I am in the midst of an ongoing discussion about the problem of evil and suffering.
Part of the reason that I am grappling with this question is because of my background. My parents began to follow Jesus in their thirties when my sister and I were quite young. We started off at a Presbyterian Church (which is ironic, given how much I don’t like the whole neo-reformed movement these days. But that’s another post. Or not.). We eventually started to attend a charismatic non-denominational church. It was the 80s and we had zero exposure to Christian traditions. My Dad in particular was decidedly anti-establishment and had no desire to attend the usual church with the vestments and festivals and big language. We found community and, truly, life in small churches across Western Canada. We worshipped in community centres, hotel ballrooms, school gyms, movie theaters and Seventh Day Adventist Churches (that didn’t meet on Sundays so their spot was free). We sang choruses, danced a lot, listened to sermons and considered ourselves lucky if the 9:30 service let out before 1 o’clock in the afternoon. We had healing lines, kicky songs, preachers that said the word “sucks” sometimes, women preaches, egalitarian values, racial diversity and anointing oil.
Our churches had tambourines.
I love me some tambourines.
We moved into a smaller movement called Word of Faith but rather than engage in the excesses of the movement that occurred in the USA, our churches tended to preach an emphasis on being “blessed to BE a blessing” as opposed to “being blessed so that you can have a personal jet and be happy and handsome your whole life.”
Although that sounds good to me these days.
I know a lot of people struggle with the Word of Faith movement; I am one of them. (I stopped self-identifying with that movement/theology in my early twenties.) However, I don’t have an ax to grind against the movement or its most visible proponents/teachers. Mainly because I grew up there and I know their hearts, even the “TV preachers”. I know that they love Jesus and that their motives are usually very pure. (I also know some of them are charlatans.) I see the excesses and the over-realised eschatology, usually the result of literal readings or simplistic story-telling. Even where I know that they are wrong, I give the benefit of grace. And the movement does teach a lot of wonderful truths, long neglected by the traditional church. I choose to remain gracious and not judge their motives. I hope that I have found a balance between “thinking critically” and being critical. In short, you won’t find me bashing Word of Faith. That’s still my family, literally and figuratively.
(Rob McAlpine wrote a very helpful book for me called “Post Charismatic?” If you’re grappling with the charismatic movement or one of its splinters (like Word of Faith), it’s a balanced look at how you can remain close to those teachings without the excesses. It helps me balance the truth with the excess.)
Anyway.
My tradition left a big hole that I am trying to fill. My background never addressed suffering or evil in a way that felt satisfactory to me.
Because our movement placed such a strong (occasionally inadvertent) emphasis in those days on control, I grew up almost believing that if you had enough faith, then bad things wouldn’t happen to you. If you knew enough Scripture, if you wrote enough Bible verses down and pinned them to your bathroom mirror, if you prayed often, if you “prayed the Word”, if you never confessed anything remotely negative, then you could affect the outcome every time.
If you were broke, sick, lonely, unemployed, depressed or addicted, then brother, you just needed FAITH.
I had an underlying sense that if someone got sick or died or suffered, then somehow…it must be their own fault.
Maybe unconfessed sin? Maybe not “real” faith? Because it wasn’t possible – it wasn’t conceivable – that God fell down on his side of the bargain. Because the bargain was this: I give up my miserable existence and in return, I become healthy, wealthy and wise.
The thing is that I’ve seen too many people that I know trust and love the Father not get their miracle to believe that anymore. I know that they “did everything right” and somehow, still, it didn’t end the way they thought it should.
But here’s the thing: I no longer believe that it rested entirely on them to begin with. After all, is it really all about how well we perform? How well we do at these things? Like God is a judge or a scorekeeper? Is our faith just a modern method of buying indulgences, pleasing a God that is not moved with compassion? Of course not. That’s ridiculous. God is above all else, Love. And what is Love? For starters, it never gives up, never loses faith, always hopes and endures through every circumstance.
We emphasized so much that “THE WORD WORKS – EVERYTIME“.
Well, yes, it does.
The Word does work everytime. (Now, when Word of Faith says “The Word”, we mean the Bible. But now I have had my mind changed…the Word is actually Jesus. ‘Nother post again later. I better start writing this down.)
I look at the Scriptures and I see that those that loved Jesus, who walked with him, who were, for all intents and purposes doing everything right. And yet lived a life far from the American dream. Transient, tortured, martyred. Laying down their lives in a million small ways. I believe they experienced joy and peace, fulfillment and security. But I don’t read that they experienced what the world would usually expect or value. If anything the Church should have an uneasy sense about the power that the world gives, eschewing the ways of the Empire…after all, it’s notoriously fickle.
I am grappling though because I DO believe in a good God. I do believe in God as Father, as my Papa (go read The Shack, please). I do believe in supernatural healing. I believe that God meets my physical needs. What’s more, I’VE EXPERIENCED IT. So it’s too late to tell me it doesn’t work. I am not a cessasionist. I believe in the gifts of the Holy Spirit and , yes, they make a difference in my life, every day. I believe that God honours a cheerful giver and that tithing is scriptural.
I believe, I believe, I believe! I practice, I practice, I practice. My orthodoxy = my orthopraxy.
His heart is always for us. And how much do I love my children? Then how much more does the God of the universe love them?
How much does he also love me?
How much does he also love you?
So I’m left with a big hole in my theology that my background can’t fill. I haven’t found a satisfactory answer in my faith traditions. So I’m looking for an answer now.
What about you? What was your faith tradition? How did you grow up hearing about evil or suffering? As always, I value your insights.
