The retribution of God?

A few days ago a tragic accident occurred when a plane carrying three families totaling 14 people on their way to a ski vacation in Montana crashed killing all aboard. The victims were all members of the Seventh-day Adventist church. According to the Adventist Review, “All three families were members or regular attendees at congregations in the Northern California Conference; the three husbands were longtime friends who attended both church-owned Pacific Union College and Loma Linda University.”

Three families, 14 people. Gone just like that. This is no doubt would be a very difficult situation for the survivors of just one family to bear. It is hard to comprehend three. Yet, on top of that tragedy there is still much more to deal with, a tragedy within the tragedy. What can only seem to be the total and complete mischaracterization of God Himself, His nature and His character, is the tact that has been taken by some who consider themselves “pro life.”

It appears that there are certain members of the “pro life” community, writers, speakers, etc., that see this plane crash as God’s very own retribution against the family patriarch of the deceased, a prominent Adventist, Dr. Irving M. “Bud” Feldkamp III, who owns the Hospitality Dental Group in San Bernardino, California, the Glen Helen Raceway and Family Planning Associates, a California corporation that provides abortions.

This entry is not about whether abortion is or is not wrong, or whether it is immoral.

What this particular entry is about is trying to understand God Himself and whether God is actually responsible in these situations. In other words, does God kill and/or seek retribution against sinners by attacking the sinners’ family? And if so, what does that say about God? Is all that “mercy” talk just a bunch of tripe?

Without coming right out and saying as much many “pro lifers” have hinted at the fact that this is God’s retribution for the fact that Dr. Feldkamp owns a corporation that performs abortions. Which begs the question, does God kill those family members – specifically the young children, in this case grandchildren, of people that may or may not be in working in the will of God?

In the Book of Luke (Luke 13:1-6) after Jesus was told of Pilate murdering certain Galileans as they sacrificed at the Temple Jesus said plainly to His disciples, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way?” The standard view of the Jews in these times was that those who suffered, or who were poor, or who were in some other way not as fortunate as others that somehow they were cursed by God. Is that what we are to think regarding this plane crash? Yet what does Jesus go on to teach us? He says, “I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.” Jesus continues on, “Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them–do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem?” Jesus repeats His admonition, “I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.”

So what are we to think? Is God constantly lurking in the background waiting for those very children He created to slip up so He can pounce? Is this what God does? Paul tells us in Galatians 1:4 that Jesus died and, “gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father.” In the Book of Ezekiel (18:20) we are told that, “The son will not share the guilt of the father, nor will the father share the guilt of the son.”

In the desire of some people to expose what they consider to be the greatest sins of others they use a tragedy such as this to coldly and callously denounce people and yet become insensitive to others themselves. They paint God as a God that would kill the living, and breathing children and grandchildren as a perfectly just punishment for the sins of another man.

Is it any wonder that so many distrust God and want nothing to do with Him? A God that seeks to destroy the very creation He has made is a God that no one cares to know, that no one cares to learn of and is as pagan as the day is long.