I don't think I've actually talked about this here yet--likely because it has to this point been framed as a legal and political (rather than spiritual) controversy, even though the loss of life is inherently spiritual--but the Trayvon Martin shooting back in February shook me quite badly. Whatever may have happened in the actual confrontation between Martin and George Zimmerman (and perhaps nobody knows for sure what happened except Zimmerman himself), it felt like a wholly preventable loss of life if Zimmerman had simply obeyed the dispatch officer's instruction to stay where he was, rather than pursue Martin on foot. For that reason, I was, and am, heartened that our criminal justice system is striving to hold Zimmerman accountable for Martin's death.
But in an interview with Fox News talking head and partisan hack Sean Hannity, Zimmerman says that he feels what happened that night was "all God's plan." In response to that assertion, Tracy Martin, Trayvon's father, replied, "We must worship a different God. There is no way that my God wanted George Zimmerman to murder my teenage son."
Okay, now it's definitely spiritual.
Honestly, there are a few things that bother me about what Zimmerman is implying--and not just that it was God's plan for an otherwise innocent young man to die violently and prematurely.
It's that I have no idea what God's plan is, or even if there is one.
Theodicy is the seminary term for the question of "why does evil exist?" or "why do bad things happen to good people?" It literally means "God's justice" ("theo" = Greek for "god," and "dicy" comes from "dike," or "justice), and that dimension of the term has been invoked to justify violent deaths for, well, as long as we have had religion (see also: the Crusades, the Salem witch trials, the Inquisition, 9/11, on and on). It is also used as a tone-deaf means of comforting a bereaved friend or relative ("It was God's will that your loved one passed away..."), which likewise makes me cringe.
It isn't that I don't believe in God's justice, I just don't believe that it occurs in this lifetime, or in this world, so how can I say I know what God's plan is?
Saying something happened because God planned it so brings to bear not a God who created us and redeemed us, but a God who micromanages us and uses us. That is simply not God as I understand Him to be as revealed by Jesus Christ.
I understand where such a theology comes from, though--in this time and place when we talk about having a "personal" relationship with God and with Jesus Christ, that necessarily implies some micromanaging.
And the other side of the coin of a "personal" relationship with God is in the statement of Tracy Martin--that the two of them must worship different gods.
Because in some ways...we all do. We all worship different gods. Through our own individual spiritual and personal experiences, God becomes an idealized version of ourselves, and our worship of God at that point inches closer to idolatry. I know I'm guilty of it--we all probably are. It takes profound humility, especially as a pastor, to continually ask yourself, "What if I'm wrong?" But the Bible is also explicitly clear that humility is a virtue (Luke 18:14, James 4:10, and more), and so I think such humility actually strengthens faith.
That might be what is most hurtful and troubling about George Zimmerman's words--that it isn't simply Zimmerman's belief that God's plan was for Trayvon Martin to be killed that fateful evening, but that he has no humility, no doubt about this divine scheme that I promise you is beyond yours, his, or my understanding.
It is one thing to second-guess God...again, all of us are probably guilty of that.
It is entirely another to do so without any doubt that God approves of you second-guessing Him.
Please continue to pray for wisdom and strength for everyone involved in the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman case.
Yours in Christ,
Eric
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