Linkathon!

Erunner says:

The link re Florida and the Bahamas was interesting. My brother lives in North Carolina and I was concerned because where he lives was hit hard last year. Thankfully they came out unscathed this year.

Yet there were some right on the coast who were hit again while they were still recovering from last year. One can only imagine what their thoughts are.

Why that huricane sat over the Bahamas for two straight days I have no idea. Seeing the absolute devastation was heartbreaking and the loss of lives was sad.

The survivors have to dealing with tons of things just for survival and on top of that PTSD will become a very real thing for thousands.

I would hope there aren’t those that hold to the idea that Florida was somehow deserving of what could have been a huge tragedy that would have dwarfed what they did experience.

It’s hard to see all of the suffering from the comfort of my home. Each life lost and the survivors are each created in God’s image. I would never say they were judged due to some sort of sin, etc. If that was the case we’d all be in real trouble.

At times it seems so easy to say I trust in the providence of God during times like this. The sentiment can conceal any real concern for what happened. Simply apply a biblical explanation and wait for the next event. As long as it doesn’t impact me.

We serve a loving God but I can’t look at these disasters and say he’s a god of justice and what took place was due to his lesser love for others.

The New Victor says:

Re: the hurricane. Didn’t Jesus cover this in talking about The Tower of Siloam? Things happen, and while it is good to thank God (in everything), the greater concern is one’s eternal state, because everyone dies.

Re: ripping a page out of the Bible (the division between the Old and New Testaments). Good insight. Related to this, I also never understood those who slam the “vengeful” God of the Old Testament and embrace Jesus of the NT, whether non Christians or red letter Christians. Jesus said a lot of very harsh things, and the latter part of The Sermon on the Mount is also harsh, not to mention just about every parable.

Eric says:

The churches I have been part of have a habit of closing. This is their history.

I grew up in large church A.

A was doing great and church B was small and looking like closing, so a group from A joined B, which became a revitalised church with many capable people and a lot of young adults. We thought God would use us in big ways. I attended there more of my 20s.

When I moved house I joined church C, which was dominated by grey heads and suffered the tug-of-war of old and new. I t wasn’t easy there but I knew it was a good place for me to serve.

When I moved again I joined church D, which was just being planted. D was small and dominated by families with kids.
A few years later, B had become smaller and merged with another church (and looks more like the other one). Around the same time C closed, despite the efforts of the gifted and innovative pastor who had led them after I’d left.

Just recently church D closed as well. After running for 5 years, they’d stayed around the same size while their sending church, which had been overflowing 6 years ago, had shrunk a lot.

So out of all my previous churches, only A remains in the form it had when I was there, still going strong. E, where I am now, is small & organic and can hardly be expected to last long-term, but we’re doing good ministry for now.

Outside T. Fold says:

WenatcheeTheHatchet, thank you for posting the article on the quaker world and slavery.

Late 1600s were the time when “white” came to be used as a legal term. Didn’t know about its use in Barbados, but I recently learned about it in the Virginia colony in 1691. (Source: Seeing White podcast, Made in America episode)

Also, the 17th century practice of teasing out the difference between Christian and dividing people by race. This excerpt a book cited in the Slate Academy on History of Slavery, and the way that the distinctions were made to create a permanent class of enslaved people, has been helpful. http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_history_of_american_slavery/2015/05/why_america_adopted_race_based_slavery.html

I continue to think about how the conditions of enslaving people then are with us today. Thinking of it through the lens of religion, well, I know that it affects our theology and worldview still.