Refreshing Candor

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has admitted to doubting the existence of God due to the tsunami disaster in an article quoted by the British newspaper The Telegraph.

"...it would be wrong" if faith were not "upset" by the catastrophe which has already claimed more than 150,000 lives.

"Every single random, accidental death is something that should upset a faith bound up in comfort and ready answers. Faced with the paralysing magnitude of a disaster like this, we naturally feel more deeply outraged - and also more deeply helpless."

He adds: "The question, 'How can you believe in a God who permits suffering on this scale?' is therefore very much around at the moment, and it would be surprising if it weren't - indeed it would be wrong if it weren't."

Dr Williams concludes that, faced with such a terrible challenge to their faith, Christians must focus on "passionate engagement with the lives that are left".

I find this enormously refreshing. Sadly, I have discovered in my reading today that many fundamentalist Christians are saying that the tsunami was God's punishment visited upon those who aren't Christian and that we in America who were spared such a disaster were protected because the beliefs of so many in this country are the so-called "right" ones. Needless to say, I am appalled by that interpretation of events. I wonder if such religionists have ever read the book of Job. There are also many right wing people recently who have declared that since many tsunami victims are Muslim, we shouldn't help them because Muslims are our enemies. I am appalled by that too - inexpressibly so. Even if it were true (and it's not), have such people forgotten that Jesus taught us to love our enemies and do good to those who despitefully use us?

And so it is indeed refreshing to come across a religious response that does not attribute this disaster to God's wrathful or even neutral will, that instead sees the response of faith as being the action of compassion rather than the passing of judgment. I agree with Rowan Williams that the challenge we all have, no matter what our belief system, is that of "passionate engagement with the lives that are left." As meditators the foundation of everything we do is compassion - compassion for ourselves, compassion for our loved ones, compassion for strangers and, finally, compassion for our enemies. May it be so for each one of us.