Henegar, Amy Bost

English

Pepperdine Digital Commons

LeavenVolume 10Issue 3 Ministry in Times of Crisis Article 81-1-2002A Theological Conversation with Randy Harris andIra Jolivet: Where Was God on September 11?Amy Bost Henegaramyebh@gmail.comFollow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/leavenPart of the Biblical Studies Commons, Christianity Commons, and the Religious Thought,Theology and Philosophy of Religion CommonsThis Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Religion at Pepperdine Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Leaven byan authorized administrator of Pepperdine Digital Commons. For more information, please contact Kevin.Miller3@pepperdine.edu.Recommended CitationHenegar, Amy Bost (2002) "A Theological Conversation with Randy Harris and Ira Jolivet: Where Was God on September 11?,"Leaven: Vol. 10: Iss. 3, Article 8.Available at: http://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/leaven/vol10/iss3/8A Theological Conversation WithRandy Harris and Ira Jolivet:Where Was God on September II?AMY BaST HENEGARAmy Bost Henegar, a chaplain in New York, interviews Dr. Ira Jolivet and Dr. Randy Harris about thetheological implications of September 1I.The question on everyone s mind after September 11th is, "Where was God during that hour, duringthose few hours?" After Columbine, 1 talked to a woman who told me about a meeting of parents. At themeeting, one mother said, "1'mjust so thankful that God protected my daughter. " Another mother respond-ed by saying, "So why didn't God protect my daughter?" 1 think the same quandary was very clear withSeptember 11th. 1heard the story of a CEO who took his child to the first day of kindergarten and was not inthe office on the morning of September Jl th. He survived, but his entire staff was killed. So where was God?Was God intervening and keeping him away? And if so, where was Godfor the people who went to work?Do you think that these questions of evil and whether or not God is are heightened after this? Do you thinkthat people want to know the answers? Do we have any answers? Can we make any sense of this?RH: I think the questions are, for sure, heightened. My students, on issues like these, tend to turn intoCalvinists. I am pretty thoroughly Arminian, so I do not share those views. What they start looking at andasking is, "What was God trying to do here?" I think that is the wrong question. I flirt with what is describedas open theism. I want to at least entertain the possibility that, when the event happened on September 11th,what God said was, "Hmm ... see what they've done now." Then, in ways I cannot fully describe, Godenters into the event and tries to bring something good through it. But that God did it, I find unacceptable.And I am not sure how acceptable I find that God is passively allowing it-that doesn't quite get him off thehook in my opinion. I am more inclined to think that God is suffering with his creation and maybe groaningin travail as the creation itself is. I like that notion of God a lot better than I do either that he has his hand onit, or that he is watching it passively.It sounds like the emphasis is on God suffering with the pain of his children. Ira, what do you think?So you are saying that your students go toward saying, "God is doing this. "RH: They are so desperate to believe that God is absolutely in control. I think the world is a little moreopen than that. That is probably the minority opinion.lJ: I agree that God suffers with his children. However, God did not intend human sin to result in injus-tice and human suffering. But God can bring good out of evil. I think this is what Paul says in Romans chap-ter 8. Toward the end of the chapter, he says that all things work together for good for those who love theLord and are called according to God's purpose. So even though God suffers with his children, he can bring1Henegar: A Theological Conversation with Randy Harris and Ira Jolivet: WhePublished by Pepperdine Digital Commons, 2002MINISTRY IN TIMES OF CRISIS LEAVEN 139good out of evil. This is the wonder and the mystery of God. There can be good. That is the message of thecross. We might want to consider what we think is good. When we look at events such as September l l th,we are horrified. It is devastating to us because we value human life as the highest good. I do not think it is.Although life is a 'gift from God and we are created in his image, I believe it is in a way idolatrous to valuehuman life so highly. If it is the highest good, we have to account for the fact that life will end. We will alldie.So if human, physical death is the ultimate defeat, or the ultimate evil then ...IJ: Right, for people who do not see anything higher, then September II th was the worse thing that canhappen. But there have been other human tragedies-four hundred years of slavery and the history of deaththrough human wars-some of which were fought in the name of God. But Paul says in Romans chapter 8that none of these experiences, not even death, nothing in the whole creation can separate us from the loveof God in Christ Jesus. That would be the greatest tragedy-separation from the love of God. So if we canunderstand that, we can put September 11th into a larger context. It was an evil, awful thing that happened,but it is not the worse thing that can happen.Even in the middle of this evil, horrible thing, we are not separated from the love of God. God's love isshining through this.IJ: Absolutely. In all of these fears that we have-that our lives will be lost, that our children will bekilled, that this way of life that we know will be ended-what gives us courage to endure the sufferings thatlife throws at us? How are we able to endure it, even with patience and joy at times? What gives us thatcourage? Well, it is the knowledge that God is greater than anything on this earth. Furthermore, as Paul says,he "gave his only son for us, how will he not give us all things?" So, what do Ihave to be afraid of? Is itdeath? I'm going to die anyway. That is not the worst thing that can happen.RH: It might even be possible that it could give you a view on the gospel that you had not had before-if you take the view that we all have bloody hands, and I do. I think it is really hard, living in a world likeours, to claim innocence. And so our immediate reaction to the events of September 11th is not grief. I thinkthat comes later, when you get faces-bilt your immediate reaction is anger. And especially when you seethose people celebrating in the streets. You have that Psalm 137 kind of anger. But if you think about it, theone who really has the right to be angry is God. He is looking down and seeing what we have done to hisgood creation. And rather than God saying, "You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to take their babiesand bash their heads against the rocks," what God says is, "I'm going to take my baby and bash his headagainst the rock." And, if you are open to see it, that can give you a new view of the gospel that you havenot had before.So we take our anger, and understand that the appropriate anger is God's anger, and see where God'sanger was when he responded to our rebellion.RH: Yes. It might be a model for how we ought to respond. It is hard to get there. If you are right in themiddle of it, my guess is that you cannot. But for those of us who are standing a little farther away, maybewe can.III2Leaven, Vol. 10 [2002], Iss. 3, Art. 8http://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/leaven/vol10/iss3/8140 LEAVEN Third Quarter 2002What I think I hear you both saying is that we cannot deny the evil. The evil is real. But yet, in themiddle of admitting that the evil is real and experiencing the pain of evil, we can claim that all things worktogether for good; that God can bring life from death.11: I would put it like this. Like Randy is saying, we all have bloody hands, but we do not see that wehave bloody hands. "They" did this. But we do not need to point fingers at someone else. (Now a nationmay have to do that. That is what nations have to do-protect their self-interest. I am talking about indi-viduals who are committed Christians.) We have to look inside and honestly appraise ourselves. We have tostand at the cross and say, "How did I put Christ on the cross?"RH: Flannery O'Connor talks about how there is nobody who ought to be able to see the darkness aspenetratingly as Christians. We ought to be able to see the darkness of September 11th in a way that nobodyelse can because we see it all the way down. Being a Christian does not just mean being able to see the light.It also means being able to fully see and understand the darkness. Maybe that is a lesson that we can learn.11: In ourselves as well.RH: Absolutely. Name it for what it is. What happened on September 11th is not just about politics. Itis about the depths of the human heart-ambition, desire, values, etc. The darkness goes deep and it is allaround. If! understand Revelation, that is part of what that is about-that Christians are able to see the dark-ness around them. It is not enough to be able to see the good that could come out of it. Before you see that,you have to see the darkness with some depth.I think that we have a tendency to want to jump straight to making sense out of it, finding meaning, see-ing the good.We do not know what the resurrection means.RH:Yes. Everyone wants to go to Easter without going through Friday.What is the danger in doing that?RH: The danger is superficiality.RH: No, you cannot. Bonhoeffer might describe the problem as "cheap grace." Grace without commit-ment, grace without discipleship, grace without sacrifice. I think one of the reasons why we are superficialin our appropriation of the faith is that we have been superficial in our understanding of our darkness, ourdepravity. Ifwe develop a deeper understanding of that, we develop a much more full-bodied notion ofGod's grace and how it is operating.11: That is what I was going to say. The danger is that you cannot understand God if you skip over ourhuman and suffering. It is not just recognizing the depth of the depravity that is a part of all of us. It is alsoto understand pain, to embrace that pain, and to learn who God is through that pain. That is what we runfrom sometimes when we react in anger and revenge. Revenge is a pleasurable experience. It helps us todeal with pain, grief, and sorrow because at least we have someone to get back at. But when you have tojust sit there, accept that pain, and try to learn through it, then you learn something about yourself and about3Henegar: A Theological Conversation with Randy Harris and Ira Jolivet: WhePublished by Pepperdine Digital Commons, 2002MINISTRY IN TIMES OF CRISIS LEAVEN 141other people. You really look at the people we see on television whose homes were just bombed. You look atthe mothers of those children and see them grieving and crying. If you have ever grieved the loss of a child,then you have to feel some kind of connection. You have to see that all people who are grieving have some-thing in common-Israel, the West Bank, South Central Los Angeles after a drive-by shooting. A parentgrieves. That is pain. We should be able to see that we all share human anguish in common.So if you let yourself experience the pain, if you do not push it away, then it brings compassion. Yourealize that it is the common denominator.IJ: Well, it brings compassion, but not just compassion. It brings you a glimpse of who God is. Thatis where I think Randy was right on-when he said that God suffers. I came to Christ when I was goingthrough a very traumatic period in my life. My wife and I were about to go through a nasty divorce and Ieven thought about committing suicide. It was at that point that someone gave me a Bible, and I read thedepths of emotions expressed in the Psalms. The psalmist says, "If someone could put my tears in a bottle... " There is pain in that plea, and I relate to it. And through 'the psalmist's pain, I also saw that God hasgrieved from the very beginning.God grieves, so through experiencing your own pain you experience the heart of God.IJ: I think so. I think you learn something about who God really is, and from that point of discovery, youcan start feeling compassion for other people. That is the only way it will come.Will God use September 11th? Does God use events like this?RH: I read the Romans passage slightly differently than Ira does. The reading I prefer is "God is work-ing in all things to bring about good." So, "use"? I am not sure what that means, but I think that in everyevent, God is working. He can take the negativities and the tragedies and bring about good. The analogyI give to students is of a master card player. We are playing cards. Sometimes we playa card and God'sresponse is, "Hey, look at that. We can use that." But sometimes God's response is. "What are we going todo with that?" However, he is going to keep playing cards. He is going to keep responding, participating,and moving toward his goal. I think that this can be woven into that tapestry. Now that is a long way fromsaying that God did it, that God wanted it to happen. It is just saying that when that card gets played, Godalso has some cards to play.IJ: I think it is obvious that God purposed the death of Christ. That is what Luke says in Acts-that itwas foreordained for Christ to die. But Paul says that it is a paradox. He says that human beings have freewill, and yet God is still in control of this universe. God has a determined plan for this universe. So eventhough human beings do everything they can to thwart that purpose through sin and evil, God is still goingto bring about the conclusion-the redemption of the whole creation. I think that is the way we ought tolook at the problem of evil. For example, if you think about something like the evil of slavery, you mightwant to look back at it and deny that it existed. Some have even deleted it from the history books. Slaverycertainly was a great evil. But at the same time, I think God has brought some good out of it. The peoplewho experienced slavery, and their descendents, have a spirituality about them that has been shaped by thatexperience. It gives them a different insight. And I think we need the insight that suffering brings. Withoutit, I wonder where we would be. I see the congregation with which I labor, and the experiences of each indi-vidual help the body as a whole to see things differently-to gain new insights into humanlife.4Leaven, Vol. 10 [2002], Iss. 3, Art. 8http://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/leaven/vol10/iss3/8142 LEAVEN Third Quarter 2002RH: Which I think is the remarkable power of the Christian story. It is somehow to find a way to takeour story and make it the gospel story. Largely, I suppose, that is what this is about-learning to make thoseconnections. The question is not so much, "Do I like everything about my story?" Rather it is, "How can Icome to understand this in light of the gospel story?"Last question: What would Jesus say to us right now?RH: I think the message is the same. It is always the same. The message is, "The kingdom of God is athand. Come follow me." The invitation is to come and participate in the unfolding kingdom. That has allsorts of implications. It implies that the kingdom is not fully here. It also implies that the church is not thekingdom in its fullness. It implies that God is still working and that the invitation is a real invitation-thatpeople have to make a decision. "Come follow me."IJ: For some reason I think about the Jesus in John's gospel who did not answer everybody's questions.And I do not think he would answer all of our questions today. I think he would say something like, "Let notyour hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me." He has given us the Paraclete that comforts usand guides us through these situations, but he still does not explain everything. God is still hidden from us.All the answers are not there. We have to trust in God in the midst of all of this pain, misery, and confusion."In this world you will have tribulation. But be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world. "AMy BOST HENEGAR.Ms. Henegar is a board-certified chaplain and is the children and family life minister for the Manhatten Church ofChrist.RANDY HARRISMr. Harris is Instructor of Bible, Ministry, and Missions at Abilene Christian University, Abilene, Texas.IRA 1. JOLIVET, JR.Dr. Jolivet teaches New Testament at Pepperdine University and serves as Pulpit Minister for the Woodland HillsChurch of Christ in Woodland Hills,5Henegar: A Theological Conversation with Randy Harris and Ira Jolivet: WhePublished by Pepperdine Digital Commons, 2002

A Theological Conversation with Randy Harris and Ira Jolivet: Where Was God on September 11?

https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1516&amp;context=leaven

A Theological Conversation with Randy Harris and Ira Jolivet: Where Was God on September 11?

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Pepperdine Digital Commons