Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Other Condemnations of Huckabee's Remarks

Via Professor John Fea:

Peter Wehner at Commentary writes that:

For Huckabee to assume Lanza went on his rampage because “God has been removed from our schools” is witless. A diseased and twisted mind would not be dissuaded from carrying out a massacre by a generic prayer said at the beginning of the school day.
If on the other hand Huckabee believes that removing God from our schools lifted His protection from 20 children and seven adults in Newtown, which resulted in their deaths, then he’s very confused theologically. For one thing, Huckabee is part of a faith that teaches that sometimes suffering and death are evidence of one’s devotion to God (see the fate of Jesus and almost every one of His disciples). For another, why would the victims be people who had nothing to do with the offenses that so upset Huckabee? And why would anyone link the attacks to “removing God from our schools” rather than indifference to the plight of the poor–a concern spoken about much more often in the Hebrew Bible and New Testament?
Read the rest here.

Wehnet makes the point that while the the suffering and death of believers forms an important part of Christian tradition when in the service of a cause, it makes no sense to argue that the death and suffering of innocent victims is due to the evil of others in the way that Huckabee does.  What Huckabee is doing is arguing in favor of his own pet social agenda by cynically using tragedies to provide a bully pulpit.

It's difficult for reconcile the idea of an omniscient, omnipotent, and benevolent deity within the lived experience of vast amounts of evil in the world, and it makes little sense that a truly benevolent deity would allow so many of the grotesque abuses in the world to continue.  Events like the massacre in Newtown make it even harder.  That dichotomy is probably why despite several years as an altar server, and twenty years of regular church attendance, I tend toward the deist view of the world rather than a strictly Roman Catholic one.  

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