On Aug. 31, 1886, an earthquake ravaged Charleston, S.C., demolishing more than 2,000 buildings and homes, causing millions of dollars in damage and killing 110 people.
Generations later, geologists estimated the deadly tremor at around 7.0 magnitude on the Richter scale, a device that was not developed until nearly 50 years later.
Amid the rubble, Southern Baptist preachers used their pulpits to answer the inevitable question: Where was God when the earth began to break apart? There was an overwhelming consensus, nuanced according to a given pastor’s precise theological convictions, that was worded something like this: A sovereign God sent or allowed the earthquake for the good of His people and the glory of His name.
Fast forward nearly 124 years to January 12, 2010. The Caribbean island of Haiti is devastated by an earthquake of identical magnitude, but the death toll is staggeringly worse: 150,000 have been confirmed dead with the total certain to grow by thousands. The place and result are different, but the question remains for many: Where was God when His creation began to split wide open?
David Sills, associate professor of Christian missions and cultural anthropology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said the answer also remains the same as that given by SBC pastors in late-19th century Charleston.
“The world is asking this question and saying, ‘God can either be all powerful or all good, but he can’t be both,’” said Sills, who spent many years as a missionary in Peru. “I think we have to patiently and humbly turn that back around to them and show them, that that is not the right way to look at this.
“The problem is not what happened in Haiti; the problem is why we are ever allowed to have one smile, why we are able to ever enjoy one moment of bouncing our grandchildren on our knee or why we are able to enjoy the blessings of a meal every day or the salvation we have. The problem is one of pleasure and not of the pain we see in Haiti. God is sovereign, and we must affirm that, especially in times like these. He is our only comfort.”
The problem of pain: Where was God in Haiti?
So how should Christians approach the questions of their family, friends and neighbors about God’s proximity to the earthquake? Sills said it is an opportunity for Christians to both weep with those who are weeping and to share with them the good news of God’s redeeming love in Christ.
“It’s a wonderful witnessing opportunity to walk them through the whole thing: God made the world perfect, Adam and Eve fell into sin and when they did, death came into the world, tragedies like this came into the world and yet God is so loving and patient that that is not what determines, or what defines, our lives,” he said.
“This is such a rare anomaly on a global scale that, when it does happen, the whole world is reeling because that’s not what is normal. But that should be what is normal; we all should be suffering abject horror and torment in hell and yet we don’t.
“Even pagans have pleasant lives. Why is that? That is the bigger problem when what we deserve is judgment. And the only answer is God’s grace and His patience with us and I’m praying that that patience would extend even to Haiti and His grace would be poured out and we would see that grace.”
Both/and: Comprehensive Gospel ministry needed
But how do well-meaning Christians avoid seeming glib and falling prey to accusations that they merely care about making converts? Sills said full-orbed missions work entails meeting both physical and spiritual needs, particularly among a people who are facing a disaster with such deep-reaching consequences.
Our model is Jesus, who did both kinds of missions work, Sills said; He fed the hungry and also admonished them to feast on the Bread of life.
“We shouldn’t back up to feeding a hungry person, certainly, if we take the New Testament seriously,” Sills said.
“If someone is starving to death and all I do is preach the Gospel to them, I have not done my comprehensive Gospel-duty. But if a person is starving to death and they are lost and all I do is give them a bag of bologna sandwiches, I have not done my Gospel duty; I must do both.”
Handle with care: Haitians open to many spirits
While many mission maps stamp Haiti as “reached” due to the longtime presence of Christian missionaries in the republic, Sills said it is a nation that remains overwhelmingly bound up in darkness. The predominant religion in Haiti is voodoo, which is polytheistic, syncretistic and consists in a toxic blend of animism and African spirit worship stirred together with elements of Roman Catholicism. Haiti is the birthplace of voodoo.
Voodoo is steeped in superstition and is driven by fear; its adherents often worship a number of local deities that are often tied to earthly elements - volcanoes, bodies of water, trees, changing weather. A jarring event such as the earthquake in Haiti will strike a deep-seated fear into the hearts of the people, making them open to other religions, including Christianity, Sills said.
But, such openness can be a two-edged sword, Sills warned, and Christian missionaries must be patient in ministering the Gospel to the Haitian people. Being a polytheistic people, they are prone to accept any religion uncritically and will often merely add its “god” alongside their collection of deities. They must be carefully taught the difference between genuine Christianity and other religions, he said.
“The good news is they are looking for answers,” Sills said. “And many will be open to really listening to the good news of the Gospel for the first time.
But how do we begin to pray for a land so ravaged by disaster, so wracked by poverty and so lacking in even the most basic essentials of everyday life - a land so deeply disconnected in worship from its Creator? Sills admits that prayer for Haiti in recent weeks seems to fall into the category of Romans 8:26, “For we do not know what to pray for as we ought…”, but believers must join together and pray for God to work in the broken nation.
Sills said he’s been praying that God would restore order to the chaos that has virtually consumed Port-au-Prince, that God would restrain the predatory crime that often arrives on the doorstep of such a vulnerable people during times when there is no defense against it, that God would meet their physical needs and that God would get glory for Himself by sending genuine revival.
“It’s a powder keg down there,” he said. “I pray for a sense of peace among the people. I pray that out of the very worst thing we can imagine, God would bring about the very best thing we can imagine. That’s what happened on Good Friday; from a purely human perspective, it looked like it was the worst thing that could happen and yet God brings about our salvation through it.
“I pray that there would be an awakening, that God would pour out His Holy Spirit, that while the whole world is watching Haiti every day, that the world would begin to see an awakening, that they would begin to see the difference that God’s Spirit makes in the lives of people, even people who have suffered such unbelievable tragedy.”
Comments on this entry are closed.