Blaming God for tragedy nothing new

Why do the innocent suffer? It's a question as old as the Book of Job and as current as today's headlines.

Many criticized prominent evangelicals like James Dobson and Mike Huckabee for claiming last week's Connecticut school massacre was God’s punishment of a morally disobedient nation, but don't expect such views to change. Scholars say the belief in divine retribution for personal and national transgressions not only goes back as far as the Bible's Book of Job, it’s also a concept fused into the American worldview.

“This is a recurring pattern in American history since the Puritans,” said Barry Hankins, professor of history and resident scholar in religion at Baylor University. “They believed God is in covenant with nations and in covenant with America.”

Theologians call it theodicy -- beliefs that seek to explain why a just God allows human beings to suffer. In the United States, biblical theodicy becomes intertwined with civil religion. "It's hard to tell where one begins and the other one ends," Hankins said.

Hankins said that has been in full display since the Dec. 14 murders of 20 first graders and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary. Naturally, people, including the victims' families, are asking "why?"

For former presidential candidate and Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, a Southern Baptist minister, the answer is that God is punishing the nation because schools do not sanction prayer and religious instruction (he later added abortion pills).

Focus on the Family founder James Dobson said gay marriage and secularism forced God’s hand to slaughter 20 first graders and six adults at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown.

Those are just the latest examples. Conservative Christians have blamed everything from 9/11 to Hurricane Katrina on Americans living what they consider to be unbiblical lives.

“It’s all born of this idea that God judges America on a case-by-case basis,” Hankins said.

That’s an idea born straight out of the Old Testament, said Matthew Baldwin, associate professor in the department of religion, history and philosophy at Mars Hill College in North Carolina.

Baldwin teaches theodicy and historical biblical theology and sees both in the recent comments of Huckabee and Dobson. But he said their God-punishes-America view is a narrow one even by biblical standards.

Baldwin said the early prophets interpreted calamity as God’s punishment of Israel for the misbehavior of individuals. But the prophet Jeremiah offers a view in which the nation is not held accountable for the actions of a few or even many. In the Book of Job, meanwhile, Baldwin said, “The author says ‘look, sometimes suffering just happens.’” He said the belief that God smites the many for the sins of the few is even further dissipated in the Gospels.

Baldwin said that evolving message is not reflected in the theology of conservative American Christians. “The theodicy these guys are working with … holds God responsible for both natural disasters and these human-made tragedies,” Baldwin said. “It’s rooted in the ancient Israelite conception that God is in control of every single thing that happens.”

Dennis Sansom, professor and chair of philosophy at Samford University, said it is also rooted in human nature. “It’s part of the human condition to ask why and look for explanations” when disasters and suffering occurs, Sansom told ABPnews via e-mail.

He said it’s also natural for those who believe in a good, loving God to ask why evil exists -- and what behaviors can be adopted or modified to prevent disasters. It’s why he predicts more of the same in the future -- especially in the United States, where theodicy is woven in the social and political fabric.

“I think such comments will be with us regardless of how secular or non-churched the society becomes,” Sansom said.

1 John 1:5 -

“This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.”

John 10:10 -

“The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.”

The adversary Satin steals, kills and destroys, not God. God wants his children under his protection and to live a more abundant life. But it takes believing in him, faith in him, and diligently seeking him out.

Hebrews 11:6 -

“But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.”

It seems everyone wants there to be heaven on earth NOW. They want a Santa Claus God, a Fairy God-mother, someone who is all powerful and all loving and who will give them everything they could want or need and where nothing ever bad can happen. They want an Eden, a return to the garden where all is perfect, everyone is happy, nothing can possibly go wrong. It is the same old story of man’s selfishness and refusal to obey God, but STILL expect God’s protective hand over them in all things. It doesn’t work that way!

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