Super Bowl theology redux

One of my friends thought my issues with David Carr and Big Ben were rather trivial. I think he thought that most Christians do not necessarily take those pronouncements seriously and so they are only a big deal in my mind. Perhaps.

Today I wonder, however, if this issue clarifies an area where I am constantly confused with the religious right. See if this makes sense....

Part of my problem with the Big Ben saying that God made him a starter is the fake humility part of it. He isn't really thanking God for it, but it sounds better than open bragging (see TO). When I hear him say that, I immediately wonder why God might (in his mind) give him all these breaks and give another person cystic fibrosis or a mental retardation. I ask my friend about this and while he defends Ben's notion of crediting God for his athletic ability, he suggests that we have no idea why God does what he does. His ways are higher than ours. To question why he might give one person cystic fibrosis and another a thunderbolt for an arm is a question mere mortals need to avoid.

Aha, says me. It dawned on me why this bothers me. Of course, death and disease are a part of our experience. But that shrug about God's ways of the world are much broader than wondering why some cells function and others don't. If the question is global poverty, the answer is often the same. God has his own plan, but he is in control and we are not to question why some live in luxury and others in poverty. For a good many Christians, this has led to an increased sense of responsibility--ie, God has given me a lot, so I am responsible to help as many as I can.

This is a huge leap, and one that has to be addressed. Poverty, while nearly impossible to eradicate, is clearly the result of human choices--or clearly human choice is a big factor. Government decisions, personal choice, corruption, ignorance, all contribute. But to look at Global Poverty and give the "God shrug" (as it is starting to appear in my mind) is to somehow decide that poverty is outside human choice.

Following this logic even more, we can see that even many diseases and ailments that afflict millions are not divine punishment or plan, but a product of human choice. We know that the increased use of chemicals has caused many, many problems. Don't get me wrong, this same technology has also given us great advancement in extending human life. But there are costs. Consider our power needs. Our use of coal fired plants have increased the mercury levels in the air and oceans to the point where much of our seafood has elevated mercury. Pregnant women are now discouraged from eating too much fish as that mercury can have terrible effects on the fetus. So a birth defect or abnormality can hardly be shrugged off as a divine puzzle. It is clearly connected to human choice and action. Not that those actions and choices are clear-cut either, but they are choices.

So where does this leave us? I have a sneaking suspicion that many very religious people--people who care deeply about their faith and their fellow man have so redefined the ills of man, that some human choice is now treated with a "God shrug."

This may explain why so many of my Christian conservative friends vote the way they do. I know them well enough to know that it isn't because they are self-centered or lacking in compassion. But I wonder if they might have focussed their political efforts on stopping things that they see clearly as choice, and avoiding what they see as a waste of political effort on things beyond human control. This might explain those things they vote on (or appear to): abortion, homosexuality, defending traditional values (whatever those are) and those things that they tend to avoid voting on: environment, poverty, general injustice. Is it possible that conservative christians vote the way they do simply because they think that there is nothing that can be done to really address poverty and environmental destruction--that those things are really in that realm of mystery of God's higher ways? So the ways they do approach, say poverty, is to address those personal choice elements--whether a person works or not--rather than looking at systemic flaws?

Just a thought.