Indiana Aurora and God

Apart from that ridiculous pastor who believes gays should be kept behind electrified fences, in  the Apostolic Truth Tabernacle Church in Greensburg Indiana a small boy in clean white shirt stands before the congregation and sings a song that ends with the words ‘Ain’t no homos gonna make it to heaven.’ This is received with cheers and whoops and a voice shouting ‘That’s my boy!’ Presumably that was the child’s proud one hundred percent heterosexual daddy and it would serve him right if his boy turned out to be the biggest, most obvious, airy-fairy faggot Indiana ever saw. The video clip evidently went, or has gone, viral, forcing the church to back pedal, putting out a statement in which the pastor writes that they do not hate anybody no matter what or who, etcetera. This is like saying white supremacists or the KKK didn’t hate black skins when they strung someone up from the nearest tree or burnt crosses on their front lawns; like the Nazis saying they didn’t really hate Jews, they just did want them around, like the Turks saying they didn’t destroy Smyrna and massacre Greeks and Armenians, that is one big lie. But you see, if you are a so-called Christian you have to go along with what the Bible says even if it was written by superstitious Bronze age prophets all those years ago when the world was still sort of young, and certainly not very wise, and certainly had little or any conception of the vagaries of human nature; only that as God’s creation we ought to obey the rules he set down as interpreted by them, rules that we should live by even today with all the advances that have been made in psychology, physiology, etcetera.  It never ceases to amaze me that Christians (so-called) whenever they want to express horror at what we humans get up to, always cite the Old Testament, never ever the new, because there is little if anything in the New Testament capable of raising their wrath. Well, apart from the ravings of that schizophrenic Saul of Tarsus. So, according to the Old Testament we still have to slaughter a bull in sacrifice to the Lord, we can sell our daughters into slavery and we can murder our sons if they disobey us. How come these aspects of what is called God’s everlasting word are simply ignored? And if heaven is filled with the likes of the good Christians of the Apostolic Truth Tabernacle Church I should think any self-respecting homo would be only too delighted not to go there.

Now let us ask where God was in Aurora. Rob Rendle, the founding pastor of Denver United Church a former associate pastor at New Life Church in Colorado Springs says, “The movie theater shooting in Aurora, Colorado shook me and the rest of the nation. Reading about the young and unsuspecting victims… Why did this happen? Where was God in all of it? How could a loving God allow this? We pastors face the unenviable task of being asked to answer for God. Most people ask the big questions in times of irresolution, times when satisfying answers are scarce. Let’s be clear: there are no easy answers to the deepest questions of suffering. Libraries overflow with the volumes that have been written to address these questions. Centuries of philosophers, pundits and preachers have reflected on the existence of evil, the meaning of pain and the role of God in suffering. I won’t begin to recount all of their ruminations here. But here’s what I think.

The capacity to choose God and goodness came with the commensurate ability to choose evil. Is it loving to force his creation to follow his order, or to teach it and leave the creature to choose? But Scripture also teaches that God is totally in control. He is all-powerful and all-knowing and he is willing and able to intervene in human events. (?) So there is a gap between human choice and divine foreknowledge, a gap that transcends understanding and that helps define God in my mind. There are at least four influences on human events: God’s will, to be sure; but also the will of Satan, our adversary; peoples’ choices, for better or for worse; and natural law (gravity, collision, combustion, and the like). It is difficult to know which force causes the circumstances that devastate us. But it is enough to know that God need not be responsible for them.” With him so far?
“Where was God in Aurora? He was on the lawn in front of the Civic Building as thousands gathered in solidarity, hope, and love at a packed prayer vigil last Sunday. He was in University Hospital as neurosurgeons groped for synonyms for miraculous.(?) He was in the outpouring of compassion at a victim’s funeral and in the passionate call for unity from a resolute councilwoman and at the bedside vigil of a wounded victim’s church community.(?) Redemption has only begun in Aurora, and already God is everywhere. Their (sic) will be beauty once this story is written that overshadows and transcends the ashes. Where is God in Aurora? He is shining brightly from the hearts of his people.”
But he wasn’t there to save their lives.