
I dealt with many of the New Years’ Eve themes in my newsletter from last week. This week begins to deal with some of the challenges, greys and ambiguities of the new season and some sad news from last year. Please go back to the previous newsletter for scriptures and hopefulness… here comes the hard slogging. Christians are often the first to act in mercy, justice and help when things go badly. The irony is that we can often be unwise and sometimes notorious in our social commentary. Bruce Clemenger, the President of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, tells the story of how some Christians behaved badly on the Canadian radio landscape in the 20’s, 30’s and 40’s in this country, and because of that, bad behaviour lost the right to be broadcasters for many years (I’m abbreviating Bruce here but the story is the same). The Christian response to the last American Presidential Election and the Newtown massacre have some problems. Many Christians have been wonderful, prayerful and supportive – some have not. There is a history of this too. Billy Graham has often reflected on how his meddling in politics has been wrong (didn’t stop his handlers last fall for doing it again). Charles Swindoll once hilariously said, “If God doesn’t punish America he’s going to have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah.” Just quoting him folks… he meant it as a semi-jest. Robertson and Falwell said 9/11 was God’s judgement on America, and James Dobson suggested the same, regarding the slaughter of the children and teachers in Newtown as divine judgement as well. What appalling talk! The biblical pattern of God’s disapproval; from Saul, to episodes in the life of Moses to the book of Romans and more is the withdrawal of God, the “hiding of himself” the collapse of his support, presence, comfort and power. Not being a high profile American Christian figure, I am not in a position to know the Almighty, much less speak for him, but God has made himself plain before. Plain – and sometimes profoundly hidden. God speaks to us in many clear, mysterious and persistent ways; we would do well to listen in the many ways he offers us, not the (sometimes understandably emotional rants of leaders). What follows is a passage I heard as a bible story from my parents but never, ever preached on in church. No wonder. Matthew 2:16-18New International Version (NIV) 16 When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. 17 Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: 18 “A voice is heard in Ramah,
What follows is my beginning of a response to Newtown. Only a beginning in the face of its horror and the way other horrors are visited on children daily in this broken world. It is with soul shaking and spirit scouring sadness that we, as a family of churches in the Canadian Baptists of Western Canada, grieve with the parents, siblings, relatives and friends of those who died and were injured in the recent mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. In the midst of a season which anticipates the birth of a child, the Christ child, the Morning Star who signals the dawn of a new day in His person, suffering, death, resurrection, ascension and inevitable return, we are stilled by the young and other lives cut short. We remember violence done to others everywhere. We stand with the Baptist pastor from Brooklyn who was offering to reclaim guns last Saturday, so as to get them out of circulation… we stand with him when he remarked that as a pastor in Chicago, dozens of people had been killed in a 36-hour period during his ministry there. Gun violence is prevalent in many parts of the world. The circumstances and age of the children simply change shape. The children of Newtown have been adopted by us all. It begs the question, however, about suffering elsewhere. There are no equivalencies in the killing of children. But their deaths remain the same; a blot on adult policy, practice and behaviour. We kill them; they rarely kill each other. I look forward to a day when our horror, sympathy, tears and compassion does two simple things. First, that it is extended to all of God’s children, young and old. And secondly, we are so driven from the empty watering hole of our own complacency to ensure that we find ways of protecting children by creating a society that is fit to live in, and allows them to enter adulthood. I urge you to pray for those we mentioned at the beginning of this commentary, and that we become ennobled and emboldened to reflect on the society that we live in, our own communities, our own nation, and ask the Lord and each other, “What can we do? How can we be different than we have been before? Changed.” The result of 9/11 was hundreds of thousands dead. May the result of Newtown be hundreds of thousands shielded from dying. A verse for the New Year: 1 Corinthians 2:9New International Version (NIV) 9 However, as it is written: “What no eye has seen, Warmly, In Christ, Jeremy |