Where Was God? (I Protest, Therefore I Believe)

Image from: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/03/110311-tsunami-facts-japan-earthquake-hawaii/

The worst is yet to come. This was what came to my mind when I read news about Japan this morning. Massive earthquake, tsunami, nuclear crisis, ... I dare not to continue... I know this is not the time to think about myself, but the question "Where is God?" just continues to disturb and haunt me as a believer in God. So, I decided to find out how other Christians had tried to deal with this disturbing question. I then came across an insightful article written by Miroslav Volf in his recent book Against the Tide. It is entitled I Protest, Therefore I believe. It was originally written shortly after Aceh, Indonesia, was struck by tsunami in 2004. I'd like to share an excerpt from it:

[T]he very protest against God in the face of evil in fact presupposes God's existence. Why are we disturbed about the brute and blind force of tsunamis that snuff out people's lives - including those of children who were lured, as if by some sinister design, onto the beaches by fish left exposed in the shallows because the waters had retreated just before the tidal wave came? If the world is all there is, and the world with moving tectonic plates is a world in which we happen to live, what's there to complain about? We can mourn - we've lost something terrible dear. But we can't really complain, and we certainly can't legitimately protest.
The expectation that the world should be a hospitable place, with no devastating mishaps, is tied to the belief that the world ought to be constituted in a certain way. And that belief - as distinct from the belief that the world just is what it is - is itself tied to the notion of a creator. And that bring us to God. It is God who makes possible our protest that there is evil in the world. And it is God against whom we protest. God is both the ground of the protest and its target. Almost paradoxically, we protest with God against God. How can I believe in God when tsunamis strike? I protest, and therefore I believe.

To the question "Where was God during the tsunami?" Volf replies,

Just as God was in some mysterious way in the Crucified One, God was in the midst of the tsunami carnage, listening to every sigh, collecting every tear, resonating with the trembling of each fear-stricken heart. And just as God was in the Resurrected One, so God was in each helping hand, in each decision to sacrifice one's own life so that another could live. God suffered and God helped.
I know that, at the same time, God was also seated on God's heavenly throne. Why did the omnipotent and loving One not do something about the tsunami before it struck? I don't know. If I knew, I could justify God. But I can't. That's why I am still disturbed by the God to whom I am so immensely attracted and who won't let go of me.

Check this website to see some options on how you may suffer with and help the people of Japan. Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison, Kyrie eleison...

Torture and Eucharist

I can hardly hear good news from my country Indonesia. I've come to a point where I feel numb upon hearing horrible news like a violent attack on an Islamic sect on Feb 6, 2011, followed by church burning in Temanggung, Central Java. (Btw, it's curious that Al-Jazeera doesn't report the second incident at all.) It's not my intention to try to find out or discuss whom to blame for these horrendous incident. If there is anything that I can think of (as I said earlier, I feel numb...), it is to realize the very presence of torture within Indonesian society. Even though Indonesians do not live under an autocratic regime, torture is still very much REAL. It is something which Singaporeans (I'm using Singaporeans as an example simply because I currently live in Singapore) will probably never understand. I recall how a Singaporean teen, whom I led in a Bibly study, had a difficult time to understand the word "persecution" when we tried to study biblical passages which talked about being persecuted for Christ. To him, "persecution" is merely a word without any correspondences whatsoever to any reality outside the word itself. He can't relate to it at all. So, it becomes meaningless.

Reading all these horrendous news reminds me of the torture which Christ chose to undergo. By willingly undergoing such an atrocious torture, he overturned the logic of torture. Torture caused Christ to suffer. But Christ's suffering brings life to all who believe in him and are willing to suffer and die for him and therefore live in him. This is celebrated in the Eucharist. The Eucharist is an antithesis of torture. As William Cavanaugh, theologizing from within the context of the Pinochet regime in Chile, has eloquently put it,

Torture creates fearful and isolated bodies, bodies docile to the purpose of regime; the Eucharist effects the body of Christ, a body marked by resistance to worldly power. Torture creates victims; Eucharist creates witnesses, martyrs. Isolation is overcome in the Eucharist by the building of a communal body which resists the state’s attempt to disappear it.

China's Dirty Secrets: No Gain, No Pain

People say: "No pain, no gain". I think the other way round is also true: "No gain, no pain". Check this video out and you'll know what I'm talking about.