Today, during worship, my wife handed me her phone. She had received a text from an old friend from high school. Her friend was clearly exasperated, frustrated, and searching. “In light of everything going on…do you still believe in God?” What a question! Simple. Blunt. Receiving that question in church had the effect of throwing cold water on my, admittedly, rote and habitual worship. Do you still believe in God? Assuming the answer is yes, why?
My first inclination was not to answer the question but to compliment the asker. The person who asks a question like this is searching, and the only way to really find something is by adopting a posture that is seeking. There are way too many of us who have stopped pondering or wrestling with the questions that matter. Maybe we’ve become calloused by the distractions of life or maybe the questions scare us into looking away. Maybe cynicism or arrogance (or fear) have shaped us into the kinds of people who see questions as weakness. In that moment, I wasn’t afraid for my wife’s friend. I was proud of her. It takes courage, vulnerability, and humility to ask such a question.
My second inclination was to wonder what she meant by “in light of everything going on.” I know this friend has had some significant personal trials in recent years, but it sounded to me like she was reflecting on a reality much bigger than her own life. It feels like the world is in chaos. The news is full of anger and violence. There’s heartache and pain everywhere we look, and it doesn’t feel like there is much reason for optimism or hope.
“There’s heartache and pain everywhere we look, and it doesn’t feel like there is much reason for optimism or hope.”
Now, one way we could respond to such a claim is by pointing out that things might not be as bad as they seem. I just finished reading a book about the closing years of World War II. The widespread evil and violence experienced in that generation have no parallel to anything we are experiencing in our world today. Indeed, the pages of history are filled to overflowing with atrocities that would shock our modern sensibilities. There’s not a single generation that has ever lived that couldn’t say “in light of everything going on” with a deeper level of outrage than our own generation. But that’s a cold comfort, isn’t it? Pointing out that things have always been awful doesn’t really answer the question. In fact, it makes the question more pressing.
We prayed for the persecuted church today in worship. I couldn’t help but think of a photo I had just seen of Sudanese Christians as we prayed. The photo was taken right before the woman, along with her three beautiful children, were recently murdered in Sudan for the crime of being a Christian by barbarians carrying the name of Islam.
When I first heard their story yesterday, I’ll confess that I had some less-than-holy thoughts. I imagined what I would like to do to those people who killed them. I’ve never fired a gun in anger, but seeing these pleading faces made me wonder what it would feel like. My prayers this morning were filled with imprecation and hostility. I joined with the psalmist asking the question, “How long, Lord?”
“I joined with the psalmist asking the question, ‘How long, Lord?'”
If their suffering filled me with such rage, what about God? Does he feel the same rage? Why does he not overwhelm the persecutors of his church with unquenchable wrath? The theologian in me knows there are answers to these questions, but those answers don’t always satisfy my animalistic outrage.
This is my way of saying that I can understand the question. I have plenty of good answers to the question, “Why believe in God?” I could explain to you ontological arguments, cosmological arguments, and design arguments. I could talk about how the language of DNA and the existence of consciousness have no explanation without God. I could point out to you that atheists have no workable theory for why there is something rather than nothing or how a universe moving toward greater disorder could evolve “all on its own” toward greater order and complexity. When it comes to the Christian God, I could give you arguments for the resurrection of Jesus and the reliability of the New Testament testimony. I could give you overwhelming evidence that the belief in God is completely reasonable.
The problem is that pain, suffering, and evil in the world seem so completely unreasonable. All of our fine-sounding arguments fall apart in the face of a dying child. The arguments are still true, but they seem to have lost their power. So why do I still believe in God?
“The problem is that pain, suffering, and evil in the world seem so completely unreasonable.”
Forgive me if this sounds cliche or trite. I believe in God because I cannot surrender to meaninglessness. Without God there is no meaning, there is no purpose, there is no hope. Without God, the evil we see in the world around us is the last word. Without God, we cannot even protest the way the world is because without God, the world is exactly as it “should” be.
Without God, we have no reason to believe that the world shouldn’t be full of violence, death, and destruction. Look at nature, after all. Violence, death, and destruction are quite literally the way of the world. Why would we be entitled to anything better? Soren Kierkegaard, whose faith was not exactly sunshine and roses, argued that our despair is a standing testimony of God’s insistent presence in our world. I have come to agree with him. Without God, we would not despair because we would have no sense that this world should be any different than it is.
What this means is that those who despair are indeed close to the heart of God. But this is not some generic God. This is the God who came near in Jesus and offered us victory and hope in the crucifixion and resurrection.
“This is the God who came near in Jesus and offered us victory and hope in the crucifixion and resurrection.”
It is only a partial answer to say “I still believe in God.” That doesn’t really tell me much. Instead, my answer is that I still believe in Jesus. I believe that the story of Jesus is a true story that holds out real hope and makes this world endurable.
From chadragsdale.wordpress.com. Used with permission.
