Katrina/Rita Update
Well, it looks like all our youth are safe and more-or-less OK. Thanks to God.
There are a couple of things I'd like to mention, because goofy theology always seem to come up whenever anything terrible like this happened.
The first stupid idea is that the people who suffered these kinds of calamities do so because God wanted to prove some point, or punish somebody. God doesn't work that way. God never works that way. People who start saying that Katrina, or 9/11, or AIDS or what have you is God visiting judgment on the victims usually don't know any of those victims. If they did, they wouldn't say such stupid things. You, the Northminster youth, know people who have lost their homes (though thankfully not their lives) and you know what nonsense this "God got them" theology is.
For a biblical reference, see, e.g., John chapter 9, where Jesus heals a man who is born blind. Before doing this, however, he dismisses as nonsense a question about who's fault the man's blindness is: his or his parents.
The next bit of really bad theology is akin to the first. The fact that we survived this storm does not mean that we are somehow better than those who did not. We are blessed, but this is not like some "attaboy" from the King of Kings. We stand where we do by God's grace alone, no more deserving than anyone else. We are called not to lord it over others and somehow claim more worthy of our blessings, but to serve those who are not so blessed.
For a biblical reference here, check out Mark 10:35-45. James and John ask Jesus if they can sit on his right and left when he comes into his glory. Jesus tells him that they don't know what they're asking. They say, "Yes we do." But Jesus says those spots are already taken. There's general grumbling among the apostles then, and Jesus tells them that the greatest are the greatest servants.
So, the storm doesn't mean we're cursed and it doesn't mean we're blessed. We're blessed as we have always been blessed, by the grace of a God who will never leave us. Ever.
There are a couple of things I'd like to mention, because goofy theology always seem to come up whenever anything terrible like this happened.
The first stupid idea is that the people who suffered these kinds of calamities do so because God wanted to prove some point, or punish somebody. God doesn't work that way. God never works that way. People who start saying that Katrina, or 9/11, or AIDS or what have you is God visiting judgment on the victims usually don't know any of those victims. If they did, they wouldn't say such stupid things. You, the Northminster youth, know people who have lost their homes (though thankfully not their lives) and you know what nonsense this "God got them" theology is.
For a biblical reference, see, e.g., John chapter 9, where Jesus heals a man who is born blind. Before doing this, however, he dismisses as nonsense a question about who's fault the man's blindness is: his or his parents.
The next bit of really bad theology is akin to the first. The fact that we survived this storm does not mean that we are somehow better than those who did not. We are blessed, but this is not like some "attaboy" from the King of Kings. We stand where we do by God's grace alone, no more deserving than anyone else. We are called not to lord it over others and somehow claim more worthy of our blessings, but to serve those who are not so blessed.
For a biblical reference here, check out Mark 10:35-45. James and John ask Jesus if they can sit on his right and left when he comes into his glory. Jesus tells him that they don't know what they're asking. They say, "Yes we do." But Jesus says those spots are already taken. There's general grumbling among the apostles then, and Jesus tells them that the greatest are the greatest servants.
So, the storm doesn't mean we're cursed and it doesn't mean we're blessed. We're blessed as we have always been blessed, by the grace of a God who will never leave us. Ever.
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