And we’re back, with bells on. What a month it’s been. To the most important and darkest note of January 2010: the Haitian earthquake. Oh, and, stupid things rich, self-important people say in times like this.
Dehumanizing Haiti
On January 14, the Canadian late-night show The Hour featured a segment entitled “Christian Far Wrong.” In it, a brief sound bite of American religious loudspeaker Pat Robertson was shown (now widely available on YouTube), in which he claimed that the Haiti disaster was some sort of divine judgement because the Haitians had made a pact with the devil to get rid of the French.
You can just imagine how well that flew with a multicultural audience whose other official language is French. About as well as it flew with Ron and Julie, who’ve adopted Haitian children, when it came up at church.
Setting the Record Straight
Show host George Stroumboulopoulos, who has very respectfully interviewed Anne Graham Lotz and others of many and varied stripes in the past, shouted at the camera: “Who would want to follow the god of a guy who says sh*t like that? Hey, Pat Robertson, do you even read the Bible?”
And on the screen, he displayed and read aloud the text of Proverbs 14:31:
He who oppresses the poor reproaches his Maker,
But he who is gracious to the needy honors God.
George followed up with, “That’s what the Bible says Christians are supposed to do, not make up dumb sh*t!”
George is right. Thank you, George.
Being the Opposing Argument
What Pat Robertson has done is just what every thoughtful non-Christian would (in this case, rightly) point to as a refutation of the value of Christian ideas. Pat Robertson just blamed God for Haiti’s suffering. In particular, some kind of ongoing battle between God and the devil where humanity figures super-simplistically as the civilian casualty to the Ultimate Power’s jealous whims.
Blame God? No. If God is disavowed, we’re left with nothing but random events of nature and their intersection with human self-service. The earthquake has put a sunbeam through a magnifying glass and illuminated several other deep problems to incendiary levels.
The undermining of a nation’s economy with underpriced foreign goods. The embezzlement of national monies; the support of dictatorships. The hoarding of personal wealth and the waste of it on frivolous luxury instead of extending help to the poor. People do these things.
You and I do these things.
It’s God who allows us to logically define them as evil.
With that in mind, let’s have a look at what real lessons we in North America might take away from the disaster.
The Consolation of Citizenship
On the CBC news of January 15, two Canadian evacuees were interviewed. One woman tearfully described being surrounded by the dead, dismembered and dying as the Canadian survivors were loaded onto a bus. She talked about seeing the embassy ahead, and how when they stepped off that bus, the ambassador was waiting for them. He extended his hand and said, “Welcome to Canada.”
Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.
~Phil. 2:5-7
For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ;
~Phil. 3:20
Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were entreating through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
~2 Cor. 5:20
The Resources to Engage Suffering
She was safe within the gates. And yet, she expressed such overwhelming guilt for all the people she left behind. Outside was wailing and mourning. She went to the gate and saw people in the streets, curled up in despair. She stretched her hand through and took the hand of a man who stood outside, and looked him in the eye. She did not have words for that moment. I can only imagine the helplessness and despair of having to let go of that man’s hand. But it doesn’t mean letting go of Haiti.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort; who comforts us in all our affliction so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.
~2 Cor. 1:3-4
The second interviewee tried to describe the feeling of knowing she is a citizen of a country that cares enough to send out a military plane to come find her and bring her home. The privilege of having food and clothing simply because of her citizenship. Visibly restraining tears, she said, “And they . . . have nothing.”
If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,” and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that?
~James 2:15-16
The Strength for Delayed Gratification
What’s the lesson? We can’t fix everything. We shouldn’t assume we know how. But we can do what we can do. We can lay aside some (or if necessary, all) comfort in the knowledge that this is not going to last beyond death’s door.
And ultimately, even the woes of Haiti can be overpowered by the eternal weight of joy beyond the gates. We all die. Sometimes too soon, sometimes too painfully. A lucky few, comfortably in our sleep. But we all die. Death is coming for you, it’s coming for your neighbour. It’s coming for me. Death has come to Haiti, and it was coming anyway.
I believe the weight of evidence is in favour of the existence of heaven and hell. The earth has just had a foretaste of the latter, in good part thanks to the great human taint—whether through its presence in Haiti’s history and current geopolitical situation, or its presence in the indifference of the wealthier world to Haiti’s poverty—conditions that did not begin with this disaster, and certainly worsened the disaster’s impact.
The Assurance of Things Not Seen
Christians, the lesson is: share the riches of heaven — the temporal and the eternal. Give without thought of return. (And responsibly.) Make the most of the time, whether the other person’s citizenship is with us or not. Because the days really are evil.
For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.
~1 Cor. 15:16-19
Most to be pitied in our pointless fervour; most to be pitied in our senseless hope. And most to be pitied in our insistence that life is worth anything more than benign indifference.
“Are not five sparrows sold for two cents? And yet not one of them is forgotten before God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear; you are of more value than many sparrows.”
~Luke 12:6-7
The one lonely point I can give Pat Robertson is for his vague and misdirected sense that there should be some meaning to the tragedy, something more than catastrophic natural selection. In that he was right. They are of more value than many, many sparrows. The question is, how do we know, and what will we do with that knowledge?
Is this what it takes for us to care?
Cat, Thanks for the link. There is an interesting series on the historicity of Haiti’s pact with the Devil at Bits & Bytes: The Devil Loves Creole.
Now, on possibly related posts, I am going to see what Richard Dawkins has to say about Haiti. Generally, I think he is as poor of a spokesperson for atheism as Robertson is to Christianity. But… entertaining none the less.
Sick today, and spent most of it in bed. Headed back there promptly.
Clicking through, there is a lot of good info and cultural perspective there. I think we have to remember we can learn some things for ourselves, we can support and help, but Haiti belongs to Haitians to recover, not to us.
The perspective on the UN peacekeeping force is interesting, and I think telling. Ultimately, it’s an experiment in the pragmatics of global governance, and those nations subject to destabilized political and economic circumstances are the lab rats at the moment.
When there is a military on the ground, it defines who’s in governance. While “security” and “economic terrorism” are being put forth for basis, there are deeper issues of sovereignty in play in terms of international politics.
From your link:
“…entertaining none the less.”
Yep, and doesn’t fail us this time either.
I would hope most discerning atheists/skeptics would agree with your view of the man. There are many atheists I find much more respectable, and who’d make better spokespeople.
“Is this what it takes for us to care?”
And that’s the part that concerns me most, because it seems to me that once the dust has settled and the last body is removed, no one will care any longer. Does that mean we never genuinely cared in the first place? Not necessarily, but it does in many cases, and it belies a merely emotional response in others, amid those who demonstrate genuine concern.
“he claimed that the Haiti disaster was some sort of divine judgment”
What a great example of what Christianity becomes when it is entangled in politics. It’s not pretty, never has been. Good for your Canadian for exposing it. Pat was wrong for this comment; let’s get that part straight.
Otherwise, do you think it’s possible for us to actually know whether or not this was direct and immediate divine judgment? I’m not convinced that we can beyond the obvious point that no victims are ever innocent; however, I ask because there is another definite strain within Christianity that claims that God would never come in judgment like this now that we’re under the new covenant. Pat’s comment is seen as an Old Testament view of God, and God is no longer like that. Indeed, the Haitian earthquake pales in comparison with the flood, but the flood was God as he once was, not at all like he has become: the tolerant, loving God of 21st century western Christianity who wrings his hands over earthquakes, which, it seems to me, is a God created in the image of 21st century Western man when compared with the Biblical text.
“If God is disavowed, we’re left with nothing but random events of nature and their intersection with human self-service.”
Exactly, but since we do not disavow God, we assume he was involved in some manner, right?
“But we all die. Death is coming for you, it’s coming for your neighbour. It’s coming for me. Death has come to Haiti, and it was coming anyway.”
Well said. We should never forget this and it should color our actions, yet it’s such an unpopular message these days. I was called a depressing person for saying this very thing at work yesterday.
“Christians, the lesson is: share the riches of heaven — the temporal and the eternal. Give without thought of return.”
Point taken.
“Otherwise, do you think it’s possible for us to actually know whether or not this was direct and immediate divine judgment? ”
I can make a suggestion for a starting place of actual biblical investigation.
Contextually to that verse and others like it, unless we allege either a universalist salvation or a fairly liberal sense of the Roman penance, there is no correlation to be drawn between corporate judgement/discipline and Haiti. Judgement, after all, begins with the household of God. The only way to do so would be to don a cardboard sign and stand on the sidewalk warning of final doom imminent upon the rest of the globe as well, and I’m not sure the GM bailout really qualifies.
“the tolerant, loving God of 21st century western Christianity who wrings his hands over earthquakes”
…Which implies He had no control over them, and renders a functionally atheist, or perhaps sociopathic, theology to the question. Either God’s an impotent hand-wringer, or He destroyed so He could wring His hands and make the foolish worship Him for His compassion.
If we’re to consider the sovereign action of God here, we might look at His sovereignty over government, which is divinely appointed to carry out justice; He makes the nations as dust and displaces rulers like chaff. We can turn to the Old Testament or the New for that.
I would hope that the Haitian spirit fills the current void with something better than what went before. I’m not generally an optimist about these things, but it’s a very unique nation and culture. So I’m also not immune to the hope that this might become another time like the 1804 independence. These are Beverly’s people, after all. :~)
“I was called a depressing person for saying this very thing at work yesterday.”
LOL Oh my word, there’s a misconstruction of your person if I ever heard one. Clearly I’m bad for your image. Run away!!
I’m currently at a conference where our featured speaker spent six years in Haiti. He said that we shouldn’t blame God for the disaster, but it is natural for us to want to blame someone. So he blames the French. He said 300 years ago they built a city on a major fault. Besides, what are they going to do? All their tanks only go in reverse ;-P!
Hmmmm……
Why do I have the vague, nagging sense that a Texan conspiracy theory may yet be arising here? And that it may be unflattering to my secondary linguistic persuasions?
~Boucle D’Or