NT Wright -- Christianity Offers No Answers About the Coronavirus. It's Not Supposed To - Religion, God, and Theology

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NT Wright -- Christianity Offers No Answers About the Coronavirus. It's Not Supposed To

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04-05-2020 , 01:36 AM

Aaron W.

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https://time.com/5808495/coronavirus-christianity/

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No doubt the usual silly suspects will tell us why God is doing this to us. A punishment? A warning? A sign? These are knee-jerk would-be Christian reactions in a culture which, generations back, embraced rationalism: everything must have an explanation. But supposing it doesn’t? Supposing real human wisdom doesn’t mean being able to string together some dodgy speculations and say, “So that’s all right then?” What if, after all, there are moments such as T. S. Eliot recognized in the early 1940s, when the only advice is to wait without hope, because we’d be hoping for the wrong thing?

Rationalists (including Christian rationalists) want explanations; Romantics (including Christian romantics) want to be given a sigh of relief. But perhaps what we need more than either is to recover the biblical tradition of lament. Lament is what happens when people ask, “Why?” and don’t get an answer. It’s where we get to when we move beyond our self-centered worry about our sins and failings and look more broadly at the suffering of the world. It’s bad enough facing a pandemic in New York City or London. What about a crowded refugee camp on a Greek island? What about Gaza? Or South Sudan?

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The point of lament, woven thus into the fabric of the biblical tradition, is not just that it’s an outlet for our frustration, sorrow, loneliness and sheer inability to understand what is happening or why. The mystery of the biblical story is that God also laments. Some Christians like to think of God as above all that, knowing everything, in charge of everything, calm and unaffected by the troubles in his world. That’s not the picture we get in the Bible.

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04-05-2020 , 06:07 AM

d2_e4

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Join Date: Sep 2014 Posts: 12,101

I'll let you in to a secret - it doesn't offer answers about anything else, either.

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04-05-2020 , 06:27 AM

FellaGaga-52

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Originally Posted by d2_e4

I'll let you in to a secret - it doesn't offer answers about anything else, either.

Yes it does. The answer to the origin of everything is the invisible man in the sky and the borrowed garden story with the talking snake. This fable "answers" the greatest mystery of all ... and impressively so!!

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04-05-2020 , 10:58 AM

d2_e4

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Join Date: Sep 2014 Posts: 12,101

Oh, it claims to have answers about lots of things, for sure. Therein lies the problem.

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04-05-2020 , 11:15 AM

UsernameTaken

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Join Date: Jan 2020 Posts: 322

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Originally Posted by Aaron W.

https://time.com/5808495/coronavirus-christianity/

LOL, that's hilarious. A whole article to say "god works in mysterious ways. Stop asking about the whys, ****ers. Just give us money and believe"

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04-05-2020 , 01:09 PM

craig1120

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Join Date: Oct 2005 Posts: 2,905

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Lament is what happens when people ask, “Why?” and don’t get an answer.

People that ask “Why?” have yet to fully give up what they want to be true for what is actually true. And as long as we are revealing secrets in this thread, I’ll share one. Even the most hyper-rational, materialistic, anti-Christian still laments when things get bad.

You know who doesn’t lament, who doesn’t ask why? The person who fully accepts their betrayal, the person who has stripped himself of what he wants for what is. Paradoxically, only the person who has first given up what he wants for what is can begin to actually make progress on getting what he wants.

This is still a good piece that is moving in the right direction. Step one, you have to cease expecting an answer to the question. The next step is to cease asking the question, even when you are in the depths of despair.

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04-05-2020 , 04:19 PM

FellaGaga-52

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Originally Posted by craig1120

Step one, you have to cease expecting an answer to the question. The next step is to cease asking the question, even when you are in the depths of despair.

Is this like overruling Jehovah's "ask and you shall receive?"

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04-05-2020 , 04:25 PM

craig1120

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Join Date: Oct 2005 Posts: 2,905

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Originally Posted by FellaGaga-52

Is this like overruling Jehovah's "ask and you shall receive?"

It’s a prerequisite to “ask and you shall receive”.

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04-05-2020 , 04:35 PM

FellaGaga-52

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Originally Posted by craig1120

It’s a prerequisite to “ask and you shall receive”.

Okay so step one is to read the scripture "ask and you shall receive," then to deduce from this not to want an answer, then to cease asking the question (in direct opposition to the scripture), then what? Start asking again in order to receive?

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04-05-2020 , 04:56 PM

#10

craig1120

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Join Date: Oct 2005 Posts: 2,905

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Originally Posted by FellaGaga-52

Okay so step one is to read the scripture

No. Do you think I am an advocate for Christianity more than I am an advocate for the truth? Or are you an aggrieved activist who has been captured by their “lament”?

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