I’ve heard and read this sentiment several times in recent days – thanking God (or his angels) for saving someone from danger or death in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Many people today attribute their rescue or safety to God. God acted. They survived.
On the surface, this is a powerful statement of gratitude not to human will but to divine benevolence. This statement expresses a belief that only God could save someone from the grasp of death. It is not an expression of a systematic theology. It is a statement of faith and gratitude in the face of extreme danger.
But does this sentiment naturally lead to it’s logical complement – that God (or his angels) abondoned the hundreds who died? Or worse, is God complicit in or responsible for death of hundreds others?
I have been witness to life-threatening accidents and have heard the witness of those who attribute a miraculous rescue or recovery to God. And perhaps God acted in those situations. But I am uncomfortable with such certainty. It seems to me that the positive attibution of divine activity to explain survival in such extreme conditions implies a complementary explanation of divine inactivity for those who perished.
There is death and life, pain and joy, trauma and healing in this tragedy, and I’m not sure what role God played in all of it. I’m pretty sure God’s there in the Gulf Coast region, but how, in what way, playing what role? About these questions I’m less sure.
Perhaps I’m grateful to God for the stories of life and survival, and angry at God for the death and destruction. Holding both feelings in tension – that’s the only way that I can really make sense of it.
The Lutheran Zephyr 