HA! First! Complementarism wins again!

Our infinite God has an infinite capability to plan for all of the choices we could make and for all of the various events that result from those choices. I do not believe that God causes evil — mankind and the devil are fully capable of more evil that we could ever imagine. But for every person and every evil, God has a plan to redeem us if we will chose to recognize Him, accept His gift of Grace in Jesus the Christ, and try to follow Him.

@ Catherine:
I have chronic pain as well. Nerve damage from a car wreck caused by a drunk driver at about 4:45 pm on a Saturday. Medicines caused some permanent consequences that I will live with until I die, and the pain is still there. I had hypnosis therapy for it many years ago, but the hypnotherapist, a really great Christian guy, retired and I need periodic retreatment. And now the pain has returned, like someone slowly turning a lag screw into the bones four inches below my elbow and steaming my thumb and forefinger. Makes concentrating on work very difficult.

And I would add that attributing all suffering to God demonstrating love in developing intimacy with His true children is far too simplistic an explanation for suffering. Why people suffer is complex and ultimately mysterious in many cases…something we may never fully comprehend.

So many derogatory statements have been made by 20 something dudebros such as “I was an evangelical but I was finally taught how to think.”

“I was an adventurer but I took an arrow to the knee.”

Few things infuriate me more than people who elevate suffering as some sort of gift. (John Piper, anyone) What I’ve noticed, is the people who spew this baloney are the ones who have NEVER experienced a life altering tragedy; I’m talking one that hurts and affects you every day for the rest of your life.

I had a daughter die suddenly and unexpectedly almost eight years ago. And while I’ve learned to press on, I will never be completely healed from that until I draw my last breath. I think of other tragedies I’ve known – one we discuss frequently here on TWW is people who were molested as children. (I have family members who were molested by clergy, so I’ve seen the effects of this up close) Or many of us have known soldiers injured in the service, permanently disabled and in chronic pain, every day, for the rest of their lives. The suffering list goes on and on.

The religious schtick is to say suffering is a “gift” and it’s all to “transform me more into Christ’s likeness”. I’ll say it straight up – I would give up every single bit of Christlikeness I’ve gained to have my daughter back. If someone would like to challenge me on that, I say, which one of YOUR kids would you send to heaven in order for you to have more Christlikeness? Which one of YOUR children would you want molested in order that THEY gain more Christlikeness? Which one of YOU or YOUR children would you want to experience fill-in-the-blank-life-altering-tragedy in order to gain more Christlikeness? Suffering is no gift. It is something we endure on this side of eternity.

As long as we’re on this earth, we’ll never understand. Piper and his other suffering mongers should just say, “I don’t know exactly why God allows such suffering, but let me walk beside you through this.”

Think about the beginning of the book of Job. For all the bad behavior Job’s friends exhibited later, EARLY ON they did what was right. In Job 2:11-13, Job’s friends came to be with him. They cried with him, sat with him and said nothing. They shared sorrow with their friend in silence. GOOD CALL – that sums up how we help people who are suffering.

I try not to think about stuff like this too much because it’s depressing and there are no good answers. I don’t know why I have Asperger’s and major depression. (The diabetes, there’s probably a reason, maybe genetic as both parents developed late-onset diabetes.) But if I think too hard about this, it’s not so much that I’ll think about me, but that I’ll think about my mother, who is a paranoid schizophrenic. And then I’ll be back to 14 years old and asking why my mom tried to kill herself. Now, 40+ years later, I have a better idea as to *why* and am thankful for the great developments in medication.

But I swear, if John Piper were to say that God allowed this to happen to my mother as a test of some sort, I can’t say that I wouldn’t respond with highly inappropriate hand gestures. There are a lot of things I don’t know, and this is one of them. But having someone who has never had to deal with some of the stuff I saw as a child, teenager and adult, even as recently as two years ago, I wouldn’t be nice in my rejection of Piper’s nonsense.

It wouldn’t be the first time I was called rude, either.

Catherine wrote:

I’ve had chronic migraine for more than ten years. I gave up a successful medical practice because of the pain (and side effects from medications). I have been down every rabbit trail there is to try to understand why I’m the lucky one to have chronic pain. And I’ve decided that I’m not meant to know. I don’t think I’m specially chosen to become some spiritual giant because of my pain and suffering. I certainly haven’t been able to do anything special because of it – for heaven’s sake, I have a migraine 3 times a week!

Oh, Catherine, you and I are traveling a similar road. I got my first migraine in my late 20’s and I have never been totally free from it since that day. It flares into unbearable pain some days and dies back to a level I can mostly ignore in between times, but it’s always there, for over 30 years now. I wonder if you have faced all of the attitudes I have in the church- you must be “doing something wrong” or be in sin or this wouldn’t be happening to you. Or people who want to sell you some quack supplement they are sure will solve what numerous doctors have been unable to. The ones who want to lay hands on you and anoint you with oil, the ones who are convinced that God does miracles whenever we ask, and you feel you’re causing them terrible consternation by not fitting into their mold. Some are sure if you just traveled to visit some particular faith healer you’d be healed.

Honestly, the most common attitude I’ve come up against in church is that people don’t want to bother with someone who won’t be a reliable volunteer for church projects.

And, as Dee points out, the ones who believe God is hitting the smite button just because you’re special to him that way.

So many want to pronounce judgment or ‘fix’ you, so few just accept you and love you as you are.

One thing I will say is no one understands pain like the one who is in it. I count emotional pain as well. I’ve suffered both physical and emotional pain and I can’t tell you that one is worse than the other, they are both excruciating.

There are some people who feel closer to God when they are suffering, to the point they actually revel in it. I do not feel that way. I feel closer to God when I’m out in the sunshine, free from pain.

I’ve had plenty of opportunity to practice it but I just don’t get the thing of feeling close to God in pain. I’ve come to trust that pain will pass and to be patient, is all. When people speak like suffering is a special gift from God I start wondering, if that’s what God loves and thinks is valuable, what if heaven is just a big suffer-fest? Perish the thought.

The crux of the matter to me is, there are things which the mind of man cannot understand and which God has not revealed. When human beings take what is revealed and try to extrapolate laws about things that are not revealed, when they become dogmatic about their conclusions, they lose part of their humanity and become abusive to others.

As soon as suffering becomes part of your standing with God- for good or for bad -the body of Christ becomes a caste system.

My dear husband has an incurable form of cancer. They cannot give us a prognosis as to time, it may be years or… it may not. He is the love of my life, my faithful friend, my soulmate. Watching someone you love suffer is worse than suffering yourself.

All I can tell you is that suffering came into this world through sin and every person who lives in this world must partake. No one escapes suffering. Some get more than others or suffer younger than others but we don’t know why. What we do know is that it won’t always be like this. The apostle Paul said the the sufferings of the present time are not worthy of being compared to the glory that is to be revealed to us. Jesus said “in the world you will have tribulation but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” We know that the whole creation groans under a burden of suffering and we know that it will someday be lifted. And we know that we are to comfort one another until that day.

Back when I first became a “Christian” the Holocaust was a big topic to point out total depravity of the human species, God’s sovereign wrath of rebellious vile sinners, a special wrath of God on people of the Jewish faith. I did mention in these conversations was that there were more than people of the Jewish faith slaughtered with no mercy what so ever killed in the Holocaust. Atheists, JW, Catholics, Gypsies, Russians, Polish, political prisoners, people who were gay etc. That too was the wrath of God being poured out on a rebellious world. It was not just God removing His sovereign hand of protection and allowing sin to takes its course, God was actively involved in the torment by sending deceptive spirits, allowing Satan to reign like in Job 1-2 etc. This was all in God’s control every single act of barbarism and it was all to His Holy Glory. When True Christians suffered the same fate in this case it was to test their faith, a tempered type of wrath to point out their sin as well, so God could glorify Himself like in Job or when Steven was allowed to be stoned to death in those cases it was for different reasons though it looked just exactly the same way. After all this then there was hell which would make all this suffering look like a cakewalk here again God’s eternal wrath would be poured out for all eternity, and this would not just be a passive wrath it will be an active white hot eternal wrath for ever and ever…

I could go on but that about sums it up that went for child cancer, child abuse survivors, childhood schizophrenia, near drowning victims, car accidents, etc. One thing was very clear God’s wrath and His anger at His creation was evident, deserved and even in this with all this pain of God removed His hand of common grace it would be far worse and totally deserved because of our personal rebellion in Adam. This did something to me as a person, I have managed to stuff it down and bury it like a Christian should but its there. Why would God do this just to prove a point, I have read Job many times and it does not soften the blow.

Why I still believe in God, because in all this suffering, in all this pain and grief and anguish there are lights of the Divine that shine through, usually through the actions of other people. Simple acts of Grace, a smile, and a laughter reaching a student and having a minute of lucidity in the hours or days of psychosis, those precious moments of eternity I have found on my sojourning in this life. I will never believe God is the author or active agent in evil even though that pov was shoved down deep in my soul back when I first became a member of the faith. I think people bring up the wrath side of God so much because they are angry and full of rage, I know I am a bit like that in reverse. No doubt the fallen world leads to pain and the evil of humanity is truly profound, what some in the faith do not see is that for every guard at the camps or vile act there were / are hundreds if not thousands of acts of courage to stop such injustices and evil. This is one reason I became a universalist to some degree because “right belief” seems to be the most shallow subjective criteria to decide such a vital / permanent judgment.

I see God as the great reconciler, and one day there will be the great reconciliation where all things will be made right in Him who died and rose again to reconcile all things unto Himself. Sorry if this is to long but after reading the article it just sort of came out. God bless all.

brian wrote:

This was all in God’s control every single act of barbarism and it was all to His Holy Glory. When True Christians suffered the same fate in this case it was to test their faith, a tempered type of wrath to point out their sin as well, so God could glorify Himself like in Job or when Steven was allowed to be stoned to death in those cases it was for different reasons though it looked just exactly the same way.

Amazing how there’s all these different explanations for the same thing happening, isn’t it? It seems like people are just playing mind games with themselves.

M. Joy wrote:

The religious schtick is to say suffering is a “gift” and it’s all to “transform me more into Christ’s likeness”.

I don’t care to put my political philosophy on a bumper sticker, I sure not going to fit the mysteries of our existence onto one.

Patriciamc wrote:

I roll my eyes at the Psalms now and hate those verses on believing prayer.

Here’s another post I totally agreed with and related to and could have written myself!

About the part I am quoting above, from your post:

My now most-hated part of the Bible (this has been true in the past several years) is Romans 8:28. The verse that says God works all things to do for those who love him.

I found during all my years of clinical depression, and the years after my mother’s death (and other bad things that happened), Romans 8.28 got quoted at me the most by Christians.

I also noticed Ro. 8.28 is probably one of the single most over-used Bible verses uttered by TV preachers in general sermons pertaining to topics such as worry, suffering, disappointment.

You know what really sticks in my craw about Ro 8.28 now?
Something like my mother dying years ago (and a few other pretty heart breaking or difficult things that happened in my life) are supposed to result in good (I assume this refers to THIS life time?) – it’s been years, and SQUAT good has come of any of it.

Not only is it annoying as get-out to hear Ro. 8.28 quoted all the time in response to hurt and tragedy, but then the verse does not even come true. That adds a whole other level of annoyance to things.

And, like you, I am so burnt out on prayer. I’m only kind of holding on to the Christian faith, but I still sometimes pray, but it’s become a chore. I don’t see any good come out of prayer.

Quote:
“(1)Thoughts that God cried with me during the suffering or (2) that there’s always heaven one day does absolutely zilch for me.”

To a degree, I can kind of appreciate the first half, but that point and the second don’t, in the end scheme of things, help me now, either.

2 thoughts: (well, for starters, at least)

1) I think God can work with scenario a, b, c, d, e, and so on. during my time at 1st Church of Dysfunction, the idea of hitting the bullseye of what God wanted was drilled in to me. not only did we have to find God’s perfect will (for any and all situations), but hit it dead center. oh the stress.

eventually it was what I imagined being dropped in the middle of Sahara would be like — which way do I go? as I shuffle in place in a circle. hundreds of choices, followed by another set of hundreds of choices with each new step.

i guess i’ll…. just sit here. choice paralysis.

but the drilled-in fear & shame of missing God’s will, and the bullseye of God’s will… these pressures from within, and choice paralysis from without….

(I believe I had PTSD for quite a while after i got out of 1st Church of Dysfunction. for this and many other reasons)

i remember in college a friend who told me, “you know, it’s easier for God to direct an object that’s in motion than one that is standing still.” i think that’s pretty wise.

All in all, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s not curtains if i choose door number 2, when i could have chosen doors number 1 or 3. I do believe God can work with any of the options.
——————–

@ siteseer:

“The crux of the matter to me is, there are things which the mind of man cannot understand and which God has not revealed. When human beings take what is revealed and try to extrapolate laws about things that are not revealed, when they become dogmatic about their conclusions, they lose part of their humanity and become abusive to others.”

Yes. When we think we know what God has NOT revealed, we become “experts” on why such-and-such happened to so-and-so.

What God HAS revealed most clearly is that He was willing to have His Son suffer for our sake. I realize that when we are suffering even this may not seem to be such a big deal. But it’s hard to deny that He is for us, not against us, and, further, that He loves us – even when the evidence doesn’t seem to back that up.

Daisy wrote:

You know what really sticks in my craw about Ro 8.28 now?
Something like my mother dying years ago (and a few other pretty heart breaking or difficult things that happened in my life) are supposed to result in good (I assume this refers to THIS life time?) – it’s been years, and SQUAT good has come of any of it.
Not only is it annoying as get-out to hear Ro. 8.28 quoted all the time in response to hurt and tragedy, but then the verse does not even come true. That adds a whole other level of annoyance to things.
And, like you, I am so burnt out on prayer. I’m only kind of holding on to the Christian faith, but I still sometimes pray, but it’s become a chore. I don’t see any good come out of prayer.

Hey Daisy. Hugs for you! Sometimes, life just sucks (Book of Patricia, 1:1). These are the thoughts I’d love for ministers to see and do sermons on. The really hard stuff, not just fluffy platitudes.

Like you, I’m not much into prayer right now. For better or for worse, my attitude is that God’s going to do whatever he wants no matter what I pray. I do know, though, that on one hand, I’m definitely still a child of God, but on the other hand, I’m the whiny, ungrateful child who doesn’t call home enough – that’s where I am right now. And what’s worse, I don’t feel like reaching out to him. This might sound bad, but I feel like it’s his turn to reach out to me. Is that a lightening bolt coming my way?

elastigirl wrote:

2) “We all know people who have been made much meaner and more irritable and more intolerable to live with by suffering: it is not right to say that all suffering perfects. It only perfects one type of person …… the one who accepts the call of God in Christ Jesus”. –Oswald Chambers
shut up, mr. chambers.
my mom is dying what appears to be a slow death, full of tortuous pain, the increasing loss of all movement, and sleeplessness. there is no better Christian than she. yet she has become utterly mean, irritable, and intolerable to live with because of her suffering. she didn’t reject the call of God in Christ Jesus, mr. chambers. what a callous, insensitive, small-minded assertion. & i didn’t keep your sanctimonious little book.
…that’s done…. and now for the question:
I too am involved as caregiver to my mom. even with my help & my sister’s help, it’s taking an enormous toll on my dad. my mom refuses to take something to enable her to sleep (which would help on many levels — we’re quite desperate). I’ve tried to insist on it, to not avail. (dementia comes & goes to some degree). in the near future i have to try to insist on it again.
if she refuses, we can’t physically force it on her. it’s not impossible that we could sneak it into her food (crushed up) at dinner time. but that would cause a new set of challenges and does not seem ethical.

Hear, hear! Mr. Chambers deserves a big lump on the head! I’m so sorry you’re going through this with your mother. I assume you’ve talked to the doctor about sleep medication. Have you also tried melatonin? You can tell her the truth that it’s a supplement that might help. If you have sleep medication, can you just put it in with her nightly round of medication and not say anything? I assume she has several pills she takes at night like my parents do.

patriciamc wrote:

Like you, I’m not much into prayer right now.

I guess that we’re at least three here on a similar situation regarding prayer. For a long while I’ve found it difficult to pray… I may get to say a short prayer here and there during my day, but it’s definitely nothing like the longer, more dedicated prayers I used to do. It is also often hard to pray at church, except for the Lord’s Prayer. That one comes out quite easily and I feel quite happy saying it.

I’ve recently decided to move from the conservative church I attended for the last 6-7 years, and at the moment I’m going through an exploratory phase. I’m visiting various churches around where I live, but the truth is that I don’t know where I may end up settling or how long it may take. Quite happy about it, actually…

siteseer wrote:

The crux of the matter to me is, there are things which the mind of man cannot understand and which God has not revealed. When human beings take what is revealed and try to extrapolate laws about things that are not revealed, when they become dogmatic about their conclusions, they lose part of their humanity and become abusive to others.
As soon as suffering becomes part of your standing with God- for good or for bad -the body of Christ becomes a caste system.

Amen! Especially for me, “The crux of the matter to me is, there are things which the mind of man cannot understand and which God has not revealed.”

I’m terribly sorry to hear of all your suffering. I’m terribly sorry to hear that your husband has cancer. I wish I could remove your pain from you and the cancer from him. I wish you could live the rest of your life without any form of pain, at all.

@ Daisy:
Daisy, I’m sorry for the suffering you’ve experienced, too. Thank you for having the bravery to share your thoughts on this topic as I suspect it may not be easy to say some of this stuff with other Christians about who may slam you down for not fitting into some “I’m happy to suffer” box. (Not that I suspect most on this site would but you never know with us Christians.) I wish life could be different for you. I used to think someday we’d understand. I just hope someday we won’t care to even look back at this whole mess we call our lives.

Daisy wrote:
Quote:
“(1)Thoughts that God cried with me during the suffering or (2) that there’s always heaven one day does absolutely zilch for me.”
To a degree, I can kind of appreciate the first half, but that point and the second don’t, in the end scheme of things, help me now, either.

On this particular day, Daisy, I am in your shoes. My response to the Christianese that says, “But one day it will all be over and there’s heaven,” is, “Exactly how does that pay the rent or put food on the table?”

I have been having the feeling lately that the bullies always win. Christians are supposed to “win” in the end, but right now, I feel like I’m on the losing side in just about everything. I have this vision of me lying on the mat in a boxing ring, the referee has just shouted, “Ten!” and I’m not able to get up because I’ve been beaten to a pulp.

I don’t need to hear, at that point, about my “ultimate victory in Christ.” I need to be helped off the mat, to the locker room, or maybe to the hospital. I need medical treatment: ice packs for my bruises, stitches for my cuts, and maybe a day or two of rest while I heal. Then I need to meet with a coach and figure out how to win the next match. Do NOT give me this “Christianese” about my “ultimate victory”. Help me figure out what to do next!

On April 5th my wife had what was to be “routine” (it may be routine for the surgeon, but it is never routine for the patient) gall bladder surgery. The doctor found cancer and proceeded no further. The type and cancer and its stage, IV, is very aggressive. I will hear his words, “It’s cancer,” every day for the rest of my life.

When he gave my wife the news after she came out of recovery, she said, “Well, if you live long enough you’ll die of something.”

So far her only problems have been the results of the chemo. Her curly silver hair is gone. She tires quickly. HOWEVER nothing but good has come out of all of this so far.

Is God testing her? Is He testing me? Nonsense! He is with us now just as He has always been and always will be.

So what’s going on?

Simple.

It’s called Life.

This hits close to home for me. I have had close to 50 surgeries so far, and I am not 60 yet. It’s been hard, but I survive with the grace of God getting me through. Have I had my moments of wanting to cry out and rage, of course. But I go on. I am almost 3 weeks post op now from my last foot surgery. I don’t recommend having 3 foot surgeries in 7 months. It’s super painful. Do I expect people to understand my pain? I would only hope they would, but most people don’t. I hear so often from other Christian, that God can just heal you, just pray hard enough. I don’t answer them on that. Yes, God can choose to heal my broken body, but I don’t have to pray hours on end for him to do that. I just rest in the peace that he gives me. Roman’s 8:28 is my favorite Bible verse. I have clung to it. Knowing that he is in all things. He doesn’t cause things, but he is there with me thru it. Daisy, I don’t mean to offend you at all on this, I’m just stating what works for me. I played my keyboard the other day. One of my favorite songs – “Holy, Holy, Lord God all mighty. It ministered to me. I just need to remember that God is Holy. We don’t think I’ll ever walk again more than a few feet at a time, or around the house. I could be bitter, but I’m not. I don’t choose to live my life that way. I hate being in pain. I hate that my foot hasn’t improved much pain wise in almost 3 weeks. But that is just life, and if this happens to be my life, then ok. I do know one thing, that because of all I’ve been thru, I have become more compassionate minded. I understand pain more when other’s go thru it. Would I have naturally been this way, I want to think so. It just came earlier than later. I want people to know that I have a caring compassionate heart. I can’t stand to see people in pain both physically and emotionally. God has given me more than my fair share of grace. I just can’t explain it. I continue praising God thru my pain not for it. I don’t believe God is like that. Now I must stop and do the painful job of washing my hair. Life goes on.

“I found Him in the midst of this terrible trial, not by believing He caused it but by believing that He was with my daughter and my family in the midst of that time. He is a God who gets suffering.”

I can identify with this. We don’t find God in the ‘suffering’ itself, He is found in the reactions to suffering: the caring, the compassion, the love itself.
It is said in my Church this: ‘Christ does not cause suffering. He came to be a Presence in its midst.’

For those Calvinists locked into a ‘faith’ that blames God for evil and suffering, I can only feel sadness. Their ‘faith’ is a cruel one, bereft of the Christ who looked upon those ‘without a shepherd’ and felt compassion for them.

@ Loren Haas:

Yeah, he was unfortunately branded and dismissed for his “Open theology” stance. While I personally do not agree with Open theology, I am sympathetic to why Boyd arrived in that camp in the way he did. Interestingly enough, that is the one theological stance that would prohibit one from being an EFCA minister. Generally speaking, I like Boyd’s work. He is a fellow Yale Divinity School graduate as well 😉

patriciamc,

“Like you, I’m not much into prayer right now. For better or for worse, my attitude is that God’s going to do whatever he wants no matter what I pray.”

Yeah, I know the feeling. Even within old school Calvinism, I have trouble seeing how one avoids determinism in the end. I know that’s supposedly just a feature of hypercalvinism, but if you really follow Calvin’s theology to its logical conclusion, it seems inevitable. Lutherans simply say, we hold to both predestination and free will because the Bible teaches both, and they don’t try to square the circle. In a way, I can understand the appeal of that approach. Day by day I live with the hope that God’s mercy is infinitely greater than my sin and frailty.

I have huge issues with this topic. For some reason we have come to view God as this big bellhop in the sky who will reverse diagnosis or a tyrannical monster who sends suffering to make one more holy. (I cannot even begin to count the ways that thinking is so wrong but Dee touched on one or two in the OP.

When I think of what it means to be a believer, this topic becomes very real to me as I suffered tragedy as a child. I can relate to Dee mentioning ALS.

Here is what I think: as Christians part of our identity is to alleviate suffering as much as we can. Suffering is inevitable in this life . So we must approach it with that in mind but also with the hope that accompanies fighting it or our kindness in seeking to alleviate it to the best of our ability .

This can play out in so many ways that I think Evangelicals have totally ignored . Why aren’t we encouraging our young people to seek cures, create new products and services and even better ways to deliver services. But no. We teach them to go into ministry. But what can be more Pastoral than seeking to alleviate suffering? Or justice for those suffering from horrors inflicted by humans. (Well, I see them as less than human, actually)

I think this issue defines who we are as Christians and not because we have it all figured out but because we know what Jesus Christ would want us to do for others who are suffering.

Uncle Dad wrote:

She tires quickly. HOWEVER nothing but good has come out of all of this so far.

Is God testing her? Is He testing me? Nonsense! He is with us now just as He has always been and always will be.
So what’s going on?
Simple.
It’s called Life.

“The mystery of God hugs you in its all-encompassing arms.” (Hildegard of Bingen)

Lydia wrote:

Why aren’t we encouraging our young people to seek cures, create new products and services and even better ways to deliver services. But no.

It’s a shame that we send our best and brightest to seminary, and not to medical school, or engineering or art or even IT school.

How much suffering has been prevented by science? Not enough sadly, but more than seminary.

I guess this is as good a place as any to ask this question, I went back and looked on this blog, but could not find who it was…..so here is my question…

Who was the Calvinist theologian/pastor that suggested that he could not tell his children that either God loves them, or that we can’t be certain of their salvation???

GSD wrote:

It’s a shame that we send our best and brightest to seminary

It’s probably taking to say I don’t actually think we do send our best and brightest to seminary…although I’m sure a few bright ones made it in. If things were working well, I think people who have a love for others but not a gift for science would go to seminary and act in a true pastoral manner.

Lydia wrote:

This can play out in so many ways that I think Evangelicals have totally ignored. Why aren’t we encouraging our young people to seek cures, create new products and services and even better ways to deliver services. But no. We teach them to go into ministry.

Just like Saudi, where 2/3 of all college degrees are in “Islamic Studies”.

Lydia wrote:

This can play out in so many ways that I think Evangelicals have totally ignored . Why aren’t we encouraging our young people to seek cures, create new products and services and even better ways to deliver services. But no. We teach them to go into ministry.

Or Late Medieval Spain, where everybody tried to become a Priest, Monk, or Nun (that time’s version of “Full Time Christian Ministry”). Lasted until all the free gold & silver from the Americas ran dry.

@ Catherine:

Hi, Catherine. what you describe sounds very tough. chronic pain’s a b!tch, having to give up your medical practice…. so hard. peace to you.

A. Stacy wrote:

On so many levels this is twisted… To me this comes from the same root of “philosophizing” that gave us weird little tulips.

Much of reformed theology is approached philosophically and not biblically. Such is the case of classical Calvinism when it comes to suffering. New Calvinists like Piper have taken on the spirit of Calvin in this regard, even though many in the reformed movement are not so rigid in their stance on God-ordained pain and misery. A hyper view of God’s all-determining sovereignty is out of sync with the whole of Scripture about the character of God.

There is an SBC-YRR church plant near me, where the 30-something “lead pastor” essentially encourages church members to suffer in one form or another in order to truly get in touch with the heart of God. So, the young folks go out looking for something to suffer over! To believe that God designs, ordains, and governs suffering in a Christian’s life through divine determinism is stinkin’ thinkin’!

Lydia wrote:

what can be more Pastoral than seeking to alleviate suffering?

Heck, you can’t even get the YRR pastors in my area to go visit sick folk in hospitals or church members confined to homes with chronic illness! I suppose they figure there is nothing they can do to help alleviate suffering by being there as their pastor and praying with them. And, in their sick reformed state, they would be right! There is no power resting on their ministry. May God give us more “transformed” pastors, rather than reformed!

GSD wrote:

It’s a shame that we send our best and brightest to seminary, and not to medical school, or engineering or art or even IT school.

Not to worry, from my experience that isn’t happening. While I agree that many place “ministry” students on a higher plane I can’t say that I have seen the best and the brightest go to seminary. While I have met many fine and wonderful people in “ministry” I have unfortunately run into far too many dysfunctional types. If seminaries were shut down I’m not sure where NPDs attracted to the limelight would end up, I doubt it would be engineering.

GSD wrote:

It’s a shame that we send our best and brightest to seminary, and not to medical school, or engineering or art or even IT school.

How much suffering has been prevented by science? Not enough sadly, but more than seminary.

Bingo! And as we encourage them in these endeavors we should send them off with Matt Redmon’s book, “God of the Mundane”.

@ Patriciamc:

I understand. I went for 3 or so years without praying… the disillusionment and ultimate betrayal. the only reason I started up again was overwhelming concern for challenges my kids were facing — and a enough of a ‘well, just maybe…’ to say to myself ‘sigh…. alright, let’s go.’ It was an emotionally exhausting and painful in ways I can’t describe to attempt it again.

if I had simply written out an honest, reasonable prayer and read it to God it would have been an easier re-entry.

@ Bill M:
It used to be seminary after secular college, for most. Now, the seminaries are operating colleges. They get them young. Right out of youth group at church.

@ K.D.:
I have heard Piper say something similar. Which I always found strange because he excommunicated his son Abraham. Wouldn’t that mean he was judging his salvation?

Lydia wrote:

They get them young. Right out of youth group at church.

The younger the better if you are going to indoctrinate! An SBC-YRR pastor I know refers to the seminary professors he had as “influencers.” Yep, those reformed profs did a great job influencing the poor guy – he bought the lie with his whole heart.

@ elastigirl:
My dad has dementia, but we’re still early in the process. All I can offer is encouragement. I used to have a lot of nursing home patients and I worked with families as their loved ones walked through the dementia process. It’s hard. If your mom has dementia, I don’t think it’s unethical to put meds in her food. Remember, the brain of someone with dementia is not making good choices. What would she have thought if she were in your position? Just a thought for you.

Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

“I was an adventurer but I took an arrow to the knee.”

I love you man!Max wrote:

Much of reformed theology is approached philosophically and not biblically….

Could of not said it better.

Lydia wrote:

The plague victims were begging Calvin to come pray over them. Calvin refused saying his demise would hurt the church.

If God wanted Calvin to get the plague or protect him from it, it wouldn’t matter if he visited the tormented victims … according to Calvin’s belief system. Good Lord, it has been 500 years since his demise, and he’s still hurting the church!

Can’t believe the timing of this post. Just sat through a sermon on Mother’s Day where the pastor yammered on and on about how suffering is all part of God’s plan and we are better for it.

Was preaching in Luke regarding the woman with the curved spine for 18 years, but had us in Job for almost as long.

Couldn’t believe it.

Later that day I asked my two children and wife what the thrust of the sermon was. All of them said it was our suffering for God’s glory. The irony is that the pastor made sure to leave the verse that follows regarding the Pharisees getting pissed about healing on the sabbath out until next week. Therefore, I told them that the thrust was that we had a gracious saviour who healed, even when it wasn’t the right day. I also mentioned that people get pissed at Jesus for doing the right thing.

I was pissed because I am sick and tired of going to churches that just beat up the sheep and expect more out of them. Church is to rejoice and praise God for our salvation and sit around and beat each other up. We are supposed to bear each other’s burdens. BUUUT NOOOOOO! More, you are worms that deserve Hell. OK, I might not say it like that to an unbeliver, but sure, unbelievers need to hear the good news. The congregation should be rejoicing and praising God. Instead, all it has become is a guilt trip for everyone and I for one am getting sick and tired of it.

Where is the gratefulness over what God has done for us. Instead, all these churches try do it make everyone feel worse. And even worse is that everyone eats it up. Oh, I feel so convicted today. Oh, that was such a convicting sermon. Oh, you weren’t convicted, I see. What the H? Is that all this is about? How about rejoicing in the Lord. NOPE. Can’t have that among the body.

And then to top it off, nothing but maybe a few seconds about the woman being healed. Whole sermon….suffering…..Job and then a little about healing. What the heck, this woman was healed and I get seconds at the end of the sermon about that and nothing about Jesus being glorified for the healing. Nope, just God being glorified in the woman’s suffering. Talk about unbalanced and biased interpretation of scripture.

Max wrote:

If God wanted Calvin to get the plague or protect him from it, it wouldn’t matter if he visited the tormented victims … according to Calvin’s belief system. Good Lord, it has been 500 years since his demise, and he’s still hurting the church!

Consistent practice of the Calvinistic construct of determinism is impossible. They have a loophole for such free will decisions called compatablism.

@ OCDan:

Dan, at the end of the day, the problem is in having a system in which a class of people can set themselves apart like Old Testament priests who alone hear from God, then transmit the word to the people, none of whom have the Holy Spirit living within and thus are in desperate need of the priest intermediaries.

Such a system has been defunct for almost two millenia and anyone who’d seek to assume that head leader role is by very nature either: 1). Ignorant of the fundamental meaning of the New Covenant, 2). Knowledgeable but self-serving and up to no good, or 3). A full scale sociopath or NPD who quite literally hates God and takes pleasure in abusing His people.

Lea wrote:

It’s probably taking to say I don’t actually think we do send our best and brightest to seminary…although I’m sure a few bright ones made it in.

You’re right, of course. I should have said that in some circles, certainly the ones I was indoctrinated into, being a pastor or missionary is held up as something to which the best of us should aspire. A secular calling was something one might settle for. Professional Christianity is the best choice, the highest calling.

In reality, I wonder what sorts are wondering around various sorts of seminaries. I’ve seen a Seminary education mess up a fellow who had previously been a rather good minister. On the other hand, we have some church leaders around here with almost no understanding of theology, and no formal education.

Sorry to go off-topic, but it’s easier than dealing with the questions of suffering and sovereignty.

Lydia wrote:

@ mirele:
I always brace myself for the meaningless platitudes about God’s plan when Christians show up at the Funeral home.

Older and wiser now, I can say sweetly, oh no, this was not His original plan at all.

And that brings blessed silence.

Why can’t they just mourn with those who mourn during a mournful time?

Amen. Death is an ugly and evil intruder in this world. To all those who said or implied that God was complicit in my son’s death, I say NO. God doesn’t work in partnership with death, our enemy. God must hate death even more than we do, or Jesus wouldn’t have suffered and died to conquer it.

I read here every day, but I almost never leave a comment. Thank you, all you dear people who bare your hearts and try to help others–especially Deb and Dee who make these conversations possible. I’m grateful for all of you who offer compassion instead of empty advice. You have helped to save my sanity and my faith.

GSD wrote:

On the other hand, we have some church leaders around here with almost no understanding of theology, and no formal education.

That guy from gateway gave himself a phd or something! You know, for some reason the idea of a minister of a tiny little country church with no seminary degree bothers me less than a pastor of a church of 10-20k. The latter feels a bit more like a motivational speaker who wondered into a church instead of a conference center…Maybe because I think the small country church minister probably at least knows his congregants and maybe visits them in the hospital and so on and so forth…

patriciamc wrote:

And what’s worse, I don’t feel like reaching out to him. This might sound bad, but I feel like it’s his turn to reach out to me. Is that a lightening bolt coming my way?

Hugs back to you. I’m right there with you on this.

I’ve heard so many Christians try to cheer up those who are suffering by telling them that God is with them in the midst of the heartache or strife, and God will allow you to feel His presence at those times.

That has not been so in my case. I have not felt or sensed God near, or in the middle of the pain.

Even the simplest of requests made in prayers I have made the last several years (some things I’ve been praying for far, far longer) have not been answered.

Many Christians like to say Christianity is a relationship, not a religion, and God wants a relationship with you, me, and everyone.

In my experience, that does not seem to be lining up, because the relationship seems to be one-way on my part. And relationships are supposed to be a two-way street.
I’ve been doing all the praying and reaching out, and yet, I don’t hear anything from God (nor do I feel his presence).

In what other relationship would anyone think it normal, or put up with, a family member or friend, who, no matter how often you send them cards, e-mails, or leave them voice mail on the phone, they never write back, or return your phone calls?

You’re supposed to just take it on faith that the person cares about you and is “there for you.”

I wouldn’t put up with this sort of negligence in a regular, “flesh and blood” relationship with another human being after so many weeks or months, but we’re told in a lot of Christian sermons or blogs I’ve seen that we should tolerate this behavior from God.

Why does God get off the hook for this stuff when a regular person would not? Shouldn’t maybe God be better at reciprocating in a relationship than a person? Shouldn’t God be more reliable than regular people?

I’ve seen the usual comments by Christians on other sites about how we’re supposed to ‘walk by faith not by sight’ (so we shouldn’t get upset or angry or whatever if we feel we are being ignored by God).

I’m sorry, but that does not cut it after so long, not for me. I need to see results or actions in my life now, not just “take it on faith” that God cares and is probably listening to my prayers.

That brings up another point that bothers me. The Bible says (in the NT) that Christians are to help people; do not just tell some guy to be warm and well fed, but give him a blanket and a sandwich.

So, if you are a follower of Christ, God expects you to do something practical now (like give a hungry guy a sandwich for example).

Okay, but why, when it’s God in this role, he gets excused for not giving a person help right now when they need it?

There seems to be some kind of double standard there, where God expects humans to meet some kind of rule or behavior towards others (meeting their needs) that He himself not always willing to do himself towards people.

May wrote:

Anyway, what does Piper really know about suffering? Has he suffered the loss of a child? If not, perhaps he should shut up.

I agree.

Sometimes preachers and other people mean well but sometimes say things that can be very hurtful.

I had a Christian person in my family (who used to work as a preacher, to boot, so you would think he would know better) pull this Joel Osteen move on me (that you see my linking about below).

This family member of mine spoke of my grief over losing my mother, and the hard time I had dealing with it, as being “self-pity.” I bit my tongue and said nothing to him, though I was pretty offended and hurt by that.

This person who said that, and the rest of the family, did nothing, nada, to help me through the loss, not even after I tried phoning or e-mailing them a few times asking for help.

I had to go it all alone, so I find it pretty rich when any of them criticize me in HOW I handled the grief, or how LONG it took me to deal with it.

Normally, I don’t have anything against Osteen, but he handled this topic very wrong (it’s a variation of John Piper’s bungling of the topic):

Joel Osteen: Grief is Not Self Pity
http://www.charismanews.com/culture/50246-in-open-letter-this-woman-demands-joel-osteen-apologize-to-millions-of-people-around-the-world

Snippet:

by Lynda Cheldelin Fell

“I forgive you [Joel Osteen] for using grieving parents in your book ‘Your Best Life Now’ to illustrate your point that some people thrive on self-pity, or worse relishing the attention it brings,” she continues.

…”Pastor Osteen, your idea that the bereaved need just a few months to ‘let go of their grief'” is a gross assumption bearing little resemblance to the truth,” Fell writes.

… “And much like you, many well-meaning family and friends walk away, quit coming, quit calling and start avoiding the bereaved because of the notion that mourning is only acceptable for a mere few months.

It’s true that in the initial weeks following a loss, delivered meals and untold hugs are abundant. But the grieving process has barely begun when the meals stop coming and the last visitor leaves.”

…”By perpetuating the belief that sorrow lasting longer than a few months is nothing more than self-pity, you invalidate the grief of millions of bereaved souls, robbing them of the very hope needed to survive.

@ Tina:

I agree with everything you said. 🙂

I find the older I get, I may prefer being helped currently with whatever issues I have now, as opposed to thinking of how the afterlife is supposed to make everything a-OK.

Lydia wrote:

@ mirele:
I always brace myself for the meaningless platitudes about God’s plan when Christians show up at the Funeral home.

Older and wiser now, I can say sweetly, oh no, this was not His original plan at all.

And that brings blessed silence.

Why can’t they just mourn with those who mourn during a mournful time?
That

Because like Calvin and Job’s Counselors, they Have It All Figured Out and HAVE to Remind You Of That.

How else can you Count Coup on the Lukewarm for being So Spiritual?

@ patriciamc:

hi, patriamc — thanks for kindness & the melatonin suggestion. i’m reading up on it. formulating a best approach here. she’s very aware of everything, in a heightened way, it seems.

@ Stunned:

you’re so kind, stunned. no one has been obnoxious in their desire to help. everyone has been just great. no verses quoted at us. just sincere kindness and helpfulness.

@ elastigirl:

Another thing that’s not uplifting if you’ve been asking God for years for this, that, or the other and have not received a response from God:
the Christian programs that get letters from Christian viewers explaining how God granted them their answers to prayers quickly, and how they wanted them answered.

I think that sort of content is meant to be encouraging (‘if God did it for this guy, he can do it for you’).

After watching hours and hours of Christian TV, I find it has the opposite effect (on me anyway):

I ask myself why God is answering every Christian Joe Blow’s prayer on these shows but not mine, and not those of some other Christians I see on the internet?

I really do not recall these Christian shows addressing all the people who have prayed for healing, financial help, or whatever, and they either got a “No” as an answer, or no answer at all.

It’s as though a lot of Christians do not want to grapple with that, or to acknowledge it happens.

They only want to advertise or hear the positive, “Yes, God answered my prayer, and within the ten minutes I prayed about it” testimonies.

Melissa wrote:

This is the kind of fearful, willful misunderstanding of God’s sovereignty that makes me glad the Book of Job is in the cannon. Job, the righteous, doesn’t get any neat, pretty answers.

But his “friends” come in for some serious judgment when they try to make his suffering somehow his fault because their theodicy is being threatened.

I agree… but I notice how frequently most Christians IGNORE the book of Job and/or its lessons. The ones who ignore it like to victim-blame hurting people.

They also like to ignore passages such as…

John 9
2 His disciples asked Him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
3 Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but this happened that the works of God would be displayed in him.

Luke 13
4 Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam collapsed on them: Do you think that they were more sinful than all the others living in Jerusalem? 5 No, I tell you. But unless you repent, you too will all perish.”…
——–
Those types of passages really do get in the way of the sort of Christian who likes to tell you that your problem (whether it’s sickness, financial, relational, etc) is all your fault because…

You don’t pray enough, you don’t tithe, you lack faith, you ticked God off somehow, you are supposedly harboring unforgiveness in your heart (-insert any of the other one billion religious victim-blaming cliches here-)

Lydia wrote:

Consistent practice of the Calvinistic construct of determinism is impossible. They have a loophole for such free will decisions called compatablism.

It’s been awhile since I watched this lecture, but I think the guy in the video mentions that stuff (and I first saw this video from someone here or at Julie Anne’s blog linked to it):

What’s Wrong With Calvinism by Jerry Walls
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Daomzm3nyIg&feature=youtu.be

Daisy wrote:

It’s as though a lot of Christians do not want to grapple with that, or to acknowledge it happens.
They only want to advertise or hear the positive, “Yes, God answered my prayer, and within the ten minutes I prayed about it” testimonies.

Part 1 of 2: the myth of the “positive”

Lesley and I have faced a storm of opposition over the last 18 months or so (though it’s been building for around a decade) as we’ve worked at establishing what we informally call “God’s job-centre” – something that creates decent jobs for the unemployed and the working poor – and I’ve found that the Psalms have been (to mix a metaphor) a revelation. * Of course we’ve all read them, but I suppose that – as with most songs – they speak to you best when the writer’s mood resonates with your own.

They contain songs flowing out of every mood you can think of, from exhileration to the darkest despair. It’s no coincidence that Jesus – the Man of Sorrows, acquainted with grief – quoted a Psalm (“My God… my God… why have you forsaken me??”) on the cross. There’s no cause there to believe that God only listens to happy people.

* Reminds me of a Sam Goldwyn quote – “Gentlemen, this atom-bomb is dynamite!”

*on her path

@ Daisy:
Daisy, reading about your family is killing me.

Part 2 of 2: the answer, “No”

A lot of the time, of course, we don’t get quick answers, and by the same token, you often hear people say “We prayed and the answer was ‘No’ “ when they actually mean, “We prayed and nothing happened”. I remember an occasion, though, when God really did say “No”.

A lady in the church we were in at the time was in the very last stages of terminal cancer. (She remains, to this day, one of the most Christ-like people I’ve ever met.) On a particular Sunday, we were all – over 200 people – praying together for her, in the knowledge that even for her to survive for many more weeks would take an extraordinary miracle. But we’d seen some extraordinary miracles (fractures disappearing overnight, arthritis likewise, even AIDS * going into remission). So we prayed in great earnest. But after a minute or so, a silence gradually descended over the room. Nobody made any announcement or gave any explanation, but we all knew, all together, that God was not going to heal Jeanette. We also knew that, somehow, everything was all right. We’re all mortal, and this was simply God’s time for her. (Let it be said, also, that she had led a full and rich life.)

This remains a high-water mark in my own experience of corporate encounters with God. Why it doesn’t happen more often, I don’t know.

* Trust me here: I know the difference between HIV and AIDS. This was AIDS.

A. Stacy wrote:

On so many levels this is twisted… To me this comes from the same root of “philosophizing” that gave us weird little tulips.

Very twisted. Another lie from the father of lies.

“If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent?”
— Attributed to a beautiful young Rabbi from Nazareth —

Stunned wrote:

Daisy, reading about your family is killing me.

And you only have to read about them, I get to experience them first hand and personally. 🙂

I don’t want to get this thread so far off track, but I’ve written more about my family on other posts or sites, like here at Julie Anne’s blog (what I say about my father here is pretty true of my sister, as well):
https://spiritualsoundingboard.com/2016/04/30/todd-friel-warns-christians-about-adult-coloring-books/comment-page-1/#comment-332983

Nick Bulbeck wrote:

A lot of the time, of course, we don’t get quick answers, and by the same token, you often hear people say “We prayed and the answer was ‘No’ “ when they actually mean, “We prayed and nothing happened”. I remember an occasion, though, when God really did say “No”.

I’m very sorry for the loss of your friend.

About the part I quoted from your post.

The more I ponder this, the more I wonder if it’s a distinction without much of a difference.

I’ve been praying for several different things, some for about the past 2 years, some for a few decades, and one thing for about 6 or 7 years.

Every day or week God does not send me whatever I am praying for is a “No,” from my vantage point.

At times it seems to me that a “Yes, but wait longer” is still the same as a “No” right now, and it drags out for months or years. If God does want to say No, I wish he would just say so and let me let it go.

I’ve actually said that in prayer:
“If you don’t want to do X for me, or don’t want to send me X, or do X for me, fine, but can you just tell me plainly right now, that your answer is No.”

But all I get is more silence. I don’t get a feeling either way as to what God’s mind is.

elastigirl wrote:

(just advice on the sleep-aid refusal dilemma, please)

I would do whatever necessary to get those night meds into your mom.

Poor sleep and sleeplessness is an issue for people w/PTSD, so I’m acquainted with its consequences. Not sleeping increases pain. Research show that after 3 nights’ little sleep, the body will start aching, and already-there pain increases. I’ve found that to be so.

Plus it makes a person somewhat irrational. Your mom can’t make good decisions for herself for a number of reasons, lack of sleep among them. If I were her, I’d be (eventually) grateful that someone who loved me made a good decision for me, to get me out of a hole. IMO

My sympathies to you and your family.

May wrote:

Piper has been going on about this for at least ten years ago. Ten years ago during conference in the UK Piper preached this theology of suffering. He implied that if your son died in a car accident, you were lucky because God had given you a chance to suffer. Also, if you’re not suffering, then you can’t really be holy.

I was profoundly uncomfortable with it. But everyone else thought he was fantastic, wise, a brilliant preacher.

Anyway, what does Piper really know about suffering? Has he suffered the loss of a child? If not, perhaps he should shut up.

I noticed Flutterhands was quick to seek medical treatment when he was diagnosed with prostate cancer many-many years ago. Maybe he should have let the cancer take its God-Predestined course and gotten Really Really Really Holy.

Myers said it was very difficult to wait 11 days.

I had to wait FIVE MONTHS between the detection of high PSA/low Free PSA and the twelve-core biopsy, then two weeks more for the negative results.

Max wrote:

Heck, you can’t even get the YRR pastors in my area to go visit sick folk in hospitals or church members confined to homes with chronic illness! I suppose they figure there is nothing they can do to help alleviate suffering by being there as their pastor and praying with them.

Remember their beloved Calvin when the plague hit Geneva.
He proclaimed himself Too Important to Risk.

Daisy, I know all about that “it’s not a religion, it’s a relationship” bit of folk theology. Usually this idea is held by Christians who are caught up in some form of mysticism, even unwittingly. During the time I had friends in an AOG church in my late teens, I temporarily got sucked into that whole thing of practicing silence to listen for any inward impressions that the Spirit might send my way. After all, I’d grown up in the C & MA, hearing from various sources how God wants an intimate relationship with you, He thinks about you all the time, just can’t wait for you to talk to Him, etc. What I eventually realized was how easy it is to mistake our own thought patterns and desires for hearing from God. There seems to be no shortage of Christians who will insist on that as their own experience, however.

@ NJ:
It’s weird. I keep going back to this:

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

So, are we just to get on with it as best we can? They are good things to do and be.

I have been rereading up on the Jewish concept of sin: The breaking of Shalom. It is a huge topic but really makes one really see Jesus Christ differently from the typical Protestant position.

NJ – I grew up in the AOG and now I’m Baptist. I honestly can say I don’t agree with everything they teach (gasp). But I can’t state it as I have family members that are in the ministry of the AOG.

Catherine – I am also a chronic pain sufferer. I recently found out that I have Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. For anyone suffering with chronic pain, I feel for you. I don’t understand why some of suffer so bad from chronic pain. I wish I knew. I don’t believe it’s from God though. I know he wouldn’t give this to us just to watch us suffer. But God is still on the throne, and he is greater than my pain.

M. Joy wrote:

She showed up at my house with a huge, homemade cheesecake. We sat and talked for awhile, and she told me about memories she had of my daughter. That meant more to me than any rote bible verse or sermon on the meaning of suffering.

Isn’t an Irish Wake the group version of that?

M. Joy wrote:

elastigirl wrote:
@ M. Joy:
i’m so very sorry for the loss of your daughter. I can’t imagine anything more difficult. i wish i could make it better for you. a homemade pie could be a positive.
Thanks, elastigirl. I’d surely let you bring me one if we lived close enough! As a matter of fact, shortly after my daughter died, a lady at my church (I only knew her casually) called and said, “I love to make cheesecakes and I’d like to bring you one.” She showed up at my house with a huge, homemade cheesecake. We sat and talked for awhile, and she told me about memories she had of my daughter. That meant more to me than any rote bible verse or sermon on the meaning of suffering.

M Joy, that’s beautiful.

@ Headless Unicorn Guy:

I used to hear “it’s a relationship not a religion” from people engaging in apologetics. And to a degree, I get what they mean by it and am even a tad sympathetic to it.

However, I’d still like to know, if I am in this relationship with God, why, when I pray, does God not answer?

I would think it’s normal in a relationship that when you phone someone, they’d occasionally pick up the phone and answer, or call you back when you leave a message on their voice mail. When you “phone” God, though, more often than not (in my case at least), I don’t hear anything back.

It’s not much of a relationship, IMO, if you keep calling and writing, and the recipient never answers. The whole “take it on faith” thing also rings hollow.

M. Joy wrote:

Few things infuriate me more than people who elevate suffering as some sort of gift. (John Piper, anyone) What I’ve noticed, is the people who spew this baloney are the ones who have NEVER experienced a life altering tragedy; I’m talking one that hurts and affects you every day for the rest of your life.

Yes, very much so. The problem is that suffering and evil threaten a world view in which God must be in control of everything by eternal decree. It isn’t enough for some of these knuckleheads to just learn from Job and shut up and sit with the suffering.

Dr. Fundystan, Proctologist wrote:

The problem is that suffering and evil threaten a world view in which God must be in control of everything by eternal decree.

I’ve read some of the folks who believe in this say that it brings them a sense of comfort to think God orchestrates everything and is behind even awful things.

I don’t see why it would bring comfort. Why would it bring comfort to think it’s God behind it, rather than just some random, awful thing or person?

I guess the assumption is that if God is behind some horrible thing or caused it, there must be some great, wonderful, reason for it that you may not know in the here and now but may learn in the afterlife, and knowing that a tragedy had a purpose makes it better or easier to take?

@ Ken F:
I think your comment was beautiful!

Many years ago I read Petitionary Prayer: a Problem Without an Answer by C.S. Lewis, a chapter in the book Christian Reflections. I should probably reread it, along with Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer, which I have not yet read.

Stunned wrote:

It’s not a religion, it’s a relationship

And that was heard and said much in SGM.

Stunned wrote:

Wow, I would have never thought about how “It’s not a religion, it’s a relationship” could have an impact on people. I’m sure I’ve said it many, many times in my life. I have found great comfort in it, but now I can see how it could cause pain in the right/wrong circumstances. Thank you for making me aware.

It’s not something I get deeply offended by or anything if I hear a Christian say that. I do think there is a lot of truth in that statement.

I do think all- to- most of the religions in the world present God as this deity you have to work to please, and keep a bunch of rules, but in Christianity, it’s saying God wants to be your friend. So, to a point, I’m fine with that “it’s a relationship, not a religion” comment.

I’m just expressing my personal pain and struggle along the lines of, if I’m in a relationship with God, why does he seem to be ignoring me and ignoring my prayers?

In most relationships I have with people, they will answer the phone if I call, but if they regularly ignore my calls or letters, I stop trying to contact them after awhile.

I have a hard time continuing with prayer, when I don’t hear anything from God for months/ years. If God is supposedly so keen on having a relationship with me, I would assume he would pick up the phone and answer once in awhile.

Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

M. Joy wrote:

She showed up at my house with a huge, homemade cheesecake. We sat and talked for awhile, and she told me about memories she had of my daughter. That meant more to me than any rote bible verse or sermon on the meaning of suffering.

Isn’t an Irish Wake the group version of that?

It is.
Lots of food, lots of drink, lots of music, lots of (gasp!!) dancing. And everybody tells stories. I mean everybody.

Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

Isn’t an Irish Wake the group version of that?

zooey111 wrote:

It is.
Lots of food, lots of drink, lots of music, lots of (gasp!!) dancing. And everybody tells stories. I mean everybody.

I have only heard about Irish wakes, but never attended one. Sounds like a wonderful way to remember a loved one!

Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

I heard it so many times (usually as a “You have a Religion; *I* Have a RELATIONSHIP!” Jesus Juke) that I wrote it (and my reaction) into some of my fiction. Let’s just say I’m very hostile to that whole “bit of folk theology”.

It’s a standard refrain (the ‘relationship’ thing) in the Calvary Chapel world. There was a time when I exhibited a kind of hostility toward the juke too. But no longer, I actually wish them well on their journey. I have serious doubts though, that they’d wish me the same.

Ken F wrote:

Some random thoughts from perhaps the last person in the world who should comment:

No, that would be me.

Well, then…
Interlude: Fitba’.

If Sunderland win their game in hand tonight (at home to mid-table but out-of-form Everton) they will guarantee their Premier League survival, and Newcastle and Norwich will be relegated.

IHTIH.

@ Nick Bulbeck:
One questions, Celtic or Rangers?

Daisy wrote:

I’ve been praying for several different things, some for about the past 2 years, some for a few decades, and one thing for about 6 or 7 years.

Hi Daisy. I often read your posts with interest as I’m also single and out of my 20s and took a peace out time from church for a while. I had a relationship question last year and prayed for clarity…and got it. It wasn’t good, but it was clear! But other things, yeah. I think we have to be careful thinking that god is going to just give us what we want. I haven’t found that to be the case.

Sort of unrelated to this post but definitely to this blog, just yesterday I saw a news story about a local pastor (former now, but only after it was discovered) who was busted for child porn. Awful. I went to the website while looking to see which church he went to and looked at the staff listing…four men, all ‘such and such’ pastor, two women, ‘executive something and graphic artist’. Ugh. This is why I’m not Baptist anymore (although I’m not sure if they are actually Baptist they may be non-denom). I’m so tired of that.

@ Daisy:

Daisy I have a response to you about prayer that got stuck. I prayed for ‘clarity’ a few months ago and got an answer (not one I liked but it was clear!). But things I want? I don’t agree with the word of faith type people. I think you have to go out and search and even still sometimes things don’t happen.

Bridget wrote:

Some people truely find peace in believing that God causes everything. I don’t understand this. They seem to fear the unknown and randomness and would rather ascribe ALL events to God. Others, like me and you, find it horrifying.

I don’t understand it either. I do think it’s fear of the unknown. The random.

I am comfortable not knowing certain things. I am comfortable with the idea that I may be wrong if it is something that is more theoretical or doesn’t impact my day to day I don’t worry about it. Like ‘young earth’. Why is that important? If you are a scientist, sure, you need to actually care about science. But for me it’s all theory. It’s not what’s important, which imo is how we relate to each other and live our lives.

@ K.D.:
When you publish, share a link. I want to read it, please.

Not to get too doctrinal but it seems to me that attributing cancer to God is a perfect example of taking the Lord’s name in vain. That commandment was understood by the Jews as attributing things to God that are not from God.

Friend wrote:

If Travis Myers wants to consider his lymphoma a gift—

If Myers considers lymphoma, and John Piper considers cancer, to be gifts from God, why did they see doctors and get rid of those “gifts”? Why didn’t they keep their precious “gifts”, treasure them, and thank .god for them every day?

Lydia wrote:

That commandment was understood by the Jews as attributing things to God that are not from God.

Exactly. Looking at that from the opposite direction there is also the matter of failing to recognize the hand of God in some circumstance. I don’t see some law regarding that failure to recognize, but if one becomes too philosophically materialistic how does one make a place for the actual involvement of God in human affairs? And how does one know where to quit some utterly materialistic path of biblical understanding for example. In my stay with the methodists I ran upon quite a few people who understood (nuanced) some biblical passages to the point that they were left without some of the more day to day experiences of the divine that are more seen in people who do not do that.

For myself, I hesitate to see something as being the will of God or else not being the will of God. I do think there is scriptural evidence to drop the all or nothing reasoning however. There is no real reason to think that God does the same thing, makes the same decision, interacts in the same way every time with every person in every circumstance. We don’t have it all figured out and we are best advised to be cautious, I am thinking.

Nick Bulbeck wrote:

Well, then…
Interlude: Fitba’.
If Sunderland win their game in hand tonight (at home to mid-table but out-of-form Everton) they will guarantee their Premier League survival, and Newcastle and Norwich will be relegated.
IHTIH.

Thanks for reminding me. Will be watching later…Three years ago if you’d told me I would be watching Premire League Fitba’ instead of Major League Baseball, I would have told you that you were nuts….

“fate”, fatalism, pre-determination in its Calvinist definition, determinism …. all crawl out of the same hopeless hole

it’s the negativity and the hopelessness inherent in this thinking that gives it away as coming straight out of the darkness

K.D. wrote:

My blog is too rough for most readers on here….It’s not just theological, and I get ” off the rails” from time to time…

I’d like to read it too. “Off the rails” in some cases a good thing, because it can give readers an aha! moment they wouldn’t normally get if the rails were adhered to slavishly.
Too rough for some folks? Well yeah, I can see that, but wtf? If their poor virgin ears are offended, they’re not required to read it.

I may be missing the idea here but here is what I seem to be hearing as strains of opinion.

That the world, the material universe, does it’s thing, hence the cause of whatever is determined by the processes of nature.

Humans have free will and hence humans can intervene with the processes of nature: let’s hear it for the doctors.

God does not micromanage all the details, especially not the nasty details.

What I am not hearing is what it is you think that God does do. Other than requesting adherence to a set of concepts, conditions and procedures and especially attitudes, and other than being warm and fuzzy, where is God in all this? I get the impression that God may not actually exist outside of the human mind in this scenario.

Max wrote:

You won’t find the young Calvinists singing “The Joy of the Lord is My Strength.” They would rather suffer.

More like stay comfy as The Elect and leave the suffering to their Inferiors.

Like Calvin when the plague hit Geneva — Too Important for The Cause to Risk.

okrapod wrote:

I may be missing the idea here but here is what I seem to be hearing as strains of opinion.
That the world, the material universe, does it’s thing, hence the cause of whatever is determined by the processes of nature.
Humans have free will and hence humans can intervene with the processes of nature: let’s hear it for the doctors.
God does not micromanage all the details, especially not the nasty details.
What I am not hearing is what it is you think that God does do. Other than requesting adherence to a set of concepts, conditions and procedures and especially attitudes, and other than being warm and fuzzy, where is God in all this? I get the impression that God may not actually exist outside of the human mind in this scenario.

These are all excellent questions, and this is were I am right now. I definitely believe in God, Jesus, etc. I’m just not sure what they do in our times of crisis. Frankly, I don’t want to pray, get my hopes up, and be disappointed.

By the way, I read you post describing what you’re going through right now, and I’m sending you a virtual hug!

@ Friend:
Omitted the emoji: 😉

41 years ago, I had a ringside seat to my mother’s losing battle with small-cell lung cancer (Stage III or IV at diagnosis, and the suffering from the chemo was as bad as from the cancer). Anyone who uses the term “cancer” and “God’s gift” in the same sentence needs to be punched in the junk.

Ken P. wrote:

One questions, Celtic or Rangers?

One word: no.

Friend wrote:

My poor US-issued brain is trying to figure out how the 40-yard dash got to be 54 feet + 36 inches…

54’36” could be 57 feet… or 54 minutes 36 seconds.

Anyway, I’m just back home from the actual race, in which I came home in 50:54 (if you prefer). A great way * to spend a sunny May evening in the heart of Scotland.

Daisy wrote:

And you only have to read about them, I get to experience them first hand and personally.

🙂

Nick Bulbeck wrote:

57 feet… or 54 minutes 36 seconds

That would be about my time on certain days: 57 feet in 54 minutes. On other days, there’s chocolate 58 feet ahead of me and I win.

Congrats on your time! Sounds like you had fun.

Nick Bulbeck wrote:

@ K.D.:
Welcome aboard! As of the noo, Sunderland are 3-0 up with about 20 minutes left, so although Norwich are 4-2 up on Watford it will – barring a truly spectacular turnaround on Tyneside – be they and Newcastle who join Villa in the second tier next season.
Meanwhile, we’re a goal down at home to Chelsea, though I can’t help feeling Jürgen and the boys have at least half an eye on the Europa League final a week today.

Watched here from my den….sort of glad to see Sunderland stay up….and sort of sad to see the Canaries go down…

Bunsen Honeydew wrote:

I don’t think the Calvinists understand that when you speak of suffering and God’s glory, you are creating atheists. Who would want to worship a God so focused on his glory that he would allow you to suffer to for it? This also seems very incongruous with Jesus, God incarnate, who sought no glory.

Bunson Honeydew, I’m so sorry to hear of you and your daughter’s suffering. I can’t even imagine what it must be like. 🙁

Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

Anyone who uses the term “cancer” and “God’s gift” in the same sentence needs to be punched in the junk.

We here at TWW really need to write our own book of Proverbs.

patriciamc wrote:

We here at TWW really need to write our own book of Proverbs.

HEADLESS is a legend in his own time. 🙂

@ Stunned:

Thank you. We are incredibly fortunate. Most kids diagnosed with this cancer have metastatic disease. She was a Stage I, but the histology wasn’t good. She is being watched closely. To be honest, I deal with survivor guilt. I thank God for the outcome but it is hard to deal with your child surviving and others who don’t.

@ Bunsen Honeydew:
I’m sure many of you have read “Humans of New York”. They’ve been doing a Pediatric Cancer series and the stories are unbelievably heart wrenching. http://www.humansofnewyork.com/post/144209076156/if-theres-a-chance-then-its-worth-a-try-even
For example, Dr. La Quaglia of the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, shared this:

“The absolute best thing in the world that can happen to me is telling a parent that their child’s tumor is benign. I live for those moments. And the worst thing that can happen to me is telling a parent that I’ve lost their kid. It’s only happened to me five times in thirty years. And I’ve wanted to kill myself every single time. Those parents trusted me with their child. It’s a sacred trust and the ultimate responsibility is always mine. I lose sleep for days. I second-guess every decision I made. And every time I lose a child, I tell the parents: ‘I’d rather be dead than her.’ And I mean it. But I go to church every single day. And I think that I’m going to see those kids in a better place. And I’m going to tell them that I’m sorry. And hopefully they’ll say, ‘Forget it. Come on in.’”

Okay, now a followup on my own comment. Nobody seems to be saying what it is that God actually does. I threw out the question and there it sits unanswered.

I think this may be one reason that people find comfort in what Piper et al are preaching. The idea that God does everything including the really bad stuff at least is based on the assumption that there is a god and that this god is involved with humanity. I don’t agree with Piper or with calvinism, but I do see how some sort of bizarre comfort could be drawn from the idea of a god who is not absent, not just some idea, not the proverbial absent parent.

Some people have said that one reason for some bad childhood behavior is that it may be better to be treated badly/punished for the bad behavior than to be ignored. Perhaps people find it easier to deal with the bad stuff than to deal with the ultimate awfulness of the absence or indifference of God.

I think the theology is a terrible topic of discussion for suffering people. But even worse is being stuck in bad beliefs about God and about ourselves while trying to find a way to endure suffering. Wrong beliefs make suffering worse.

People walking away from belief in God based on all the unanswered evil and suffering is an understandable but fundamentally flawed reaction. If there is no God then there is no moral lawgiver and therefore no moral law by which to judge events as good/bad or good/evil. If there is no God then everything (including suffering and pleasure) exists only by chance and has no ultimate meaning or direction. If there is no God then there is no moral reason to claim that anything is good or bad. There would be no moral grounds to oppose slavery, genocide, abuse. There would be no grounds to praise integrity. The worst and best imaginable acts would amount to no more than mere neutral preferences with no moral relevance. How cheery. The only way to reject God based on evil and suffering is to first believe that such a God exists who makes evil and suffering relevant to begin with. True atheists must admit that there is no distinction between good and bad or good and evil because there is no moral lawgiver to set a moral standard. Running away from God means running toward complete meaninglessness. An atheist who holds out any hope for meaning in life is a false atheist.

The only logical alternative to complete fatalism and meaninglessness is theism. But that opens up the Pandora’s box of why God allows so much pain, evil, and suffering. And it’s where believers can cause so much damage in trying to explain why God does what he does.

The story of Job might be the best place to look. His friends did well for the first week. But then they started trying to explain the “why” and it all went downhill. Job complained bitterly against God, and God seemed to handle it just fine (but he was pretty angry with his friends who tried to defend God through their lofty theology). It shows that we humans cannot grasp why God does things the way he does, which validates our complaints. God seems to be able to handle our complaints without flying into a rage. Maybe he does not care about his glory as much as some people tell us? I’m not sure that God telling Job to “brace yourself like a man” was either gentle or comforting. But through the process Job went from hearing about God to seeing him. I think the take-away is that God has this figured out in a way that we don’t, and that one day we will be able to see it the way he sees it and we won’t be disappointed. And I think it also means that God is not offended by our anger toward him while the process unfolds. Could it even be possible that our yelling at him with clenched fist is a sign of faith, a sign that we believe he exists and hears us?

Yesterday I commented about the verse that says, “Jesus Wept.” This morning it hit me that his weeping must be taken in the context of John 5:19 – “Therefore Jesus answered and was saying to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner.’” And John 14:9 – “Jesus said to him, ‘Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, “Show us the Father?’’” And Hebrews 1:3 – “And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power.” If Jesus weeps, then it must be because God also weeps. How often are we told that?

Over the last year I’ve been learning how much of what I believed about God was wrong. But it was what I was taught by well-meaning people who were taught the same. Throwing away bad beliefs feels like running with scissors because I’m poking at so many sacred cows of the reformation. I’m learning that getting a right view of God is critical. I’m still on the journey, but right now the path seems to be going back to what the early church believed about the nature of the Trinity. This is an article that recently helped me sort through some of this: http://perichoresis.org/on-the-death-of-our-blessed-lord-jesus-christ-2/. It’s about the why of Jesus’ death rather than the why of our suffering. But it’s related.

Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

41 years ago, I had a ringside seat to my mother’s losing battle with small-cell lung cancer (Stage III or IV at diagnosis, and the suffering from the chemo was as bad as from the cancer). Anyone who uses the term “cancer” and “God’s gift” in the same sentence needs to be punched in the junk.

My mother had cancer (a different type) and died from that and other complications.

I suspect that the sorts of people who do what you mention in your post think they can find some solace in grief and tragedy if they can see some meaning in it… which can only be done (in their minds) if God was behind the tragedy, if it was for some greater good.

I think I’ve pretty much accepted that horrible stuff happens (even to good people), and it’s pretty random and senseless.

In some ways, thinking God was ultimately behind something bad makes me feel more depressed about it, not more comforted. But it seems to be the reverse for other people.

I think when I was younger, I sort of understood that tendency, but as I grow older, not as much. I don’t know.

@ okrapod:
I have wrestled with this a lot. For one thing, I have seen waaay too much purposeful deception from too many in ministery. It is a great place to hide who you are and most pew sitters would not believe most of the stuff anyway. Or they make excuses. So it grows like a cancer while wearing Jesus lipstick.

I mean if God is going to direct and control some things in life why wouldn’t he start with people who claim they are the light of the world but are really Darkness? Why not there? I used to tell people that I could explain the unbelievers to my kids but I cannot explain the Believers to them! I really worried for a long time what their perception of Jesus Christ would be if we stayed in that deception and darkness. You can’t unsee stuff and you can’t unknow stuff. At some point you have to make a decision which road you are going to travel. It is an extremely lonely place, too.

I came to the conclusion that the cross and the resurrection had to be enough. Beyond that why wouldn’t the rest be our wheelhouse, so to speak? I could quote Jesus right now but I won’t.

It really comes back to faith and trust. That if we are who we need to be that he rewards that, eventually. But right now here on Earth it is about being the kingdom as much as we possibly can.

Personally I feel that most of Western evangelicalism has gotten almost everything upside down. I am included in that, of course. I can only imagine how arrogant that sounds which is why I don’t like to talk about it very often. It is very personal and I do not feel like I have the right to make any claims.

I have had two very real encounters in my past that are very real for me but would not be for anyone else. I am about as far as you can get from the “encounter” type. But life did not get any easier because of them. if anything, it got much harder. Which was a bit hard to take.

So when people tend to focus on what God is doing… in a humorous sort of way I like to think of him shaking his head over what the heck we’re doing. :o)

Patriciamc wrote:

I just saw a post on Facebook where a woman praised God because her father’s surgery went better than expected. She noted that, “God is all over this one!” Would God have been all over it if it didn’t go well? That is the question.

I know, and where does it put those whose surgery didn’t go so well?

@ Bunsen Honeydew:

I agree with everything in your post, and it was so well stated. I especially liked the last paragraph.

Btw, Melissa, I meant to comment earlier. May I just say, “A-stinkin’-MEN!” Jesus wept. Why we think we need to go farther than that, I have no idea. Probably taking a page from his book would behoove us all.

When I was going through what was the most devastating time in my life, I was sitting on the little hill in front of my parent’s house. I was a wreck. My sister and her husband pulled up and parked. She walked into the house and he (not someone I was close to) got out of the car. He didn’t say a word. He came over to me and sat down and faced across the street where I was facing. We sat like that for about five minutes. I couldn’t speak. He didn’t try. It was the most respectful loving thing he’s ever done for me. I’ll go to the grave remembering that kindness. He couldn’t fix anything or fix me and he didn’t try. He just sat with me in my pain.

Melissa wrote:

You know what I want to say to people who are willing to ascribe to God the greatest evils humanity has witnessed?
Two words:
“Jesus wept.”
When his best friends met him, draped in mourning clothes, faces drawn with suffering, wracked with grief over their brother’s death, he shared their agony.
Not forever, though. (But it matters so much that he doesn’t shush them and tell them not to worry, he’s gonna raise brother Lazarus again, so they can stop crying. FIRST he’s with them in their suffering.

@ Paula Rice:
I follow Humans of New York on FB and have appreciated what they are doing to highlight pediatric cancer. Not to get on a soapbox, but pediatric cancer research is not funded privately, because in terms of numbers, it isn’t lucrative. So, where the government could make up the inequity, they won’t either. Less than 4% of federal cancer research money goes towards children’s cancers.

Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

Anyone who uses the term “cancer” and “God’s gift” in the same sentence needs to be punched in the junk.

Not a gift. More like an armed robber. We learn from them too, eh?

kin wrote:

Though I appreciate Dee’s attitude in her post, my (fallible) observation after many years of keeping up with discussions regarding Calvinism on the WW is that this arena (comment section) doesn’t often produce enough respect and understanding for those who hold to a Calvinistic viewpoint to feel comfortable in discussing it – so the result is often a lopsided argument against it. JeffS made a good go at it several years ago.

I had not given Calvinism much thought until it derailed my son’s faith. He was nearly suicidal from it. He survived, but it did claim the life of one of the other students in the same ministry. His suicide note confirmed it was the Calvinist beliefs that caused him to kill himself. But to be fair, it might be only new-Calvinism that did it. Once I started investigating Calvinism I found contradictions everywhere. I can understand now how it could make someone suicidal.

As to the respect issue, I have found Calvinists to be among some of the most disrespectful of all people. The commenters on this site have valid complaints against Calvinism and need a place to vent. The Calvinistic websites are much harsher.

kin wrote:

my (fallible) observation after many years of keeping up with discussions regarding Calvinism on the WW is that this arena (comment section) doesn’t often produce enough respect and understanding for those who hold to a Calvinistic viewpoint to feel comfortable in discussing it – so the result is often a lopsided argument against it.

I think many people here feel this way when they try to comment on a blog supported by Calvinists. My observation from reading Reformed blogs 😉

kin wrote:

Though I appreciate Dee’s attitude in her post, my (fallible) observation after many years of keeping up with discussions regarding Calvinism on the WW is that this arena (comment section) doesn’t often produce enough respect and understanding for those who hold to a Calvinistic viewpoint to feel comfortable in discussing it – so the result is often a lopsided argument against it. JeffS made a good go at it several years ago.

So, I guess you’re saying that we’re the problem. Kin, many of us here have actual experience that we’re basing our opinions on.

kin wrote:

doesn’t often produce enough respect and understanding for those who hold to a Calvinistic viewpoint to feel comfortable in discussing it – so the result is often a lopsided argument against it.

I’ve pointed this out before, but I’ve found even civil back- and- forth with most Calvinists a big time waster, because 99% of them will say that you, the critic or skeptic of Calvinism, do not understand Calvinism.

If you shoot out an argument by preacher or theologian X that is critical of Calvinism, the typical Calvinist will say, “So and so doesn’t even accurately represent Calvinism,” so he or she won’t even engage with X’s arguments.

According to my experience with most Calvinists, there is not a Non-Calvinist living or dead who understands Calvinism adequately enough to offer a good criticism of it.

Calvinist lay persons don’t even agree with other Calvinist lay persons about Calvinism.

In times past, when talking to Calvinist Harry about Calvinism, Harry would say, “Oh no, you misunderstand what Calvinism teaches about topic Z.”

I then say, “Then please clarify Z for me.”

So Harry gives me his understanding of Z.

So I say, “You’re telling me that is what Calvinism really believes about Z?”

And Harry says, “Yes.”

So, fast forward a few weeks or months later, and there I am debating Calvinist Joe about Calvinism.

When I argue about Z using Calvinist Harry’s explanation of Z, Calvinist Harry says, “Ha ha, you have a laughably wrong view about Z! That is NOT what Calvinists believe about Z.”

My response: “But that is exactly what Harry the Calvinist said Calvinism teaches about Z.”

He says: “Harry is wrong about Z.”

Calvinists have set up Calvinism so that nobody anywhere can, to their satisfaction (or each individual Calvinist), disprove it.

@ Debbylynn:

Debbylynn, I’m so glad you’ve found something that is working for you! It looks like Trokendi is a form of the same thing as Topamax?
I’ve tried so many things over the years. Sometimes they work for awhile. I’ve gotten where the side effects tend to be so bad that I can’t tolerate many things but at least at my stage of life I can take time off when I need to. Thanks for the heads up.

Daisy wrote:

I’ve pointed this out before, but I’ve found even civil back- and- forth with most Calvinists a big time waster, because 99% of them will say that you, the critic or skeptic of Calvinism, do not understand Calvinism.

*sigh* Daisy, you clearly don’t understand Calvinism. 😉

@ Ken F:
Oh your poor son & his fellow student. I can understand why they got to that point but where were the college’s pastoral staff? I have to be incredibly careful with these topics as they amen me incredibly anxious – which is why I’m currently taking shelter under the wing of the theology of the earliest church. I’m going to start reading your blog site when I have time.

And Kin, I echo what’s already been said. A lot of pain is what you hear when you come here.

@ Lydia:
That isn’t what the historical record seems to show.

The plague broke out again in 1543. On May 1, Calvin announced to the Council that Castellion, a minister, was ready to go as chaplain to the hospital. The Council accepted his offer, at the same time censuring some ministers who were unwilling to go to the hospital. This was on May 2, but on the 11th Castellion was superseded and Blanchet reappointed. Blanchet, however, died, and on June 1 the Council ordered the ministers to meet and choose a chaplain, ‘Mr Calvin being excluded, because he was required for the Church.’

The following week a chaplain was appointed.

Doumergue says we can understand that the Council did not wish to expose Calvin to the risk of infection in the hospital. The general who commands is not placed in the front rank of the battle. But if Calvin had been called, what would he have done? Doumergue’s answer is that he would have simply done his duty.

He quotes from a letter written by Calvin to Viret in October 1542, at the beginning of the plague. ‘If anything happens [to Blanchet], I fear that after him it will be my turn to run the risk.… We cannot fail those who need our ministry more than others.… As long as we are in this charge, I do not see how we could excuse ourselves if, through fear of danger, we deprive of help those who need it most.’*

https://zwingliusredivivus.wordpress.com/2014/06/01/fun-facts-from-church-history-calvin-and-the-plague-of-1542-43/

Ken F wrote:

And I think it also means that God is not offended by our anger toward him while the process unfolds. Could it even be possible that our yelling at him with clenched fist is a sign of faith, a sign that we believe he exists and hears us?

I remember watching a scene from “The West Wing” some years ago. It takes place after the funeral of the President’s secretary Mrs. Landingham, who was killed in a traffic accident. President Jed Bartlet loves her dearly, and her death during a very difficult period of his tenure. After everyone has filed out of the church, Bartlet just unloads on God — takes all of his pent-up anger and grief, and lets Him have it. He calls God names, accusing Him of hurting his loved ones, and punctuates it all by stubbing out his cigarette on the floor of the church.

When looking back on this scene, I can imagine the angels reacting to Bartlet’s tirade with horror and indignation, ready to take up their swords and vindicate the Lord’s honour. God’s response (in my imagination)? He sighs and waves them off, saying, “Siddown. Cool off. He doesn’t mean it. You don’t know what kind of pain he’s in.” I have no doubt that God knows how to take our anger and pain. If he can’t, I don’t see why we should worship Him.

If Jesus weeps, then it must be because God also weeps. How often are we told that?

One source of comfort for me is the picture that Lewis paints of Aslan in “The Magician’s Nephew”, when he commiserates with Digory, crying with him over his dying mother. Aslan’s words in that scene always hit me hard.

siteseer wrote:

patriciamc wrote:
Does anyone know where this relationship stuff is in the Bible, or is this just an idea created by the Christian publishing industry to sell books? I have had a pet peeve about the whole relationship with Christ for a long time. I think it sets Christians up to fail because God isn’t going to call me on the phone, go to a movie with me, and frankly, it’s really hard to hear God in prayer. Like you said, most of the time, I hear nothing. Is this relationship stuff just another way for us to play mind games?
It’s like a lot of ideas that come into use because someone thought it would help get people into the church. The ends justify the means, never mind if it’s accurate.
When I was a new Christian it was real common to hear messages saying that if you come to Jesus, he will solve all your problems. Yes, it sets people up to fail and to feel betrayed when it turns out not to be truth.

Why don’t we just tell people the truth? “If you become a Christian, brace yourself. Your life is about to get a whole lot worse!”

Because there are cases in which that’s true. (Note: What I’m about to write is *how I feel*, it may not necessarily be *the truth*.)

I became a Christian in an abusive religion where we were expected to invite “everything that moved” to church and shamed when we didn’t “bear fruit” (i.e., convert people). I left that group and eventually wound up in another group where they tried to get away from the teaching that I’d been under . . . and they went so far in the other direction, they turned out to be just as bad. The #1 reason my husband and I moved to where we are now was to get away from that group.

My dad died of ALS four weeks before my wedding. I, at times, fail to see how that could have been “good”. And I have kicked myself for not arranging, somehow, for him to see me get married (maybe by getting married earlier or by arranging to get married in my hometown instead of where I was living at the time.)

I had trouble getting pregnant and used medical treatment to get pregnant (ended up taking a round of Clomid). There are those who teach that that’s somehow a sin, to use medical procedures to help with pregnancy. Did I somehow commit a sin by using Clomid instead of “trusting God” for a child?

My son has autism. That presents its unique set of challenges. Although my son has been a big blessing to us and to our church, I have wondered, did God punish me for using modern medicine to get pregnant by allowing me to have a child with autism? Was his autism the result of me using Clomid? (i.e. did the Clomid affect his development in the womb?) And one of my griefs is rather selfish–the fact that he will probably never marry and have children, and thus, I will never have grandchildren. Most of my friends are having grandkids and bragging about them, and that will probably never happen for me.

I dealt with bullying as a child, was told that I shouldn’t fight back because I will be the one getting into trouble, and that’s one of the issues that has sent me into therapy multiple times. That, and spiritual abuse.

And I’m not happy about current events in this country, and I think things are going to get a LOT worse. (Which is all I’ll say, because I know there’s a variety of opinions on current events and there are other places I can discuss those in depth.)

No, Christianity and Jesus are NOT going to solve all your problems. In fact, they may add a whole new layer of them!

Ken F wrote:

Beakerj wrote:
where were the college’s pastoral staff?

That was my question. The college ministry pastor in that church was the one who was pushing it so hard. He still is.

That’s awful. I’m so sorry.

It would probably help if it weren’t so fashionable in certain circles to reject mental health care.

@ numo:
I have enjoyed reading his blog. So far I have only read “Genesis for Normal People” with Jared Byas and it is an excellent place to start for a really big picture! It is not too long and it is affordable. I want to read some of his other books eventually. But my stack of “to reads” is already too high. :o)

Lydia wrote:

The teens who are deep thinkers OR come from dysfunctional backgrounds, with not a lot of Parental support who take this teaching to heart, can be severely affected. Can you imagine being taught during tender teenage years that God wanted you to be born into an abusive family for His Glory?

I saw this depicted in a mild sense in the book “Jacob Have I Loved” by Katherine Paterson. Halfway through the book, the protagonist (a teenaged girl) reads Romans 9, and is convinced by it that God hates her, and has destined her to live forever in the shadow of her younger twin sister. It takes her a while to break out of that despair, and the paralysis it causes.

That was my introduction to the harm that deterministic theology can bring.

patriciamc wrote:

*sigh* Daisy, you clearly don’t understand Calvinism.

I just so enjoy how the Calvinists who tell me this don’t agree with what other Calvinist tell me about Calvinism each, which tells me that none of them really understand it, either.

I actually think I understand most of it just fine, but I find some of its logical outworking repulsive, and I think it bothers Calvinism that I find aspects of Calvinism repulsive.

Daisy wrote:

And in fact, I would argue that self-compassion also provides a sense of self-worth, but it’s not linked to narcissism the way self-esteem is.

I think both are necessary and a healthy self-esteem is not really narcissistic (although obviously can be taken to extremes). Maybe a feeling of self-worth is what we’re really talking about. You need self compassion probably most when things aren’t going as you hoped or when you make an error. That can be almost higher to deal with when you have a good self-esteem, maybe.

@ Lea:

There are actually Christians (one or two who sometimes post to this very blog, too) who misconstrue having self-esteem (or just the concept itself) as being egotism or as selfishness, and who seem to think it’s a sin to have self esteem.

@ Daisy:

Did I ever have a lot of typos in that post and one of the other ones I just made a few moments ago.

Hopefully people can decipher what I meant, even though I inadvertently used the wrong words or typed stuff wrong.

@ Beakerj:
That is really the bigger problem. Because many churches were taken over stealthily by the Neo Cal movement, the people in them really had no clue that some of the same words they knew were being used very differently by young pastors graduating from seminaries they have supported financially.

I tried to talk to some young restless and reformed pastors about this and the response I got was ‘if people are too stupid not to ask the right questions then it is their fault. I am teaching biblical Christianity’.

It took me awhile to realize that the Neo Cal movement does not want people to research Calvinism.

So to add to the problem most people in churches did not really understand what they were dealing with.

@ Serving Kids In Japan:
Oh wow. I am not familiar with that book. Ironically, Harriet Beecher Stowe, who was raised very Calvinist, takes it on in a subtle way in “The Ministers Wooing”. Her father went through horrible time at Lane Seminary from fellow Calvinists and even went through an ecclesiastical trial of some sort.

<Christiane wrote:

The truth about a theology is seen in the fruit, OR in this case of neo-Cal abuses, the rotten fruit.

That is actual biblical Christianity, too. You cannot get figs from thistles.

Daisy wrote:

You’re not supposed to use dating sites or fertility treatments or anything like that, according to those insensitive clowns.

These are probably the same people who scream against using psychology or medication for mental health problems: you’re supposed to just use Bible reading and prayer and keep your fingers crossed the God waves his magic wand and cures you. (That approach didn’t work for my anxiety or depression either.)

What a cauldron of human misery they’ve cooked up! And the kicker? They’ll swear up and down that this is what “the Bible teaches”.
My a$$. The Bible teaches no such thing.

@ Stunned:
OK, so I know it looks like I’m talking to myself, but hey, not the first time that’s ever happened. Anyway…

I wonder if the Quakers/Friends are on to something. In their meetings they don’t have one person who gets up to preach each sunday. Instead they all gather together with God alone as the head. They sometimes sit quietly until one of the group decide to share scripture or what they believe God is doing in their lives. I wonder if that would be the healthier thing?

Muff Potter wrote:

What a cauldron of human misery they’ve cooked up! And the kicker? They’ll swear up and down that this is what “the Bible teaches”.
My a$$. The Bible teaches no such thing.

Absolutely.

I think the part that burns my biscuits the most are the several levels of hypocrisy that is going on with it.

How the people who teach this stuff set these things (marriage, having children) up as all-important (idols) in the first place –

Yet, if you’re someone who takes measures to make this stuff happen for you personally (e.g., you use dating sites, medical technology, etc.) they shame you for that, and also tell you that YOU are making that stuff into an idol. It is pouring salt into the wound.

Some of the ones who say you should just pray and trust God to send you a spouse are the folks who met their spouse because a friend introduced them, or they met back in high school or college and asked the person out!

Marriage did not happen magically for them, but they expect anyone past 25 years of age who is still single to hope on the “magical answer” route. Not dating, not asking anyone out, not friends fixing them up, but just “cross your fingers and hope” method.

Stunned wrote:

I wonder if the Quakers/Friends are on to something. In their meetings they don’t have one person who gets up to preach each sunday. Instead they all gather together with God alone as the head. They sometimes sit quietly until one of the group decide to share scripture or what they believe God is doing in their lives. I wonder if that would be the healthier thing?

I think the Friends are on to something very sane and healthy. The absence of hierarchy puts everyone in a position to contribute.

General info: not all Friends meetings are silent. Within the silent tradition, the faith differs from what many TWW regulars identify as Christianity, although the meetings I have known best were clearly populated with Christians. Quakers tend not to be Trinitarian, having a range of viewpoints about Jesus, and believing in the Inner Light rather than the Holy Spirit. Sacraments are absent: no day or time or ceremony is holier than another. Similarly, creeds and oaths are absent: all words should be equally honest.

Quaker silent worship is not well understood and is therefore easily disrupted. Some meetings start with a silence of agreed-upon duration. People are supposed to speak only if they feel strongly led. Any following comments are supposed to build on ideas introduced by the first speaker. It is a good thing (particularly when disparate themes emerge) if an experienced Friend rises near the end of the meeting to draw themes together.

Many Quakers believe that these remarks are God’s message to the meeting. At one meeting I recall, a man stood to speak at the very end, and said, “Our first speaker this morning reminded us…”

What!? I thought, because this man was the first to stand. But he went on to say that the first speaker of the morning had said, “Daddy, hold me.” All of us had heard the squirmy toddler asking to be held, but not all of us had considered the toddler’s words to be God’s message.

okrapod wrote:

@ Tina:
I am sorry about your Dad, but you do not need to blame yourself. In all probability your actual wedding ceremony was much more important to you than it would have been to him, given his condition. Infertility can be a nightmare and Clomid is not a sin, though I think that some reproductive technologies are over the line. God did not smite your son to punish you for taking meds to get pregnant. You did not cause your son’s condition by some sin against God. The jury is still out as to cause/causes of autism. I am so sorry about your son, but you need to let yourself off the hook on that one,
I too think that things are going to get a lot worse, and the church in the US is not remotely prepared to help people deal with it. This matter of the church having it’s head attached to the wrong anatomic site has the potential to be catastrophic for people. We are in the earlier stages of problems which will make the issue of who does the dishes seem ludicrous.
But you did not do any of this, you are not at fault, not to blame, and you sound very savvy and courageous.

In saner moments, I realize that my dad was suffering–ALS is awful, and that’s putting it mildly. And today, I heard of yet another “link” to autism–high levels of b12 and folate during pregnancy. You’re right; the jury is still out; in my opinion, I believe it’s very much genetic and no one knows how autism develops. (Life isn’t dull at my house. 🙂 )

It only took me one round of Clomid to get pregnant. A lady at my church got pregnant on her LAST try at IVF. Her baby just turned a year old. (The baby’s name is Grace. I think that’s appropriate.)

I agree with you on some reproductive technologies being “over the line”. I’m sure that there are some things I would not have tried had I been unable to get pregnant through Clomid. And as far as grandkids; there may come a day when we will “adopt” some. 🙂

You are very kind. Thank you. ((()))

patriciamc wrote:

Dave (Eagle) wrote:
Again all that I read a book by Philip Yancey called “Disappointment with God.
I’m going to have to check this book out. Thanks!

I’ve read this. Yancey is one Christian author that refuses to resort to simplistic answers. I like that.

Sorry for the delay…busy time of year.

Every group I’ve been part of for the last forty years tended to get myopic in reference to outside/contrary views. Healthy criticism ought to be welcomed in a Spirit-led environment. Just simply pointing out what I’ve noticed over the past three or four years of reading here – healthy, constructive debate is frequently lacking on this subject. Sometimes we forget the lines that divide aren’t always as black and white as we present them to be – there is a spectrum of beliefs that often intersects/overlaps.

I’ve stated this before, but will say it again – I have **greatly** benefited from the voices of women here on TWW due to the fact that for four decades of church-life I have been sheltered from hearing wisdom spoken from the opposite sex. So I’m not posting here to be contentious.

As I write this I know I have not always been the utmost respectful in my comments – in particular a response I made on Todd Wilhem’s recent post about 9Marx I said I appreciated a lot of what Wayne Jacobsen has to say, but found his views on the wrath of God to be “goofy”. A better word choice would have been a bit more considerate. In all fairness, I had the privilege to a face-to-face conversation with Wayne about 12 years ago on this very subject. Enjoyed the time together and found he is a very gracious man.

Lydia, I think you responded to my comment and I failed to process much of what you wrote as I was pretty much a zombie that week, greatly struggling with my heath, was only getting about 17 hrs. of sleep (for the entire week) on top of working daily at a very labor-intensive job.

BTW, I don’t consider myself a Calvinist (disdain the term) but do have/had friendships with people who would, some of whom have suffered in this life tremendously, yet continue to acknowledge that the intimate prepositions FROM, TO, THROUGH are tied to the word ALL in Rms. 11:36 with unwavering faith. That I admire and respect.

@ kin:

I am quite familiar with zombieism. :o) I sure hope your health is improving. Thanks for remembering!

I think one convo stopper between Cals and non Cals is they read Romans (and most scripture but Romans is a biggie) with totally different filters. It makes Doctrinal agreement impossible. It is simply best to disagree and form alliances that focus on justice and mercy for victims. And believe me, there are bodies under the bus in the seeker world and all over evangelicalism. It is just the Neo Cals are the big bully on the block right now and eventually that will change, too.

@ Ken F:
Wow! I think the first book I read concerning the doctrines ( I did history first) was Lawrence Vance, “The Other Side of Calvinism”. Someone gave it to me. It was where I discovered that total depravity actually meant total inability and so much of what I had heard from YRR made sense at that point.

Daisy wrote:

I just so enjoy how the Calvinists who tell me this don’t agree with what other Calvinist tell me about Calvinism each, which tells me that none of them really understand it, either.

I suspect Calvinism is whatever the powers-that-be want it to be in order to support their positions.

siteseer wrote:

@ siteseer:
Another time we attended a Presbyterian church that was verrry Calvinist. The pastor was a sincere, honest person but the messages were so depressing. One day I told my husband, I know this church believes in grace but when I leave here Sunday morning I feel like I need to just tell God, “God, I know Jesus died for me and that I’m saved through his blood, but I am so undeserving and such a failure in every way that the only moral thing for me to do is volunteer to go to hell anyway. Please just send me to hell. It’s the only right thing for me to do.”
Heh, sometimes I think I should write a book about all our different church experiences. I can’t decide whether it would be a comedy or a tragedy, though.

Pretty much sums up my experience with Reformed Christianity. I know it’s not all like that, but when you find a particularly dogmatic strain, it can be like this. I was so hung up on my own sin, and how awful I was, half the time I’d forget that he loved me enough to die for me in the first place. It’s good to be aware of the sin in your life, and how holy God is, but in most cases, I think Calvinists/Calvinism exaggerate it so much that God becomes almost inaccessible. This creates an feeling of unhealthy fear instead of overwhelming love.

He is holy, yes. He frightened Isaiah in the temple, true. But Jesus also called his disciples “friends”, and he loved us, and died for us while we were his enemies. We must never, ever forget that.

Lydia – thanks, and my experience would have to agree with you concerning the Neo Cals. I’ve sadly let go of several relationships over the years with groups stuck in that mindset. Most of the people are dear and sweet, but have this unhealthy allegiance to those in leadership.

Tina wrote:

patriciamc wrote:

Dave (Eagle) wrote:
Again all that I read a book by Philip Yancey called “Disappointment with God.”
I’m going to have to check this book out. Thanks!

I’ve read this. Yancey is one Christian author that refuses to resort to simplistic answers. I like that.

Yancey is one Christian author who lives in (and deals with) Reality.
A rare occurrence these days.

“God lives in the real world.”
— Rich Buhler

Lydia wrote:

I tried to talk to some young restless and reformed pastors about this and the response I got was ‘if people are too stupid not to ask the right questions then it is their fault. I am teaching biblical Christianity’.

If what they’re teaching is “Biblical Christianity” then “God Delusion” Dawkins has the right idea.

Mae wrote:

Having just come out of the hospital, after a five day ICU stay, these men’s words bring me no comfort.

Mae. I am so sorry. Thanks so much for your perspective.

Friend wrote:

Nick Bulbeck wrote:

my time last week running on my own in non-race conditions was 54’36”

My poor US-issued brain is trying to figure out how the 40-yard dash got to be 54 feet + 36 inches… and converted from distance to time. This must have to do with the space-time continuum.

Thank God. I thought I had totally lost it.

zooey111 wrote:

OK, that’s my miracle. I would have preferred one that didn’t kill Daddy, that didn’t kill my mother, that didn’;t leave me with a bunch of lingering health problems. But you know what? I am here, all these years later, telling this story. Without Bernard, none of you would be hearing this…….

Wow….

Christiane wrote:

patriciamc wrote:

We here at TWW really need to write our own book of Proverbs.

HEADLESS is a legend in his own time.

Better a Legend in His Own Time than a Legend in His Own Mind.