The Theology of The Lottery of Life (UPDATED)

This one hits me where I live, both theologically and practically.

Long-time visitors to WorD will know that one of the (many) burrs under my saddle is the language and lexicon of faith. We throw around words and phrases, often I assume, without too much thought to the implications of what we are actually saying.

Case in point: My trick knee starts to ache when I hear people refer to the 'goodness' of their life--good job, kids, spouse, house, health, etc.--as God's blessings. It's always bothered me because if we consider these things as blessings from God, then what must we think about those who lack these same things? At best, must we consider that they're ignored or forgotten by God, and at worst, are they cursed?

As I said, this concept has bothered me for a long time, but the following images really drove the point home this week.

Save the Children have launched a piercing ad campaign called The Lottery of Life. (h/t to My Modern Met)

Consider the following (and click images for larger version):

 

I have to confess that I used to be a propagator of the blessings heresy. What changed for me? I started to connect, even on the tiniest level, with the good people on the left side of the billboards. You know, the folks not blessed by God.

When you reconsider (or more likely consider for the first time) the plight of those on the left side, you can never look at the right side the same way again.

Thoughts?

UPDATE: It seems appropriate to cross-link back to our friend Idelette and her post All I want for Christmas is a brand new world. I love her vulnerability, and her questions.

Comments

[Ryan]

Wow, those are powerful images.

Of the many heresies I have no doubt courted in my day, the "blessings heresy" isn't among them. I remember when I was a boy how my dad refused to pray for rain for his fields because his neighbour needed sun for his cut hay to dry. That image has always stuck with me.

As you say, the lexicon of faith is tricky to use well. Blessings don't seem to come to us (i.e., ALL of us) unmixed.

[Erin Wilson]

Powerful campaign. I agree completely about the way we've turned this kind of privilege into "proof" that God loves us.

I recently read a blog post by a mother describing when Santa Claus disappeared from their household. Her daughter learned that Santa doesn't bring presents to poor kids. She'd have none of that. Knew he wasn't real if he ignored poor kids.

[idelette]

These images have really punched me in the gut. So, do we hold this up as Responsibility then? Our responsibility in what we do with our share of the cookie?

Btw, Erin, love that story of Santa.

[Mike]

Responsibility with a capital R - I think you're on to something there Idelette.

This verse has been running through my mind since seeing these images for the first time:

"From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required; and from one to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded."

(That's Luke 12:48, but it should be read in the context of 42-48.)

Instead of jumping for joy about how 'blessed' we are, perhaps we should quake in our boots--just a little--as we contemplate what will be required and perhaps even demanded of us. That is a heavy, heavy Responsibility.

[sonja]

I never bought into the blessings heresy. It was too easy. If what God gives is good, then what does that say about those who have nothing ... that they are somehow "bad?" I don't think so ... that mocks the whole message of Romans ... that we are all evil and fall short of God's glory.

Or if God gives on a sliding scale of goodness, then that mocks the sacrifice of the cross. No ... never bought it at all. But then, that's one of the side benefits of becoming a Christian as an adult ... being able to think very critically about my faith from the get go.

I've wrestled with this for a very long time. Not because I feel particularly blessed, as I do not see what I have as coming from God necessarily, but as luck. While I know that God cares about what happens to me, I'm not so certain anymore that S/He has ordered every centimeter and moment of my existence after the manner of some combination of a master playwright and clockmaker. There is no place for free will in that scenario. I'm coming to the place where I understand that God created the space for my existence and called me into being. But the where, the how and the when happened somewhat capriciously.

Call it luck, fate, whatever you want ... but I cannot see a God who is perfect love handing out blessings to some as though they are door prizes while others starve to death or die from lack of pennies worth of medicine or killed from greed, rage, obsession, etc. That is not God ... it's not all evil either (although some is). But the problem is that we cannot say the good things are from the God and the bad things are not. That seems to be taking the easy way out ...

[robert]

I love that, Mike. Thank you.
My favourite line is when a football player or a boxer thanks God for his victory... like God had a preference for his side over the other.
Erin, I love that Santa story too. Made me remember that's how I first became an atheist. Looked around, saw the inequality and "knew he wasn't real if he ignored poor kids." :)

[TimD]

Thanks for this, Mike. It's this type of thinking - the type of thinking that you're calling out - that almost drove me from the faith (and, in my opinion, drives many away). It completely ignores reality, but is extremely well accepted in the church. Your comment above (Luke 12:48) - that's where this needs to take us.

[Nate Wright]

Reminds me a little of Mark Twain's "The War Prayer", though the mirroring in it is perhaps more explicit.

http://warprayer.org/

[Angela S]

The blessings heresy is something I totally grew up with and is ingrained into my brain. I also don't believe it or like it and it makes my teeth grate when I hear people speak that way and yet, I don't know a different way. When I pray, those same words keep coming up, thanking God for our 'blessings'. So difficult to change that way of thinking. Thank you for posting about the subject - hit home for me.

[Erin Wilson]

Robert... I hear you. This is where we differ- I tend to think that God has provided for the poor, but many of us steal and hoard what was intended for them. The fault lies with us. With me.

[robert]

Erin, it's not you, it's me.

[Morgan K Freeberg]

There are three distinctly different kinds of people:

1. Those who come across someone much worse off, and just go on with their own lives as if nothing happened;
2. Those who come across someone much worse off, and defer or sacrifice their own gratification to offer comfort/sustenance to someone who really needs it;
3. Those who won't ignore, and won't sacrifice, but will require some third party to do the sacrificing to offer comfort/sustenance.

Form your own opinion about which kind God wants to see on His creation. (I've formed mine.) I'll leave that one alone -- but I can tell you what God is going to do: Make people unequal.

For if we're all the same, then there's no way to test the system, and find out what people really are like. God would then have to cruise along on blind faith, just like He expects us to. And perhaps some who think of man as being equivalent to God would say that makes perfect sense -- but then, if that's the case, then what is the point to our being here? There wouldn't be any, whatsoever. Nor would there be any point to our being here if it were up to God to make it all equal...or to create it all that way in the first place.

No, logic says we're being tested. To see if we're the kind of people who will offer the shirt off our own backs...or off someone else's.

[Mike]

Thanks for the great input. It's interesting how some grew up in the blessings realm, and for others it's not an issue.

Hey Morgan - Thanks for the comment... it's been a while since you've been by.

I think I'm tracking with you here, but I'm not sure I'm buying it. I can go for the idea of a test, sort of. But the notion that God has made people "unequal" in order to facilitate a test--if that's what you're saying--that I gotta check at the door. I don't think anything we do or don't do surprises God (disappoints, yes). God doesn't need to "test the system" in my view. I also think your #2 and #3 split is a bit of a straw man. There's those that have, and those that don't. Saying the test is set up to see "see if we're the kind of people who will offer the shirt off our own backs...or off someone else's" makes it about those that have, when God makes it very clear that those who don't have will in fact have the place of honour in the Kingdom

I'm probably not making much sense here... it's been a long day.

I know this is the one post Rick has linked to, but take a moment to check out what Walter Brueggemann has to say about Justice a couple of posts from here. I think it ties in.

[Peter Struk]

Leo Tolstoy 1828-1910

"I sit on a man's back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means - except by getting off his back."

.....2010.. I believe that this concept
still needs our deep contemplation.

Today I choose to remember the children
and adults who are treated so very poorly
so that chocolate may be inexpensive for
us.

[Morgan K Freeberg]

Mike,

The idea that God wants us to help each other, once accepted, logically excludes all kinds of otherwise legitimate possibilities. Our level of comfort on this earthly sphere must be *somewhat* relevant. It absolutely has to be, otherwise why would we be expected to lend an assist to each other when we only have control over the temporal realm and the objects in it?

And yet you're right, the scriptures are clear. The poor have a place in the Kingdom, which must mean wealth stature ceases to be relevant in some situation. It's relevant and irrelevant. How to resolve the dichotomy?

Answer: In the civilization in which the gospels were written, stature and wealth were intertwined. Wealth had something to do with sustenance and continued life expectancy. In ours, it has much more to do with control. So if you demand that taxes be raised on other persons who are not you, so that the poor can be taken care of, how can this nourish your soul? Before the pertinent transaction your checking account has X dollars in it, afterward it has the same amount...the poor person might have his lot in life improved or maybe not, but the only way the situation has changed is some third party has been deprived of options.

To give the shirt off your own back is to take ownership of the situation, and personally see to it that the outcome is altered for the better. So you might do well to give another think to the difference between #2 and #3. There is a meaningful distinction there.

[Morgan K Freeberg]

As far as this other concept, God the Software Engineer conducting unit tests & system tests...I realize this is a big concept, a strange concept to some, and without some intellectual vigor applied a strange concept has to equal an unwelcome one.

But to reject it deprives us of all functional purpose. If our behavior is predetermined, then we have no behavior at all. We become something, maybe beautiful, but wholly lacking in any unpredictable state, and therefore in any unknown state. We become something beneath pets, beneath houseplants -- think about those things, we "love" them because they have behavior, and intrinsic to this lovable behavior is some uncertainty about what they will do.

We would be something akin to paintings. Or decorative pottery on a shelf. Or, if you desire to preserve this purpose we have while disclaiming the uncertainty-of-behavior that would contribute to it, we would become tools. Very reliable tools maybe (which I would submit we aren't), but tools nonetheless. Like a nut-driver you absolutely, positively know will loosen the nut every single time, since hey you built it and you're infinitely wise.

The problem is that such a thing cannot be loved. You can't have a relationship with it of any kind, since you always know what it's going to do. It would necessarily become just a thing.

Besides of which, if God really is all-knowing and that phrase is to be taken absolutely literally, I would say Genesis 4:9 directly contradict this. We're here to be tested, there can be no question about it.

[Mike]

Another thoughtful reply Morgan, thanks.

Forgive me for saying so, but I think your response is a typically Western one. For me, the Gospel is not primarily concerned with how we give the guy a shirt; whether I take it off my own back or demand my government give him one. That's politics, it's ideology, but I don't think it's scriptural. The Gospel seems to be asking, first and foremost, why doesn't this dude have a shirt?

Also, I lean towards a form of open theism, so I wasn't suggesting God knows everything we are going to do, I just said God wasn't surprised by it.