Adventists and Others
Respond to Attack on America

At Issue Index   Response Index  

It's very important to distinguish between
   1) bad things that are the chastisement of God for sin, and
   2) bad things that are the attacks of enemies of God.

Recall that Job's friends spend most of the book trying to convince him that the disasters that have fallen upon him are God's punishment for some secret sin, whereas Job firmly replies that he's not guilty of any such thing.  (And God agrees, as we—but not Job or his friends—know from the prologue to the book; God and Satan both agree that Job is an upright man, only disagreeing about why he is so.)

One of the things I've noticed is that when something bad happens to us, we have a tendency to start navel-gazing while guilt-wracked—we ask ourselves "What did I do to deserve this? What sin have I committed that God did not protect me from this?"

While this approach is sometimes useful, it's important to remember that sometimes it's entirely wrong-headed.  Sometimes you aren't attacked because you've done something, or anything, bad; sometimes you suffer simply because you are good in an evil world.

So Job, who was righteous in his generation, suffered the attacks of Satan.  So many martyrs throughout the centuries, martyred not  for their secret sins, but for their open virtues.  So Daniel, in the lion's den for praying in public.  So, we believe, Sabbath-keepers and God-fearers in the end-time.

And so, I think, America in this month of tragedy.  We are not the target because of our vices, but because of our virtues.  Freedom. Law.  Openness.  Tolerance.  (We can agree that terrorists consider our virtues to be vices, but that doesn't mean they are.)  We are not perfect, no, but only God is perfect.

We are who we are, in the freedom wherewith Christ has made us free, and that is why we were attacked.  Not, as Falwell and Robertson tried to claim, because we accept this thing or that thing (we are, after all, following the counsel of the Lord to let things grow freely until the harvest, not trying to weed out the tares before they come to full fruition), not for our evil things, but for our good things.

Remember Job.