Tag: Christian Emphasis

Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People?

This post is personal for me, not abstract; it’s a way for me to work out in my heart how to find meaning in the suffering of life. May Christ Jesus be a guide for you in bringing good out of the pain, for all.

A man reveals to me that his father died too soon, while the son was yet a young elementary student.

That absence, that pain, it is still felt after forty plus years.

If God is so good, why would he take his father away? His father was a good man; he was loved, he was needed.

Why would God take him and not someone doing wicked evil things in the world?

The common question is: why does God let bad things happen to good people.

If God is so good, why would he let something bad happen to someone, something bad that he could prevent.

Since God is all-powerful and only good, you would think that God would intervene more often, keeping really bad things from happening to undeserving people.

Do children ever deserve to be assaulted or forced into horrid slave labor? You get the point.

So why does God let bad things happen to good people?

When I try to articulate an answer to that question, there is not an easy, simple response.

Should God intervene every-time somebody does something bad to an undeserving person?

If not every time, how often?

Which conditions should be automatic-interventions?

God can’t intervene every time, and even if he could, he wouldn’t; a miracle by definition makes it a rarity.

That God does intervene at times is something to be thankful for, though often it prompts resentment by those who wish it for themselves in their own plight and not for another.

So God can’t win.

If he lets people abide by the free-will he grants them, then he gets blamed for not over-riding free-will more often when it is abused.

If God has not granted man free-will, then we can fairly blame God for letting bad things happen to good people, because God is directing all of our thoughts and actions, since we have no free-will.

So: does God “let” bad things happen to good people?

Is it as if God is standing by a river watching a child fall in, doing nothing when he could do something to save the drowning, screaming boy?

Is that the implication?

That God watches atrocities happen, letting them happen when he could flick his finger and kill the perpetrators and save the innocent victims?

Is God able but not willing?

This is all very philosophical and at this point not very Christian.

A Christian reflection on this topic must include the story of Jesus Christ.

It doesn’t do us much good to ask hypothetical questions about what God can and cannot do if we do not focus on what Jesus Christ does and says.

Scripture teaches us that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh; when we see Jesus we see the Father.

Jesus Christ is the one who creates, sustains, redeems and restores Creation and all within it.

Thus, the real question: Does Jesus Christ let bad things happen to good people?

Well, what do the Gospels tell us about Jesus responding to the bad things that happen to good people?

Take for example, Jesus Christ himself.

Could we agree that he is the ideal “good person”?

If anyone was undeserving of an unjust “bad thing”, Jesus is the guy.

And how did Jesus respond to the bad things that happened to him?

Did he shake his fist at God? Did he wonder why God was letting this happen?

No and No.

Jesus seems to assume that this world we abide in is bent, broken, corrupted, infected with evil.

Bad things happen to people in this world.

That’s just the way the world has become.

Jesus doesn’t ask God why he lets bad things happen to innocent people.

Jesus seeks to use the bad things that have happened to him as a platform to save the very ones who do the bad things to him.

In Jesus Christ, we don’t see him questioning God, but rather our assumptions about God.

Jesus tells us little about why bad things happen to specific people.

He implies that if something bad happened to you, and you didn’t deserve it, don’t shake your fist at God, but rather seek to forgive the perpetrator, bring about justice if possible, establish peace, and overcome evil with good.

But still I wonder: Why do bad things happen to good people?

There are many theories; but the lived experience of humanity reveals that we live in a world where evil has reached a vast complexity.

Bad people do bad things on purpose; good people do bad things on purpose; bad and good people do bad things by accident.

You get billions of people doing bad things even just once in a while, and you have a recipe for evil on a grandiose, horrific, painful level.

Does God afflict people with diseases and cancers randomly or out of his divine plan?

Jesus says little about the source of the diseases, he points out through his words and actions that God is primarily focused on healing people from their afflictions.

Jesus demonstrated again and again that God has come as a man to bring good things upon us.

God is good, all that he creates is inherently good, he can only do what is good.

He doesn’t afflict us, he comes to restore us; we are already afflicted, he has come to heal us.

Diseases, cancer, health related problems are not doled out by Jesus to people, they are a result of being human in our world.

Everybody has to die of something.

It’s how we live and die that Jesus is most concerned about.

Jesus grieves when people die horrible deaths, he knows what it is like.

He grieves when people live and then die horrible deaths all alone, abandoned, tortured, mocked, and desecrated.

He is opposed to it: the problem is that many of us are not.

Jesus is the head, Christians are supposed to be his body.

Jesus is supposed to be able to get more done in this world by having millions and millions of adherents continuing his work of good news: forgiveness of sins, restoration of the whole person, alignment with the goodwill of God, etc.

Jesus could probably stop more bad things happening to innocent people if more people were committed to the same cause.

The real question is not: why does God/Jesus let bad things happen to good people.

The real question is: why do we let bad things happen to good people?

People suffer and die on this earth. That’s the way of this world.

But it doesn’t have to be the only part of the story we fixate on.

My mother, while a young teenager, lost her mother to cancer. Then in college she lost her father to a heart attack. Then when I was in college she was diagnosed with cancer. And then diabetes. And then one of her sons died of a brain tumor. And then another one of her sons was killed by a drunk driver. Then her husband of 39 years died unexpectedly of brain cancer.

Why do some people have bad things happen to them, things they don’t deserve, and yet they emerge from those experiences still trusting God, even if just by a thread?

The world is so complex, we can’t full know why things happen.

It’s not that God made those things happen.

But God is willing to help bring good out of those bad things.

If God could do something good, he would do it.

So all the bad things that happen, if God could stop each one of them, he would.

But he doesn’t. Because he can’t.

He can’t override our free-will; if he did, we wouldn’t have free-will.

This doesn’t “limit” God, it just states the obvious: you can’t have a square triangle, you can’t have two plus two equalling five: it is not within the realm of reality.

What Jesus has proven God to be is the One committed to the Reconciliation of all things, the Restoration of Creation, the Ground of our Being, the Source of Reality, the Renewal of Humanity, the Rescue of Sinners, the Renovation of our Hearts.

This is what God can do, and in doing so, he is overcoming evil with good.

More could be said on what is the most existential, most complex, most personal experiences of all humanity.

But this post is personal for me, not abstract; it’s a way for me to work out in my heart how to find meaning with Christ in the suffering.

This encouragement from Saint Paul to the Christians going through painful trials in Corinth was read at the funeral for my brother Matt; he was my second brother to die. This text always stuck with me and is a guide for me in striving to have good come out of my suffering:

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who consoles us in all our grief and suffering; with the comfort we ourselves receive from God, we can compassionately care for those in any kind of hardship and tragedy. 

For just as we are in solidarity with Christ Jesus who suffered, so also Christ’s consolation abides and abounds through us.

[St. Paul to the Christians in Corinth, 2/1.2-5, adapted from the NIV]

May you find comfort and consolation, redemption and healing amidst the suffering of your life and those you love, through Christ who suffers with us.

(this post adapted from one originally authored by me in March, 2008)

YMCA and Gerard Manley Hopkins

YMCA and Gerard Manley Hopkins ::: an unlikely and unique connection between the genius of George Williams and the British poet Hopkins – a rare exploration of the convulsive context in which the Y was founded and the poetry created – both a testament to their personal and transformative experiences of God’s salvation and calling upon their life.

The Y and Hopkins were born the same year, in 1844; both British in birth and embodiment of the diverse Christianity that grounded their culture.

June 6, 1844 is the founding of the Y; Hopkins is born July 28, 1844 and would die still a young man at age 44 on June 8, 1889.

  • George Williams
  • Gerard Manley Hopkins

This past Sunday I wrote about Williams founding the Y, today on Hopkins death-day I want to remember him and the cultural context he shared with the Y, and what it could contribute to an ecumenical Christian emphasis today.

There are very few articles on the internet that make this kind of unique connection; this one published by JSRT of Gonzaga University titled Romantic Critiques of Industrial Technology is illuminating.

A bit more about the context in which the Y was founded:

The Young Men’s Christian Association was founded on June 6, 1844 by 23 year old George Williams and eleven Christian friends.

Williams was involved in the drapery or clothing industry, and would become very successful and prosperous in it.

His conscience was pricked by the complex societal difficulties and suffering of urban families, especially the young men leaving the family farms for factory work.

This cultural upheaval was experienced as one caught in the roiling surf, almost caught by a riptide but almost to tired to take the extended hand of the lifeguard in the boat.

The YMCA was started for multiple intertwined reasons: to save the souls of young men in the city who had left their parish behind; to save the minds of these young men from the grinding and filthy monotony of the factories; to save their bodies from the base temptations afflicting their neighborhoods.

The wider cultural changes included resentment and resistance to the calculated rationale of the Enlightenment and its mechanistic interpretation of the world which fed the appetites of industrialists but destroyed families.

Movements emerged which sought to re-humanize the world, to lift up the heart and value personal experiences; this was reflected in part by the birth of evangelical revivals which stressed individual conversion marked by emotional and dynamic evidences.

Poets, artists, novelists, philosophers and theologians all added their talent and energy to this movement.

The YMCA was not the only Christian organization to emerge in this time to rescue young men from the de-humanizing industrialization of the community and create space for them to have a transformational inward spiritual awakening and calling.

It seems so simplistic now, but it was a radical act of hospitality to open up housing for these young men that was safe, sanitary, secure, but also spiritually alive.

Bible studies, prayer sessions, worship gatherings were all forms of protest against state-supported or traditional churches that rigidly clung to form of transformation, logic over emotion, correctness over inspiration, hierarchy over brotherhood.

Inspired by the dark and grueling context in which Williams founded the YMCA, what are the depressing and gross circumstances that young people need rescued from today?

What kind of housing and hospitality, safety and spiritual vitality can the Y offer in these dangerous days?

A bit about Hopkins and his context in 1844:

Gerard Manley Hopkins converted from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism, inspired by the writings of Cardinal John Henry Newman, much to the sorrow and grief of his devoutly religious family.

As a young man he was caught up in continual conflict, complicated loyalties, frustrated talents, and isolated friendships.

His deep love for nature and people put him at odds with the rational industrialized culture which prioritized technology and production over people.

As a poet he had a roiled soul, drawn to love and serve God, inspired by the stunning Creation, but personally struggling with depression, loneliness, and meaninglessness.

Like the YMCA, he spent his life with young men, seeking to build them up in spirit, mind and body.

Though the YMCA was a evangelical Protestant Christian organization, and Hopkins a Jesuit Roman Catholic, they both valued the inner heart of an individual, striving to bring discipline and freedom to their soul, instructing and guiding others to be one with God and be His faithful servant in a fallen, corrupted, industrialized world.

The YMCA and Hopkins are both unique in their Christian contribution to God’s work in the world; both are still a force for good and an inspiration to Christians these many years later.

They both inspired many other people to experience renewal and attempt their own creative projects.

The Y has been a source of original contributions to the world: ESL, camping, basketball and volleyball, group exercise and swim lessons, etc.

Hopkins invented a fresh and engaging form of poetry, putting together new words and rhythms that compel attention and spur fresh insights into Creation.

At their heart, the Y and Hopkins strive to see the world as it really is, to see men and women as they really are, to see humanity in truth and grace.

They know darkness and the light, joy and suffering, friendship and abandonment, success and failure.

For Y leaders wanting a fresh perspective on seeing the world, try taking up some of Hopkins eclectic and intriguing poems.

For Christians wanting to remember the real context for the founding of the Y in all its complexity and genius, getting to know the real George Williams and Gerard Manley Hopkins can ground you as well as inspire you.

Here are a few of my favorite poems by Hopkins that attempt to help us see the complex spirit of humanity, the faithful Spirit of God, and how we can participate in the reconciliation and restoration of all things as ones loved and transformed inwardly by Christ Jesus.

Gerard Manley Hopkins – 1844-1889

God’s Grandeur

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs–
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Sunrise over Jerusalem

Pied Beauty

Glory be to God for dappled things—
   For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
       For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
   Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
       And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise Him.

Silver Bay YMCA on Lake George, NY

As kingfishers catch fire

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies dráw fláme;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying Whát I dó is me: for that I came.

Í say móre: the just man justices;
Kéeps grace: thát keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is —
Chríst — for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men’s faces.

Kingfisher

An Ecumenical “C” in the YMCA?

An Ecumenical “C” in the YMCA ::: Faith is a dynamic dimension of diversity in the Y. Religion’s existential power includes its comprehensive influence on individuals and the families and tribes they are born into. The Christian religion of the YMCA will never go away – so what are ways followers of Christ can live out their faith in the Y that builds up a healthy spirit, mind and body for all? In this article I try to make the case for why the Y should intentionally resurrect their ecumenical Christian emphasis, as embodied by our founder George Williams and our most famous ambassador of the 19th and 20th century John Mott.

When we talk about the “C” in the YMCA, what are we talking about?

Is it a “thin C” or a “thick C”, a “narrow C” or a “wide C” – a “C” with complex dimensions and cultures or a simple “C” that perfectly aligns with whatever you happen to passionately believe?

With the founding of the YMCA on June 6 1844 by George Williams and eleven of his young Christian business friends, a complex “C” was already at work in the association.

Sir George Williams

Williams grew up in a nominal rural British Anglican home in the 1820’s and 30’s, but had a born-again evangelical Christian experience when he came to London looking for work as a young man.

He aligned with the Dissenting church in London, heavily involved in evangelization all the days of his Christian life, yet would join the Church of England later in life as a very prosperous and respected businessman. (For more on this see Clyde Binfield’s George Williams and the Y.M.C.A.: a Study in Victorian Social Attitudes)

Early on the YMCA had a complex relationship with “the church” – since the twelve founders of the Y had a variety of Christian traditions in their background.

This kept the Y from early on being co-opted by one church tradition, and helped it focus on being an ally of the church and partner in its evangelism and discipleship efforts for young men in the urban centers.

As the concept of the YMCA spread across Europe and the world, the variety of Christian traditions, cultures and church denominations increased within the Y movement.

The Paris Basis of 1855 is an early document of the YMCA that seeks to guide different kinds of Christians from different kinds of churches and cultures for joining together with Jesus Christ for doing kingdom work in the world.

a draft document of the original Paris Basis

Within thirty years the dynamic and influential YMCA leader John Mott would be building on this Paris Basis legacy and spirit, not only strengthening the Y movement across American college campuses, but eventually with Y students across the world.

In reading through his biography written by C.H. Hopkins, it recounts from Mott’s diary and correspondence the strong Christian faith that empowered his growing commitment to ecumenical Christianity.

The Y is about getting work done, about overcoming differences in order to better serve people; that means when it comes to religion, we focus on what unites, not divides.

This works to a certain point; the pragmatism of the YMCA and this kind of cooperation is successful when you stay on the surface.

But, when you spend enough time together, it gets complex and at some point you need the tools to dig below the surface to deal with the spirit, mind and heart of people.

John Mott’s focus on Christian mission is what led him to fully embrace an ecumenical Christianity. Can you imagine Christians on the mission-field denouncing other denominations?

Missionaries learned that the more closely they partnered in an ecumenical spirit, the more likely they could embody the prayer of Jesus in John 17 and more faithfully proclaim the good news.

Long story short, John Mott was a key Christian leader in the YMCA movement and global missionary movement, as well as the world ecumenical movement.

In a way, they were all intertwined: Mott helped support the successful 1910 Edinburgh Mission Council, which was a unique effort to unite Protestant Christian church denominations in their world missionary work.

This event was a key catalyst in global missionary partnerships and guidelines, as well as strengthening ecumenical relationships.

There is a direct line of relationship between John Mott of the YMCA and the founding of the World Council of Churches, which exists today to support and strengthen ecumenical efforts across the whole globe, in every continent, with every Christian denomination willing to participate.

Today the Global Christian Forum is a partnership between the WCC, the Roman Catholic Church, the World Evangelical Alliance, and the Pentecostal World Fellowship, through which almost every major Christian denomination and tradition has a voice and a relationship for faithfully embodying Jesus prayer “that all may be one.”

For the YMCA’s interested in Christian emphasis and Christian mission in the USA, it is imperative that we recover our connection with our ecumenical Christian heritage.

It is my observation that it will be harmful for our Y movement if we insist on a stronger “C” if we don’t build up our diverse, inclusive and global Christian relationships – like what was the case for the Paris Basis.

I grew up in a conservative evangelical fundamentalist Christian culture, and read about the dangers of the World Council of Churches in Europe, the corruption of the National Council of Churches here in America, and the liberal poison of ecumenical efforts.

For me, I’ve had to detox from this kind of religious slander and fearmongering.

As I see it, with the USA and the world becoming more globalized, more complex and cross-pressured, more connected religiously and culturally in ways that both amplify friendships and gross misunderstandings, it is imperative for American Christians to engage in ecumenical work as part of their mission work.

There is a rich ecumenical Christian tradition within the YMCA, as embodied by John Mott and his many associates and friends in the Y movement who served with him and extended his influence for decades after his death in 1955.

The “C” in the YMCA from our founding has always been ecumenical.

If we are going to strengthen the presence of Christ in our Y’s, and if we are going to be inspired by his prayer in John 17, then we must engage with the ecumenical work that diverse and global Christians have been doing for over a hundred years, including our own John Mott.

What would it look like for YMCAs in the USA to engage diverse and global Christian members in an inclusive way?

Here are a few steps Christians in the YMCA could take for moving forward:

One: do some demographic research of the many different kinds of Christian denominations in your region; spend time investigating the many independent ethnic and minority churches in your communities.

Two: you find what you are looking for – so start looking to meet the diverse and global Christians who are already part of your YMCA; prayerfully be present to the willingness of the Holy Spirit to connect you with Christians different than you.

Three: consider the different kinds of Christians you already know, examine your heart in regard to “those Christians” which you are suspicious of or consider to be CINO (Christians in name only); prayerfully submit to the Holy Spirit your attitude and perspective, and be open to how you might gain a healthier understanding of their relationship with Christ.

Four: pay attention to your cultural context in regard to different kinds of Christians in your Y and life – odds are the obstacles to unity are less about race and ethnicity and more about ideology; are the divisive distinctions being drawn around labels like: conservative vs liberal, traditional vs progressive, evangelical vs ecumenical, charismatic vs liturgical, pro-life vs pro-choice, pro-straight marriage vs pro-gay marriage, pro-capitalism vs pro-socialism, etc.?

Five: accept that being a Christian in our world is complex, that trying to live out your faith in your community is complicated, that relationships are messy, and that it is not easy to intertwine the application of grace and truth to every situation; accept that we make lots of mistakes along the way and thus it’s okay to apologize when confronted and strive to make amends in faith, hope, and love.

There are many reasons why it’s a struggle to talk about the “C” in the YMCA.

For my part, I’d like to do what I can to help forge a way for more of us in the Y to strengthen an inclusive “C” as part of our mission and cause as we seek to love, care and serve our diverse and global communities.

This means taking the “C” more seriously, learning to talk about the complex “C” in ways that are generous, empathetic in listening and learning, and honest.

Religion is not going away in the world, it is a powerful lens for participating in reality; either the YMCA fully and authentically embraces its religious heritage and seeks to let it flourish for all, or we live in denial of our founding and our foundations, to the detriment of our future.

For more on global religion’s resurgence and potential for our human flourishing, read more by Miroslav Volf of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture at Yale Divinity School.

For more on this theme read Is The YMCA Still Religious? Still Christian?