Pollyanna Preachers

I referred to a First Things article in which Richard John Neuhaus commented about Joel Osteen. Neuhaus has heard from readers on the issue and about half agree, half do not. He refers to a Breakpoint article, Pollyanna Preachers, which mentions Osteen, but focuses more on the deeper question of evil by Roman Catholic Mark Gauvreau Judge. The "Pollyanna" term is used to describe a tendency to see every event, no matter how horrible, as par of "God's plan", thus no horrible thing is ever really horrible and evil becomes a mere word.

"Osteen doesn’t seem to believe in evil—or free will. To him, every event under—and around—the sun is the work of Divine Providence. Lost your job? God’s got something better prepared for you. Flat tire? God’s just testing your patience. Home and family wiped out by Hurricane Katrina? The hand of Jesus. Child accidentally killed? It’s the will of the Maker."

Judge refers to a book by Orthodox theologian David Bentley Hart The Doors of the Sea: Where was God in the Tsunami? which takes a look at evil from a far different perspective. Judge summarizes Hart's main thesis:

"More exasperating [than the cry of doubters that there is no God] were the attempts of well-intentioned Christians to rationalize the catastrophe in ways that, however inadvertently, succeeded only in making the arguments [of the atheists] seem at once both germane and profound.” If God is behind the tsunami and everything else that happens, Hart notes, then God is nothing but a pure expression of will—an expression that leaves no room for freedom."

This is the Calvinist-Arminian debate, from a different angle. Most folks focus on the sovereignty of God vs. free will from a perspective that is concerned primarily with salvation. Calvinists are zealously committed to guarding against salvation by human works and the bondage of the will is vital to that system of thought. In the end all things, including human choices and evil events are part of God's cosmic plan set forth from the foundation of the world. The saved are "eternally secure" because God chose them before the foundation of the world.

But as total sovereignty is seen through the lens of suffering, it causes even committed believers to question God. Why would God plan a tsunami from before the foundation of the world? And if they do not question God, they have to find ways to reconcile themselves to the idea that the evil is somehow part of God's plan.

I have long struggled to reconcile Jesus' weeping at the tomb of Lazarus with the idea that the whole death and miraculous raising of Lazarus was somehow part of a plan. If Lazarus was meant to die so that Jesus could raise him and demonstrate his power and glory, then why did he weep? Why did he not, like the Pollyanna preachers, simply reassure the grieving onlookers that something better was just around the corner? Why didn't he march in with a cheerful grin and tell everyone that all was under control, this was all part of God's will and things will all work out fine? Instead, scripture says he was "deeply moved", even angry as he stood before the tomb of his friend. To say that "everything is God's will" is a compact little pat answer, but it falls short...

"Furthermore—and this is Hart’s most compelling point—to say so is to contradict the actual message of the Gospel. Christ did not call leprosy, disability, and death “good things that come from heaven.” He came to overthrow those things, to conquer that which is rejected by God."

I tend to believe the Eastern church, less influenced by Augustine and thus bypassed by the Calvinist-Arminian debate has a better balance between God's sovereignty and human freedom. How much better, when faced with evil and suffering, to be able to say that we can fight God's enemies - suffering, death, and evil - with acts of mercy, justice, righteousness. How much better to not have fight the urge to blame God or question God. How much better to not have to pretend that the suffering and evil are unimportant or are just an "opportunity" for something better (which often never comes in this life). How much better to believe we have free will, and can choose to make a difference.