Q: When soldiers die and natural
disasters occur, are these things a sign of God’s judgment on America for
immoral lifestyles or lack of religious belief?
Even though this sort of conclusion
is believed by only a small minority of Americans, several times in recent
years, those small, but vocal, few have drawn media attention for their
claims. After hurricane Katrina, two
prominent religious leaders insisted it was God’s judgment against New Orleans
for its sins. When another hurricane
threatened the same area recently, one of them claimed it was for the same
reason. Another group insists that the
death of U.S. Soldiers abroad is God’s punishment against the United States
because our nation’s laws fail to punish certain types of immorality.
The thing about this, though, is that
God got out of the business of having a favorite nation which were “his people”
as of the death and resurrection of Jesus.
From that point forward, the New Testament is very clear that God’s
people (now known as Christians or the Church) come from every nation. God no longer works by supporting or
destroying nations because of their religious convictions. Instead, He desires that governments would
provide safe and free societies where His Church can do the work of convincing
people regarding morality and religious teaching.
When Jesus is presented with a blind
man in John 9, the Pharisees, and even His own followers, speculate over whose
sin caused this man to be born blind.
Some said it was his own sin.
Others said it was his parents’, but Jesus responded, “It was not that
this man sinned or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in
him,” and He says in Matthew 5, “[God] makes His sun rise on the evil and the
good and sends rain on the just and the unjust.”
Much like God’s earthly blessings and
provision do not come only to Christians, but to all people regardless of
spiritual standing, tragedy occurs in the same way. All people suffer various kinds of illness
and disaster. There are devoted
Christians who suffer immensely in this life while there are notoriously
immoral people who are wealthy and strong.
When these tragic circumstances come upon a person or a city, it is not
because God is particularly displeased with them, but rather because human sin
has broken the world and thrown it off course from God’s will for it.
So, when a soldier is killed it is
the result of the sin of the enemy who attacked him, not because God is
displeased with him and his nation.
Likewise when a hurricane, earthquake, or tsunami threaten or destroy a
city or a whole region, it is not because God is particularly displeased with
them, but rather because the collective sin of humanity has brought destruction
even as far as nature itself, which then returns on us—not as compensation for
specific sins, but similar to a car whose driver is asleep at the wheel and
takes out anyone, righteous or unrighteous, in its path.
So, when we are healthy and have
plenty, we ought not think it is because we are more worthy, and when we suffer
pain and need, or even death itself, we ought not think it is because we are
less worthy. Instead, Christian teaching
acknowledges that God is the author of every blessing, while humanity and its
rebellious disobedience are solely and collectively responsible for all of the
evils of nature and our fellow man which we face.
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