We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.
Speaking of Tragedies
Since we’ve been reflecting on recent tragedies and the varying responses to them, we thought we would add this voice to the mix. This article from the New Yorker points out the differences in media coverage between the Aurora shootings and the shootings at the Sikh temple in Wisconsin.
From the article:
Sadly, the media has ignored the universal elements of this story, distracted perhaps by the unfamiliar names and thick accents of the victims’ families. They present a narrative more reassuring to their viewers, one which rarely uses the word terrorism and which makes it clear that you have little to worry about if you’re not Sikh or Muslim. As a Sikh teaching at a Catholic university in the Midwest, I was both confused and offended by this framing. One need not be Pastor Niemöller to understand our shared loss, or to remember that a similar set of beliefs motivated Timothy McVeigh to kill a hundred and sixty-eight (mainly white) Americans in Oklahoma City.
Image by Alan Cleaver. Used in accordance with Creative Commons. Sourced via Flickr.
Category: General
Tags: Problem of Evil, Racial Reconciliation
Related Reading
If God is already doing the most he can do, how does prayer increase his influence?
Question: If God always does the most that he can in every tragic situation, as you claim in Satan and the Problem of Evil, how can you believe that prayer increases his influence, as you also claim? It seems if you grant that prayer increases God’s influence, you have to deny God was previously doing…
Kingdom Reconciliation is Not About Politics (But it is Political)
In the broader culture, the social and political discussions about racial reconciliation are usually focused on people’s rights and privileges as a means of making the world a fairer place. The criteria such efforts at reconciliation appeal to are common decency, fairness and reason. The enterprise is certainly necessary, and all decent, fair minded, rational…
Grieving with the God who Pulled the Trigger?
Lawrence Krauss recently wrote a thought-provoking, soul-searching essay for CNN Opinion entitled, “Why must a nation grieve with God?” Krauss was disturbed by a comment made by President Obama at a memorial service for the victims of the tragedy at Newtown CT. Commenting on Jesus’ statement to “Let the little children come to me,” Obama opined:…
Quotes to Chew on: Racial Reconciliation
Jesus perfectly embodied God’s heart for racial reconciliation. For example, most Jews of Jesus’ day despised Samaritans as racially impure and as heretics. They avoided physical or social contact with them if at all possible. Yet Jesus went out of his way to have contact with them, even touching some who were lepers. Moreover, he…
Podcast: Is It God Withdrawing OR Is It a Scheme of Satan?
Sometimes evil is attributed to God withdrawing. Sometimes it is attributed to a scheme of Satan. We are called to respond to each differently. So, must we be able to discern which is the case in any given situation? http://traffic.libsyn.com/askgregboyd/Episode_0189.mp3
Did God use Satan to test Job?
Question: In Job 1:21 and 2:10, Job seems to accept “adversity” from God while continuing to trust him. Job blames his troubles on God (i.e. “He shattered me” [16:12], “He breaks me down on every side” [19:10], “For he performs what is appointed for me” [23:14]). In Chapters 1 and 2, God even seems to…