God made him do it, and other fails

My friend Kandi tagged me on Facebook in a video of Fox News host Mike Huckabee discussing the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting. Here it is:

Mike Huckabee’s Incredible Response to Newtown Shooting – Where was God? from anberlin_fan on GodTube.

What shames me is that in claiming the name of Jesus I immediately become associated with some of the most judgmental people: Evangelicals in the hands of an angry God.

People like Fred Phelps and his Westboro clan.

Or James Dobson, who said the Newtown, CT., massacre is the result of Americans turning their backs on God.  Pay back for gay marriage as it were.

 I think we have turned our back on the scripture and on God almighty and I think he has allowed judgment to fall upon us. I think that’s what’s going on, Dobson said. 

And Dobson isn’t the only Evangelical acting like God’s loudmouth.

Bryan Fischer, host of American Family Association radio show, said God did not protect the Sandy Hook’s victims because prayer was removed from the schools. Former GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said Americans should not be surprised at the tragedy because “we have systematically removed God from our schools.”

And Tennessee Pastor Sam Morris stood before his congregation and told them the following about the murders in Newtown:

– We ought to “string Adam Lanza up in public and set his body on fire and leave it out there to let the birds pick his bones.”
– “We get all up in arms about 20 children being shot in a day care but we don’t give one good-glory rip about the 4,000 that were removed violently from the wombs of their mothers [in abortion procedures] the same day,” he explained. “I believe they use children and Christmas and all that to pull on our heart strings about gun control. That’s what it’s all about.”
–“What’s behind this shooting that we saw on Dec. 14 in Newtown, Connecticut and the other one’s like it? What’s going on. Well, number one, deception… I got news for you, when you kicked God out of schools, you’re going to be judged for that.”

Poor God. Do you think he ever ashamed to be associated with the likes of us Evangelicals?

I don’t know the mind of God, but Lord have mercy, I’m embarrassed, and I’m not even Evangelical. Do I think there’s some truth in those quotes? Yeah, sure, but even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

With the recent loss of my sister, I’ve been experiencing my own pain. It sucks. One day Jos was here, the next, her husband came home to her body. I’m not sure if it’s possible for me to ever truly understand it.

One thing I do, though, is meditate on my Uncle Curtis’ eulogy, about how horrible, unexplainable tragedies occur, not as God’s vengeful wrath, but as part of this broken world.

I know this won’t sit right in the minds of so many. We like to think, if I’m a good Christian, pay my tithes, don’t cheat, read my Bible, well then, I’ll be blessed, tenfold even. The consummate overachieving, straight “A”, middle child that I was, I believed it, too. But life happened. I have health issues, ones so bad I had to leave my job. And now I’m broker than 18 year old me (and I was hella broke then making $5.50/hr.). If it weren’t for K… Did my godlessness bring about my sorry state of affairs? Nah… turning back to Karen’s post:

When will Evangelicals ever learn that we are not sinners in the hands of an angry God, but dear ones grasped by the nail-scarred hands of Christ?