My Christian faith can have its ups and downs, but I came across a few quotes this week that I really appreciated, for they highlighted the compassionate and reasonable aspects of Jesus.
1. The first quote was by "jkx," and it appeared under Rachel Held Evans' post, 10 Things You Might Not Know About “Evolving in Monkey Town”. On page 99 of Evolving in Monkey Town, Rachel talks about a cosmic lottery of life:
"It’s like God runs some kind of universal sweepstakes with humanity in which all of our names get thrown into a big hat at the beginning of time….Some of us are randomly selected for famine, war, disease, and paganism, while others end up with fifteen-thousand-square-foot houses, expensive Christian educations, and Double Stuf Oreos. It’s a cosmic lottery, luck of the draw...”
Jkx comments:
"The other day I realized that the reason I liked your book so much was because it reminded me that Jesus spent His life pouring Himself into those who didn't fair so well in the 'cosmic lottery' (as you called it)."
I have often gotten angry at forms of Christian exclusivism that assert that non-Christians will suffer in eternal hell simply because they were not born in a country in which they were exposed to Christianity. According to this view, people in these countries suffer in this life, die, and then suffer eternally in hell, and, after all, God is just to sentence them to hell, for they were sinners who were not covered by the blood of Jesus! I find such a view to be cold.
But Jkx is correct to note that Jesus often poured himself into those who were losers in the lottery of life. Jesus was not cold.
2. A friend of mine posted a You-Tube video that blamed the earthquake and tsunami in Japan on the sins of the Japanese, as if the earthquake and tsunami were divine punishment. A conservative friend of mine replied:
"Although I do believe in Hell and that God is in control of natural disasters, this young lady's approach seems to me to run counter to Jesus' teaching about calamity from Luke 13: 'Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem?'"
While there are Christians who are quick to call all misfortune or calamity a divine punishment of sin, Jesus did not do that in Luke 13.
Something else that I want to note: I can often find myself in an anti-Christian mood, and, indeed, there are Christians who have acted rudely after the recent catastrophe---as they "Monday morning quarterback" about people's suffering and deaths. But there are also many Christians who are compassionate---who are praying for the people of Japan, and who are reaching out to help them.