Stupid quotes tricks
What would Jonathan Edwards say?

The invaluable Arthur Chrenkoff has compiled the 12 stupidest quotes - so far - about the tsunami. My fave is from the Westboro Baptist Church (not part of the Southern Baptist Convention, btw. I would excerpt it, except that it is such unutterable trash that I can't bring myself to do so. Note that Arthur didn't excerpt it, either. But if you have a strong constitution, you may read their web site.

But wait! There's more! Compare Westboro's deep theology with that of a Muslim imam near Banda Aceh, probably the hardest-hit region:

"God is angry with Aceh people, because most of them do not do what is written in the Koran and the Hadith," the collected sayings and actions of the prophet Muhammad, explained Cut Bukhaini, 35, an imam. "I hope this will lead all Muslims in Aceh to do what is in the Koran and its teachings. If we do so, God will be merciful and compassionate."

Bukhaini, surrounded by refugees camping on the grounds of his Baitush Shakhir Mosque in Banda Aceh's Ulee Kareng district, said people here were guilty of forgetting their obligation to pray five times a day and of concentrating too much on earning money rather than living according to their religion. Moreover, he explained, they offended the Almighty by entering into a conflict in which "Muslims killed Muslims" in contravention of Koranic strictures.

But wait again. Didn't one of the most influential early American clergymen, Jonathan Edwards, preach about "Sinners in the Hands of An Angry God?" Well, yes, and in it he made a series of very blunt points, all of which pretty much come down to this:

"There is nothing that keeps wicked men at any one moment out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God."

And this quote, still well known among homileticians:

The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; ...

And there is no other reason to be given, why you have not dropped into hell since you arose in the morning, but that God's hand has held you up. There is no other reason to be given why you have not gone to hell, since you have sat here in the house of God, provoking his pure eyes by your sinful wicked manner of attending his solemn worship. Yea, there is nothing else that is to be given as a reason why you do not this very moment drop down into hell.

In fact, Edwards' sermon, as discomfiting as it is to modern ears, focuses on the fact that God stays his wrath rather than acts from it. Edwards never spoke about natural disasters (as far as I know), and certainly with his Calvinistic theology would have thought them ordained by God anyway. But I am pretty sure his recorded theology would not support the sort of personalized wrath that Westboro's preacher and the imam spoke of. Edwards would have responded that all the ways of our lives are in God's hands for good or not, that none of know the time our lives will end from any cause, and that we'd best get right with God now while we have the chance. But I am very confident that Edwards would not ascribe special sinfulness to the Indian Ocean people that brought the calamity onto them.

Update: Sheik Fawzan Al-Fawzan, a professor at the Al-Imam University, seems to agree with the Westboro boys:

These great tragedies and collective punishments that are wiping out villages, towns, cities, and even entire countries, are Allah's punishments of the people of these countries, even if they are Muslims.

Some of our forefathers said that if there is usury and fornication in a certain village, Allah permits its destruction. We know that at these resorts, which unfortunately exist in Islamic and other countries in South Asia, and especially at Christmas, fornication and sexual perversion of all kinds are rampant. The fact that it happened at this particular time is a sign from Allah. It happened at Christmas, when fornicators and corrupt people from all over the world come to commit fornication and sexual perversion. That's when this tragedy took place, striking them all and destroyed everything. It turned the land into wasteland, where only the cries of the ravens are heard. I say this is a great sign and punishment on which Muslims should reflect.

I would say that the vast majority of the killed are innocent of these wrongdoings, but what they heck, they must be guilty of something, right?

by Donald Sensing, 1/5/2005 08:52:26 PM. Permalink |