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.

Colorado_RECT

A Natural Disaster With No One to Blame

In a recent article from Relevant Magazine, Denver Pastor Michael Hidalgo asks, “why are the leaders who claim that God acts through natural disasters so quiet all of a sudden?”

These leaders who have seemed to be so quick to say, for example, the destruction in Haiti was God’s punishment for their ungodliness seem to be less enthusiastic to claim God’s judgment upon Colorado Springs, CO–a nexus of home bases for several Christian organizations.

Hidalgo goes on:

It seems the only thing these leaders who blame others for natural disasters have admitted is they believe God can’t possibly put up with others who are not like them. While they seem to enjoy the opportunity to blame and level accusation, they forget God is not the one who is called “the accuser.”

Check out the full article here.

You can read Greg’s own past reflections on this subject through the links below:

 


Photo from Relevant Magazine.

 

 

 

Related Reading

The Point of the Book of Job

The point of the book of Job is to teach us that the mystery of evil is a mystery of a war-torn and unfathomably complex creation, not the mystery of God’s all-controlling will. Given how Christians are yet inclined to look for a divine reason behind catastrophes and personal tragedies, I think it’s a point…

Why Compatibilistic Freedom Does Not Make Sense

Compatibilism is the view that free will is compatible with determinism. In this view, freedom is defined as the ability to do what you want, though what you want is determined by factors outside of you. Theologians who espouse this perspective, hold that God ultimately determines what individuals want. This is in contrast to “self-determining…

“The greatest trick the devil ever pulled…”

“…was convincing the world he didn’t exist.” ~Verbal Kint, The Usual Suspects Roger Olson reflected a few days ago on the curious absence of any discussion of Satan in modern theology. He even speculated: I suspect that one reason Greg Boyd, a brilliant theologian, is not taken as seriously as he should be by many…

The Magi and an Arbitrary Massacre

On a cool fall night in Bethlehem, late in the 34th year of the reign of king Herod, a peasant family of five sleeps quietly in a one room shanty at the edge of town. They are startled awake as two Roman guards burst through their door shouting something about an edict from a king.…

Why? The Question That Cannot Be Answered

Yesterday Greg sent out the following flurry of tweets: To provide some background to these tweets, the following illustration will prove helpful: They mystery of evil and an eight-second interval Let’s assume that there is an eight-second interval between two cars. Now let’s try to explain why there is this eight-second interval at this particular…

Podcast: Why Must God Wait for Prayer to Meet Our Needs?

Is God a bad father? Greg explores the intricacies and nuances of prayer. http://traffic.libsyn.com/askgregboyd/Episode_0404.mp3