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
Ferguson, Racism, & the Kingdom
In light of the issues that have arisen in Ferguson, Mo this last week (for more on this click here), we thought we would offer some reflections on this topic from Greg that he wrote several years ago. A version of this piece eventually ended up in Greg’s book Myth of a Christian Religion. ___________________________________ Many…
Why Can’t God Stop Evil? The Thomas J. Oord Interview (podcast)
Greg and Thomas talk about Open Theism and how Greg’s views differ from Thomas’s. Theology nerds, get your compass and your flashlight and prepare to go DEEEEEP in the weeds! Thomas’s book: God Can’t Episode 487 http://traffic.libsyn.com/askgregboyd/Episode_0487.mp3
God of Sense and Traditions of Non-Sense
As the title suggests, in his book, God’s Problem: How The Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question – Why We Suffer, Bart Ehrman argues that the Bible has nothing compelling to say about the problem of evil. Well, I just put down a beautifully written four-hundred and fifty page book that compellingly argues…
Free Will: The origin of evil
In this continuing series on free will, Greg discusses how evil can only be accounted for if we acknowledge free will. This is especially true if you believe that God is good.
When Free Will Meets Unfathomable Evil
In the face of tragedy Christians unfortunately tend to recite clichés that attempt to reassure people that, however terrible things seem, everything is unfolding according to God’s mysterious plan. We hear that “God has his reasons”; “God’s ways are not our ways”; “God is still on his throne”; “God doesn’t make mistakes,” and things of…
The Warfare Worldview: What Would You Tell the Younger You?
Aftab Uzzaman via Compfight Jessica Kelley has been fleshing out the Warfare Worldview on her blog in a series of posts using the lens of the death of her child, Henry. Jessica is a beautiful writer, and her reflections are powerful and tender. You’re going to want to be listening to her. Her voice is an…