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
6 Things the Church Fathers Can Teach Us about Spiritual Warfare
Image by Christina Saint Marche via Flickr Unlike our thinking today about the source of good and evil in the world, the early church fathers, including Irenaus, Athenagorus, Origen, and others before Augustine, possessed a warfare worldview. Here are 6 ideas that are common in their writings: The Reality of the “World-in-Between” The church fathers assumed…
God Does Not Always Get What He Wants
One of the ways the Bible makes it clear that humans have free will and that God doesn’t predetermine human decisions is found in the responses God has toward human choices. Scripture consistently depicts God as being frustrated by the way his people obstinately resist his plans and Scripture often depicts God’s heart as breaking…
Podcast: Does Evil Really Exist?
Greg considers the idea that evil is simply the privation of good. He then offers a better explanation. http://traffic.libsyn.com/askgregboyd/Episode_0116.mp3
An Uneasy History
Although Abraham Lincoln is widely regarded as a tireless champion for the equal rights of African Americans, there are many indications that he held views that we would find shocking today. It’s important to understand the reality of our history to truly appreciate the challenges we face in the area of racial reconciliation today. In…
“Unclean” Animals and the Corruption of Creation
I’ve always been a bit mystified over the distinction between “clean” and “unclean” animals in the OT. I have read several attempts to justify this distinction on the grounds that the former were healthier — or at least less dangerous — to eat, but these defenses never struck me as all that convincing. In his…
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…