(Ir)religiosity

I’ve been doing a lot of Moltmann reading in preparation for the Moltmann Conversation in Chicago next month.  Today I read Religion, Revolution, and the Future, an early collection essays and lectures.  I ran across a passage in the last article, “Hope and History,” that is very poignant given John Piper’s latest snafu.

The cosmological proofs for the existence of God, in which the divinity of God and his presence were brought into an analogical relationship to the experience of the world accessible to everyone, have lost their persuasive power, since modern man no longer understands himself as a part of the cosmos, but has placed the world as material of his scientific and technical possibilities over against himself. He no longer lives in the house of ordered being but in the open history of a technical transformation of the world. The old cosmological-theistic world view which spoke of God in relationship to the cosmos of the natural world is antiquated and is experienced as mythical by man who has become the master of his environment. But it is naive pathos of the enlightenment to discard the fundamental question which was to be answered by the old world view. Behind the cosmological-theistic world views lies the real misery of man which expressed itself in the manifold forms of the theodicy question: Si deus, unde malum? (If God exists, whence evil?). The old world view answered this fundamental question in the vision of the orderly and wisely steered cosmos and used the image of the divine cosmos in order to do battle against chaos threatening everywhere. Even though this answer no longer persuades today, since we experience reality as history and no longer as cosmos, the fundamental theodicy question is still with us and is more pressing than before.

The core problem with Piper’s view — aside from the outdated cosmology — is theological determinism.  Such a view makes things very simple to understand:  X happened because God caused it and thought it should happen, there is a moral reason for everything that happens in the cosmos so we shouldn’t worry too much, it will all work out in the end.  It is an easy way to make sense of tragedy but I must effectively excuse myself from wrestling with the moral ambiguities of reality.  Not to mention that must ascribe to a premodern cosmology and assume that God is, at best, amoral.

The point of theology (and philosophy), in my view, is not to offer simple answers — which always posits certainty — but to continually wrestle with the questions and to learn to live with the inherent ambiguities of reality.  Piper, in suggesting that the tornado was a “firm but gentle warning,” not only singles an entire group of people for blame and judgment or supposes a vengeful and angry God beholden to an antiquated cosmology, but also claims to be certain about the nature of reality.  It is an easy answer to a complicated problem and, as I and others have pointed out, it presents disturbing problems of its own.

So, according to Moltmann, Piper’s answer for why the tornado happened is no longer persuasive; however, the core issue is still just as pressing as it ever was.  My question is this: how do we respond?  For those of us who do not ascribe to theological determinism or a premodern cosmology, what is our alternative, our “answer?”  Or, better yet, how do we wrestle with the question?

UPDATE: Drew has published a great post discussing Barth’s answer to this very question.  And at almost the exact same time I published mine!

Today was supposed to be for another Diana Butler Bass post.

But then the gays had to go and cause a tornado in Minnesota.

Like a lot of people yesterday I read John Piper’s outrageous post claiming that God caused a tornado in Minneapolis to send a message to the ELCA:  God doesn’t like gays and doesn’t want them in His (yes, His) church.  And like a lot of people I was angered.

I left this comment on Piper’s post:

It is deeply disappointing to see such a prominent Christian leader yet again contributing to the narrative of fear. You’re peddling a poisonous and toxic theology Mr. Piper. And you join the likes of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson in doing so. Yours is a Christianity that betrays the heart of the gospel. I highly doubt you will, but I pray that you retract your words.

I was in a hurry so here’s a few more thoughts.  (My hope is that more people (people who, unlike me, have voice and influence) will call Piper out on this because the last thing we need is another excuse for people to write off Christians has gay-bashing, fanatical, wing nuts.)

The theology is ridiculous. I’m hesitant to even call this theology because Piper’s cutting and pasting of scripture tells me that he is more interested in justifying his own ideology with religious authority than he is in serious reflection.¹  It is very destructive and obviously raises some disturbing issues when it comes to theodicy and the nature of God.  The burden of proof is on Piper to explain every other natural disaster.  Who is being punished in all the other tornadoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, and hurricanes?  And what kind of God dishes out punishment of that magnitude?  What of grace?  If God is in the business of unleashing holy hell on those God pleases then why does God only seems to care about who is having consensual sex with whom and who is marrying whom?   Aren’t there other issues that might seem at least a bit more pressing, like say, war or starvation or economic exploitation or disease?  If this is God’s way of dealing with things the why hasn’t the United States been wiped off the map for failing to care for its own as the wealthiest nation in the world or for starting bogus wars abroad in order to secure its “interests?”  What kind of hierarchy of sins is this that sex is at the top and other problems that directly affect persons livelihood don’t even seem to register?  Why doesn’t God give a damn about those?

When you push the thought to its inevitable conclusion, Piper’s God begins to look more in more like the mean kid killing insects with a magnifying glass.  God is a sadist who enjoys inflicting cosmic pain on others.  If that is true then I have no interest in God.  And if religion consists of me running scared for the rest of my life hoping that God isn’t out to get me then I’m out on that too.

Christianity is not a religion of fear.  From beginning to end, it’s narrative is one full of hope for the redemption and restoration of all things.  Piper, in his post, is more interested in a narrative of fear that dehumanizes the other, casting God as a cosmic antagonist, the ultimate mob boss who will kill you on a whim if you look at him the wrong way.  This is not the gospel, indeed it betrays the very heart of the gospel by opting for fear and hate instead of hope and love.  “Perfect love casts out fear.” Jesus modeled that perfect love and brought the narrative of hope to its apex.  He had a ton of opportunities to go postal on someone who didn’t get it or deserved to be punished, but he didn’t.  In fact, in the third act of the story Jesus shows us just how absurd the whole system of punishment and fear really is.  Is that not the clearest and most unambiguous embodiment of the very nature of God?

God does not create tornadoes to “send messages.”

God sent the best message God could 2000 years ago and the message is this: love, not hate wins; hope, not fear, has the final say.

You, John Piper, are on the wrong side of history.  Homosexuals pose no threat to the church nor does God hate, despise, or want to punish them.  We should be welcoming them with open arms to join us in participating in the restoration and renewal of all things.  Justice demands it.

1. To be sure, we’re all guilty of this to some extent, but there are good interpretations and bad interpretations. [↩]