A number of articles caught my attention this week that might be of interest to those who read this blog:
First, there’s Joni Eareckson Tada’s interview with Time.com: “Why Does God Allow Suffering?” Joni is a quadriplegic with chronic pain and a recent diagnosis of breast cancer. She is also an evangelical Christian and a disability rights advocate. Quite frankly, I expected her to come off as overly-pious, but I was in for a pleasant surprise as she answered with strong and clear faith, intellectual integrity, and humor. The whole interview is worth reading, but here’s one example:
Why do you think people need to believe that you’re to blame for your suffering?
If we can come up with a simple explanation, “You did something wrong,” then it’s something we think we can control. In the Christian faith, God really puts suffering front and center. He doesn’t get squeamish about it. But our human inclination is to turn the other way, to assume that this person must have a bad track record with God. We just don’t want to embrace the God who can be found in the midst of pain. We’d rather listen to Jesus preach sweet sermons about lilies.
If we can come up with a simple explanation, “You did something wrong,” then it’s something we think we can control. In the Christian faith, God really puts suffering front and center. He doesn’t get squeamish about it. But our human inclination is to turn the other way, to assume that this person must have a bad track record with God. We just don’t want to embrace the God who can be found in the midst of pain. We’d rather listen to Jesus preach sweet sermons about lilies.
Then there’s the New York Times’ “Atheists Debate How Pushy To Be,” which reports on an atheist convention and the two camps within it–one that wants to make friends with the religious people and one that thinks hostility is the way to go…
Two posts on Motherlode about God and Parenting. The first, “What To Tell Children About God” raises questions about how to talk to our kids about what we believe. It seems these conversations are much easier for people who come from a specific faith tradition with specific answers about prayer, heaven, God, and the like. For agnostics and those who are “spiritual but not religious,” it’s a hard line between explaining abstract concepts about the divine and assuring a child that God hears prayer. The second, a follow-up, called Creating God in Your Parents’ Image shares research that demonstrates the link between parenting styles and children’s understanding of God. All of which makes me think about Jesus’ emphasis on paying attention to the faith of children–they know more than we think.
The New York Times also ran two pieces about economics that got me thinking. The first, “Income Inequality, Too Big to Ignore” suggests that economists need to start addressing the moral implications of the rich getting richer while the poor stay poor. The same day, I read, “Scholars Return to ‘Culture of Poverty’ Idea” which explained that poverty has social and cultural roots, not just economic ones. I have to assume there is also a culture of richness that contributes to some social ills as well. One way or another, seems like the economists, philosophers, and sociologists might want to get together and tackle the problem.
Finally, my friend Ellen Painter Dollar wrote another provocative piece for her.meneutics about “reproductive tourism”: “Outsourcing Baby Making in India.” Again, the whole piece is worth reading, but I was particularly drawn to her suggestion that this might be an issue where conservatives and liberals could work together for change:
Fertility tourism might be one area of reproductive ethics where conservative Christians, who traditionally focus on the sanctity of human life, and liberal Christians, who traditionally focus on human rights, particularly for women, can speak out together for justice and compassion. We don’t have to project some dystopian future to witness instances in which human dignity — the dignity of Indian mothers serving as surrogates and the babies they deliver — is violated by clinics, entrepreneurs, and aspiring parents who are turning procreation into a fee-for-service market.
Have a great weekend!
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