Church Chat

Imagine you’re a doctor. (Unless you are a doctor. Then just think about your daily life.) All day long you’re diagnosing and treating people, using your extensive knowledge to help them enjoy the best life and best health possible. Your efforts prove beneficial, even life-saving to many people, but by no means all. The majority of your patients, in fact, ignore your good advice. They don’t fill the prescriptions you give them, or they fail to take medicines as instructed. They don’t change habits dangerous to their health as you advise. They don’t quit smoking. They drink sugary beverages from morning ’til night. They overeat unhealthy foods and fail to get the exercise you recommend. They don’t lose the weight you tell them they should. They don’t come in for routine checkups or keep their appointments. And when they do show up they want to blame you for their health problems. It doesn’t matter that they ignored the instructions you gave them, the very instructions which could have prevented most of their problems. Admittedly, you are getting pretty old, and the way most of your patients see it, your advice is unrealistic and outdated. More and more people in town think you’re a quack. In fact, however, your medical and lifestyle advice is sound. Even so, people who have never been your patients, who have never even met you or checked you out, believe the worst about you. Some people hold it against you that they did everything you told them to do and their health still sucks. Or one of their friends or family members in your care died. So they refuse to be treated by you. They might allow it in an extreme emergency, but it would have to be life and death. Otherwise they want nothing to do with you.

Being a good doctor you can plainly see that people are making unwise choices that threaten their health. But it really isn’t your job to intervene in people’s lives. Especially people who were once your patients but who no longer are under medical care. It’s their choice. People have every right to their freedom. You deal with your patients, and the rest are either on their own or in the care of other doctors. You’re cool with that. You’re not so desperate for patients that you’re into forcing people to come to your office.

One thing really bugs you, though: people who left the hospital AMA (against medical advice); patients who were non-compliant, not following the regimen of care you prescribed; people who are doing (or not doing) all kinds of things you advise against (or for), and yet when things go south they want to blame you or question your medical qualifications.

Friends, I know people say some doctors have a God complex, but in this analogy doctors and God actually have a lot in common. Tons of people have rejected God and religion and the Bible. They want nothing to do with any of it. That is their right. Forced worship of God would be utterly meaningless anyway. Yet they then blame God for human suffering, birth defects, war, natural disasters, disease, poverty, untimely deaths, Justin Beiber, and more. I see their posts on websites and facebook and assorted blogs. Last week I saw an array of horrible photos of children with clef palates and a sarcastic caption about the Bible’s claim, “God is love.” This is a common atheist theme.

There is a clear and simple answer to why God permits human suffering. But this sermonette is not about that. It’s about people who want nothing to do with God and who reject his guidelines – which is perfectly within their rights – but who then want to blame him for the human condition, or criticize him for not engineering some magical rescue.

You can’t have it both ways.

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“Categories: Church of the Infinite Chasm”