In 1974, writing an essay entitled, “Cloud of Smoke, Pillar of Fire, “ Rabbi Irving Greenberg composed and suggested a principle to be followed by anyone writing or speaking about God. It is this:
No statement, theological or otherwise, should be made that would not be credible in the presence of burning children.
The context for what has become known in several quarters as the “Greenberg Principle” was in response to the absolute silence of Christian theologians and church organizations in regard to the Holocaust perpetrated on European Jewry by Hitler’s Germany.
In the presence of burning children there are no theological statements that have any credibility other than “IN THE NAME OF GOD, STOP THIS MADNESS!” And calculated policies of silence in the presence of burning children is nothing more than complicity.
Surely in one sense there is no statement that is “credible” in the presence of such horrific human violence and the resulting suffering and death of the most innocent of victims. What words can possibly be thought “credible”? What is more, I don’t think that there is any credible comment or conversation about God to be had during such an example of human depravity. Indeed, Greenberg’s principle is a powerful moral plumb line against which ANY language about the presence and purposes of God should be voiced and received.
But what about speaking of God in the presence of those who suffer?
STOP TALKING AND PRACTICE HUMBLE LISTENING. Indeed, should there not be compassionate LISTENING rather than attempting to explain, justify, or to set forth God’s reasons for suffering? Talking is damnable arrogance. Just read the most ancient of the Bible’s outcry against such religious talking in The Book of Job!
It is more than tiresome that too much God talk in our world today is just dangerous religious noise.
It is being made and articulated by preachers, teachers, and “theologians” through tragic, purposeful, biblical misinterpretations as the Mega Church movement, Christian Nationalism, and absurd politicians running for elected office on various versions of the blasphemous plank “Pro God, Pro Guns, and Pro Trump.” One can even get a “high quality” God Guns Trump T-Shirt for $19.95. IS THERE NO SHAME FOR SUCH BLASPHEMY?
Let me ask again. Is there no shame in the use of such language about the Creator of all things? Is there no sense of humble, awe-filled wonder about the God of us all instead of the money-making, shameless, and painful claptrap of willful ignorance, deceit, and mindless arrogance about God?
Our current cacophony of religious nonsense is being broadcast by the religious right, the Christian Right, and all manner of preachers waving a bible they narrowly understand. The gospel in their mouths has been reduced to their money-making scheme of announcing a money-promising reward for anyone directing financial contributions to their unaccountable “ministry” to fight any cancel culture effort they describe.
In the presence of suffering children and burning children in our world, such voices speak about the reasons for such burning and suffering as God’s punishment for doing such things as not completing the building of the wall on our southern border. Such voices say suffering is God’s punishment because of “policies” coming out of a faithless, liberal agenda.
I am continually made heartsick by those who claim that suffering of any kind, whether medical, emotional, or spiritual, is somehow because of God’s initiative to punish, warn, instruct, or otherwise purposely screw over the one who suffers. I am made heartsick by those who in the presence of burning children in Ukraine or ANYWHERE say and believe such suffering is God’s initiative to punish, get even with, or teach a lesson to the wrong believing culture, wrong religious practice, or political alliance.
There are great, faith-based, biblical, truths about suffering. They are these:
- God didn’t send it.
- God didn’t cause it.
God does not advance the cause of faith, hope, and love through imposed suffering. It would be better for us, all of us, to shut up if blaming God for suffering is all we have to say. Instead:
- Stop talking about reasons for suffering, DO SOMETHING to alleviate it.
- Listen to those who suffer and respond with number 1, DO SOMETHING to alleviate it.
- EXPOSE THOSE who cause, inflict, or otherwise profit from the suffering of others.
- PRAY SILENTLY for those who suffer and are broken in mind, body, and spirit. Such prayer is an efficacious language.
- Believe that Jesus was correct in action. UNEARNED SUFFERING IS REDEMPTIVE.
At the end of suffering God raised Jesus up. At the end of our suffering God raises us up, too. That is a credible statement to think about and IN WHICH TO TRUST. It’s what God DOES in the presence of all the fires human beings set upon each other. God DOES this. God does not just talk.