THE MEGAPHONE OF SUFFERING

Rev. Douglas Whitelaw, M.A. is the executive director of Ark Aid Mission in London, Ontario. This post is from his paper 'Toward A Theology of Suffering'.

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God does not curse humankind or abandon us but lovingly uses the consequences of suffering that we have wrought to redeem. And God suffers with and for us. He enters history in the person of his Son, experiencing the full panoply of human experience. The story of his life surely shows he was 'a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity.' (Isa 53:3) and thus 'we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin' (Heb 4:14). We do not suffer alone – God has been there first and knows – feels – our pain. Nor is suffering meaningless, as our culture suggests. As C.S. Lewis said, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world” (The Problem of Pain).  Suffering is the seedbed of empathy, compassion and tolerance. Suffering refines character. It is a dialectic, whose new synthesis can sometimes even unlock the meaning of one's life. We may not want to revisit the pain, but the destination makes the journey worthwhile, or to change the metaphor, the end justifies the means. That point may seem callous in the face of severe suffering, especially of 'innocents.' This is often the point where faith is 'lost.'  We still live in a broken creation, with unequal degrees of suffering. Sometimes our view is too short, not understanding the redemptive good God may yet bring. Sometimes we must cling to the eschatological hope that justice will prevail. And we must not be quick to make a judgment regarding the value of suffering for another, as we cannot presume to know how another person finds meaning and purpose even in their trials. This is an important ethical point in considering quality of life and euthanasia.

SEEING GOD'S FACE IN SUFFERING

Rev. Douglas Whitelaw, M.A. is the executive director of Ark Aid Mission in London, Ontario. This post is from his paper 'Toward A Theology of Suffering'.

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Suffering comes in many forms – natural and human-made disasters, sickness, broken relationships, the  emotional pain we inflict on those closest to us because of our own brokenness. A curious feature of Western culture is we are often unconscious of our own suffering. We focus on the 'less fortunate' and indeed, poverty is the root of all kinds of evil and requires redress, particularly because the exalted standard of living we enjoy can only occur because we are exploiting others and not paying the full cost of what we enjoy. But the very things we continually thank God for, our peace, liberty and prosperity are the very things that, as we embrace them as absolute goods, shrivel our souls and limit our ability to know God. In the West we do not understand our poverty of relationships, nor do we understand how Christians elsewhere can be happy, or indeed exhibit joy when they have 'nothing.' They in turn see our idolatry and wonder why we settle for so little. Any understanding of suffering must recognize and redress all its forms.

Jean Vanier points out that those who come to truly know the developmentally challenged people he works with, or indeed any marginalized people, move through a process of understanding from fear to acceptance to realizing that in them, we see 'the face of God.' In other words, in serving them, we serve God and thus recognize our own poverty of spirit and therefore are freed to begin our own journey of redemption. So, when God describes to Adam the suffering he will encounter in living as a broken being in a broken world, God also determines to use that very suffering to bring about his redemptive, restorative purpose. This is a function of God's goodness, as Augustine points out: "Since God is the highest good, He would not allow any evil to exist in His works, unless His omnipotence and goodness were such as to bring good even out of evil" (Enchiridion xi).

ALL THINGS ARE NOT EQUAL

Rev. Douglas Whitelaw, M.A. is the executive director of Ark Aid Mission in London, Ontario. This post is from his paper 'Toward A Theology of Suffering'.

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Another consequence of our broken world is inequity – some people suffer more than others. It does not take long in the biblical story to see this unfolding and to witness God's universal intolerance of it. The eighth century prophets glaringly pointed out the inequities that had crept into Israelite society, reminding Israel that God had provided for everyone and some were not to be enriched at the expense of others. Ultimately, they lost their homeland for that, as it was the major social consequence of their pagan idolatry – their sin in ignoring the terms of the covenant precipitated social sin on an increasing scale. Of course, the inequities we witness are of exponentially greater scale – and increasing. It is not that God requires some to suffer more. This is the result of human brokenness living in a broken creation. Scripture clearly shows God's means of redress for this inequity. It is that God's people are to care for those least able to care for themselves. This was the widow and orphan and even the stranger in the Old Testament. In the New Testament, this was why Jesus was always in trouble for the people he associated with – the poor, blind, captives, prostitutes, sinners, tax collectors – marginalized people. This is the point where sin is expressed as corporate or social and the kingdom response is social justice. This is why the early church grew so quickly – they cared for such people. It is why the church invented hospitals, founded schools and continues to establish missions to alleviate poverty and redress injustice. To understand God's kingdom plan is to understand that social justice is not peripheral or optional but where God most clearly is redressing the effects of the fall and advancing his kingdom. It is also to understand that  the ministry of presence is not an anemic version of ministry but the very thing that demonstrates God is present and working in moments of suffering.

BEST OF ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS

Rev. Douglas Whitelaw, M.A. is the executive director of Ark Aid Mission in London, Ontario. This post is from his paper 'Toward A Theology of Suffering'.

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So, for now, we live in a broken world and this has some consequences we should notice in terms of suffering. One would concern natural disasters or 'acts of God.' God takes a lot of heat for these; many have lost their faith from suffering one and critical atheists like Christopher Hitchins and Richard Dawkins rarely pass an opportunity to impugn God's existence or character for such events. But, while God allows such events, he does so in the sense that he also allows us to carry on in the created order we crippled. God has bound himself to us and his world to work patiently towards the restoration of his rule in a way that humans can be included. Perhaps he could have done it another way – we'll never know. This is akin to Liebniz' 'best of all possible worlds,' the central concept in his theodicy. It evidently is the best of such worlds with us still in it and living in the world broken by sin means it is hostile. An emphasis on God's soteriological purposes rather than his absolute responsibility should bear some pastoral comfort.

CREATION IS SUFFERING

Rev. Douglas Whitelaw, M.A. is the executive director of Ark Aid Mission in London, Ontario. This post is from his paper 'Toward A Theology of Suffering'.

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The crux of the matter occurs in the Fall. The systematic theologies will note that God punished humankind – they like to talk about wrath. But Genesis 3 can be read not only as the fall into sin but the beginning of the redemption story. If we read it that way, God's righteousness is recognized but also his covenant love which ultimately means he is the one who suffers with and for us. Note that neither Adam or Eve is cursed. Rather, the serpent and the ground are cursed. The human pair instead hear God describe to them what it will be like for them in the new environment they created with their disobedience.

Sin first of all, offends God or rather is an assault on his character because his word reflects his nature. Sin is serious and God does not overlook it. The cross of Christ is how God satisfies both his mercy and justice. Erickson says God was not changed by the Fall and in the classic sense of immutability that may be so. But God responds to the new situation and he does so lovingly. He would have been entirely justified in carrying out the death sentence he had previously warned Adam about and starting over. But he doesn't do that in the way we might expect.  Instead, he seeks Adam out, tells him the consequences of what he has done and in sending him and Eve from the garden provides clothing to cover their shame. While a covenant is not mentioned here, it is evident that God is acting consistently as if there is one. God is committed to his creature.

Secondly, sin shatters the created order. Rather than living in a garden, we will live in a thorny place requiring struggle. Later biblical references elaborate this, most clearly in Romans 8:20f “for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (NRSV). This passage makes clear that God is committed to his creation, too. Sin bends it almost to the breaking point but God has a plan to get back what was lost and doing so in a way that his human creatures, guilty though we  are, can be part of it. This is the story of the rest of the Bible and it is the story of the unfolding and revelation of God's kingdom, the very thing Jesus announced had come with him. Evangelical theology barely knows what to do with kingdom, reducing salvation to personal escape from hell and entry into heaven. But the redemption story is God getting back, along with the people who he loves, his rule on the earth. So, the old hymns and the new choruses that long for escape from this old sinful world will have to go. What Christians are to be longing for and working for is the release of the creation from 'futility' and into 'the freedom of the glory of the children of God.' Ultimately, this is the new heaven and new earth: “The home of God is among mortals, He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe away every tear from their eyes; Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away” (Rev. 21:3-4 NRSV).

THE RESPONSIVE CHRISTIAN

Rev. Douglas Whitelaw, M.A. is the executive director of Ark Aid Mission in London, Ontario. This post is from his paper 'Toward A Theology of Suffering'.

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It may be possible to engage in Christian ministry in some contexts and not have to think too much about suffering. But to work with those suffering mental health issues, with the dying, with the incarcerated, with those trapped in poverty and with those for whom the dream of a middle class, Western lifestyle will forever be unattainable, one cannot escape thinking about it. Sometimes we may fall prey to the platitudes, sometimes either the goodness or power of God may be compromised, but working with the very same people that Jesus said he came for – the poor, the captive, the blind, the oppressed (Lk 4:18-19) calls for response. Often enough, this response is compassion and engagement but this paper is an attempt to work out a more comprehensive theology of human suffering so that we are better able to impart meaning and hope in circumstances which deny either and both.

TOWARD A THEOLOGY OF SUFFERING

Rev. Douglas Whitelaw, M.A. is the executive director of Ark Aid Mission in London, Ontario. This post is from his paper 'Toward A Theology of Suffering'.

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Suffering is the universal human experience but a theology of suffering is strangely lacking in evangelical theology. Some of the reason for this may be that suffering is not understood or accepted in Western culture. It rarely is seen to have any redemptive purpose and our technological agenda means we continually strive to eradicate any trace of it. We'll simply invent another device to overcome any limitation, including, if you are the great baseball player Ted Williams, death itself if cryogenics holds any promise. So, Western Christians are immersed in a world that pursues pleasure while looking away from pain and one can't help wondering if that orientation guides theological thought. It certainly seems to have done so in lots of popular theology – health and wealth, purpose driven life, even the fixation on sexual sins to the virtual exclusion of social justice. Much preaching, too has devolved to therapeutic self-help, how to have a better life. Other than the occasional sermon on 'why bad things happen to good people' I can't remember any sermon on a serious study of suffering, other than the one I preached in Africa,where one is confronted with human suffering of unrelenting proportions.

In the absence of a comprehensive theology of suffering, Christians are left to their own devices to somehow reconcile God's goodness and power. Some of course, lose faith. Here in the west we tend to spend a lot of effort on 'why?' which is not far from the question put to Jesus, 'Who sinned?' But Jesus didn't go there. Sudanese Christians often take a more fatalistic view, akin to their Muslim neighbours, that God willed it so, and leave it at that. Rwandan Christians that I spoke to following the 1994 genocide were sure that God loved them enough to be correcting them for their laxity. That was a hard sell to a Western missionary. I think we can notice two things: that there are a variety of somewhat conflicting ways Christians use to make sense of suffering and those responses often seem to be as culturally conditioned as they are rooted in Biblical revelation.

You might think that pastoral training would take some pains to explore a theology of suffering, but not so. It is possible to get through a complete theological curriculum without ever encountering the issue and I daresay, many students do just that. The last systematic theology book I purchased, by Millard Erickson while recognizing social sin, lists the effects of sin on the sinner as, “ enslavement, flight from reality, denial of sin, self-deceit, insensitivity, self-centeredness and restlessness.” Obviously suffering is at least entailed in all these consequences but suffering itself is not explored as part of the human condition. Western theology has been much more interested in the forensic aspects of the fall and redemption than affective aspects. The only place where suffering appears in Erickson's index is in “suffering as part of our union with Christ.” To be sure, such suffering is real. But only considering suffering at that juncture omits the redemptive role suffering plays in bringing people to Christ and overlooks that Christ has redeemed suffering, too as sinners witness Christian fortitude and come to faith.