Not what I believe
“Coronavirus is
not God’s judgment on the world. We need to stop preaching Christian Karma. The
Cross of Christ destroys all Karma. God wants to save the world, not hurl
disaster at it!” Dr Andrew Farley
Coronavirus is not God’s judgment on the world. We need to stop preaching Christian Karma. The Cross of Christ destroys all Karma. God wants to save the world, not hurl disaster at it!— Dr. Andrew Farley (@DrAndrewFarley) March 23, 2020
This was a tweet that
appeared to encapsulate ideas I have not been able to articulate for a while.
The number of religious people who look for disasters to project of a version
of a vengeful and truculent deity who can only gain our attention by visiting calamity and catastrophe on his creatures.
Too many times we
have heard, after an earthquake, a tsunami, a hurricane, a plague, or some natural
disaster, where hapless lives are lost in stories that never get told except in
the sheer spectacle of the horror that leaves us with a sense of the fragility of life
and the suddenness that could end it.
In comes a religious figure who in their Jeremiad finds a greatly unmistakable sign from on
high, as if we are back to our primordial animist worship practices, the gods are
angry and we need to bring sacrifices up to the temples, mountains or grottos
to appease the gods to spare us from another disaster.
Come with Noah’s
Ark
The Christian variety
of the evangelical or charismatic strand are the biggest culprits, from prophets
who see the evil to come but are rarely able, willing, or equipped to navigate
their flock from the apparent wrath to come, but are ready to gain the fame of
having foretold the passing of the disaster. Their revelation never goes as far
as to be inspired to build a Noah’s Ark as a sanctuary from the many floods, saving
life and more.
Neither do I believe
in Christian Karma, I separate the revelation of the God of the Old Testament
from the God introduced in the New Testament through the ministry of Jesus
Christ. In my view, his only act of mischief would have been when he allowed
the evil spirits in a possessed man to enter swine and that drove the swine into
the sea, at which point those spirits would have needed to find other hosts. [Bible Gateway - A Demon-Possessed Man Healed]
Our capacity in
calamity
Like a friend opined
yesterday, he said apart from the fragility of humanity, there is a resilience
and strength that cannot be fully understood, the capacity of man to face adversity
and come out the stronger and wiser to life and purpose. The spirits could not
destroy the man even though they made his life miserable and yet the swine had
no capacity to handle those spirits, their entry was an immediate suicide run
in the swine.
Anyway, one of the
reasons I do not believe in the concept of Christian Karma was in the words of
Jesus Christ himself, when you look at the verse after John 3:16, John 3:17 says
it all, “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but
that the world through Him might be saved.” (NKJV)
Salvation is not for
retribution
You don’t save the
world, believer or unbeliever, sinner, or saint, Christian, Gentile or any
identity you might care to possess by destroying them. Condemnation is not the
purpose, even if a natural disaster, plague, or some other adversity comes our
way. The prevailing purpose, opportunity, and desire are to save, it is of
salvation and triumph. That is not in any way the spirit of Karma.
So, it is with
sadness when I could in my basest human instinct lay hold on Schadenfreude that
I learnt that a preacher who thought COVID-19 was an exciting bout of mass
hysteria had now fallen victim to the Coronavirus and passed away.
It’s a shame, I doubt
his religious beliefs would have expected that, yet, we are only human. Things
happen to us, but I hope in our story, we can take whatever happens and create
a better happening. May his soul rest in peace and may his survivors be
comforted and strengthened with fortitude in this time of loss. [RawStory]
