No, not the movie. Reality. I haven't seen the movie, It's Complicated. But the title seems apt for what's on my mind today.
I confess, I jumped to a conclusion. The images and stories coming out of Haiti after the earthquake were (and continue to be) overwhelming. We prayed. We gave. We reflected. My own small experience in much smaller-scale tragedies (the San Salvador earthquake of 1986 and the incredible series of several thousand earthquakes in El Salvador during the first three months of 2001) kept coming back to mind, as I tried to comprehend what people in Haiti must be going through in a disaster many times greater.
I also remembered the very different ways in which followers of Jesus responded to those earlier and smaller disasters. Indelibly etched in my memory was the sound of a guy moving through the injured, homeless and hungry people in the back of a pickup truck. The pickup was heavily loaded, not with relief supplies, but with loudspeakers... loudspeakers he was using to announce that the earthquake was God's judgment upon the sinful city.
I wondered if the current tragedy had sparked some people to do similar things. That's when a friend shared with me the video clip from Pat Robertson's 700 Club, in which he talked about the earthquake as part of a "curse" springing from a "pact with the Devil" that was allegedly made by revolutionary slaves as they sought to overthrow their French colonial rulers. Robertson's remarks have stirred up a firestorm of controversy.
When I decided to share some of my thoughts about the Haitian tragedy and how Jesus might respond to it, the primary contrast in my mind was between the guy in the pickup in San Salvador in October 1986 and the actions and invitations-to-action that were being undertaken by all the people and agencies that I relate to. Those actions seemed to me to be the kind of thing that Argentine pastor Gerardo Oberman was expressing in his poem based on 1 Kings 19:11, ...but God was not in the earthquake (Oberman, by the way, has told me he is delighted to have people make whatever good use of it they may, whether in the original Spanish [http://www.redcrearte.org.ar], my translation or the translation by Katherine H. Fiegenbaum).
As I wrote, Robertson's remarks seemed like a simple example of the kind of attitude toward human tragedy that I had seen in the guy in the back of the truck in San Salvador. I was wrong. Robertson's remarks are not a simple example of anything. It's complicated.
A friend read my "Aftershocks" update and challenged me to be fair to Pat Robertson. Rightly so (thanks, friend!). I want to treat everyone with integrity. So it is only fair to recognize, however one feels about Robertson's statements, that over 31 years ago, Robertson founded the organization Operation Blessing International (OBI), which has become a leading Christian relief organization, dedicated, in the words of its mission statement, "to demonstrate God's love by alleviating human need and suffering in the United States and around the world." That, of course, is exactly the desire I expressed in my journal, and the sentiment in the poem by Gerardo Oberman.
But there's more. It is not just a matter of a specific statement needing to be understood against the backdrop of a decades-long pattern of behavior. When I managed to watch not the short video clip I had first seen on YouTube, but that segment set within its own immediate video context (available in the 700 Club archives for January 13, 2010 at www.cbn.com), it is clear that Robertson's statements about the "curse" and the "pact with the Devil" were embedded within a much lengthier segment about the tragedy and the urgent need to respond to human suffering.
So I repent of characterizing Robertson as someone like the guy in the back of the pickup truck, using his resources to further abuse hurting people instead of help them. Robertson is anything but the guy in the back of the truck. His organization's long-haul track record and its specific role in Haiti do not contradict but actually embody the message I meant to advocate.
Of course, the statement itself, no matter how much context one supplies, is another question. But it, too, is complicated.
It was easy enough to identify the historical event to which Robertson referred: a ceremony that took place in Bois Caiman in August of 1791, led--at least in part--by Boukman Dutty. But my Encyclopedia Britannica was much too sketchy on Haitian history to be of much help. Without time to visit a good research library, I was left at the mercy of Google, Wikipedia and all of the other sometimes wise, sometimes wacky denizens of the Internet.
A brief search revealed that the history is both complicated and very contested--not least because the interwoven threads include colonialism, revolution, race, slavery and voudou, to name only a few. The issues go far beyond what I am able to verify or claim to understand at this point. And, beyond determining the events themselves, there is the question of what Robertson really meant to say. (The CBN website states he did not mean to claim the earthquake was an act of God's wrath against the Haitian people.)
It's complicated. But my point is simple. I was wrong about Robertson's heart, as demonstrated by the actions of his organization and the larger context of his statement.
I'm grateful that God is not limited by our complications, whether mine, Pat Robertson's or anyone else's. I am grateful for--and praying for the effectiveness of--the efforts of OBI and all of the vast number of organizations and individuals who are responding to the needs of the Haitian people. May the Lord use all of our giving, praying and going--together with the heroic efforts of the Haitian people themselves--to comfort the survivors and to bring the resurrection of a truly better life out of the tomb of this nightmarish disaster.
Blessings,
Stan
I confess, I jumped to a conclusion. The images and stories coming out of Haiti after the earthquake were (and continue to be) overwhelming. We prayed. We gave. We reflected. My own small experience in much smaller-scale tragedies (the San Salvador earthquake of 1986 and the incredible series of several thousand earthquakes in El Salvador during the first three months of 2001) kept coming back to mind, as I tried to comprehend what people in Haiti must be going through in a disaster many times greater.
I also remembered the very different ways in which followers of Jesus responded to those earlier and smaller disasters. Indelibly etched in my memory was the sound of a guy moving through the injured, homeless and hungry people in the back of a pickup truck. The pickup was heavily loaded, not with relief supplies, but with loudspeakers... loudspeakers he was using to announce that the earthquake was God's judgment upon the sinful city.
I wondered if the current tragedy had sparked some people to do similar things. That's when a friend shared with me the video clip from Pat Robertson's 700 Club, in which he talked about the earthquake as part of a "curse" springing from a "pact with the Devil" that was allegedly made by revolutionary slaves as they sought to overthrow their French colonial rulers. Robertson's remarks have stirred up a firestorm of controversy.
When I decided to share some of my thoughts about the Haitian tragedy and how Jesus might respond to it, the primary contrast in my mind was between the guy in the pickup in San Salvador in October 1986 and the actions and invitations-to-action that were being undertaken by all the people and agencies that I relate to. Those actions seemed to me to be the kind of thing that Argentine pastor Gerardo Oberman was expressing in his poem based on 1 Kings 19:11, ...but God was not in the earthquake (Oberman, by the way, has told me he is delighted to have people make whatever good use of it they may, whether in the original Spanish [http://www.redcrearte.org.ar], my translation or the translation by Katherine H. Fiegenbaum).
As I wrote, Robertson's remarks seemed like a simple example of the kind of attitude toward human tragedy that I had seen in the guy in the back of the truck in San Salvador. I was wrong. Robertson's remarks are not a simple example of anything. It's complicated.
A friend read my "Aftershocks" update and challenged me to be fair to Pat Robertson. Rightly so (thanks, friend!). I want to treat everyone with integrity. So it is only fair to recognize, however one feels about Robertson's statements, that over 31 years ago, Robertson founded the organization Operation Blessing International (OBI), which has become a leading Christian relief organization, dedicated, in the words of its mission statement, "to demonstrate God's love by alleviating human need and suffering in the United States and around the world." That, of course, is exactly the desire I expressed in my journal, and the sentiment in the poem by Gerardo Oberman.
But there's more. It is not just a matter of a specific statement needing to be understood against the backdrop of a decades-long pattern of behavior. When I managed to watch not the short video clip I had first seen on YouTube, but that segment set within its own immediate video context (available in the 700 Club archives for January 13, 2010 at www.cbn.com), it is clear that Robertson's statements about the "curse" and the "pact with the Devil" were embedded within a much lengthier segment about the tragedy and the urgent need to respond to human suffering.
So I repent of characterizing Robertson as someone like the guy in the back of the pickup truck, using his resources to further abuse hurting people instead of help them. Robertson is anything but the guy in the back of the truck. His organization's long-haul track record and its specific role in Haiti do not contradict but actually embody the message I meant to advocate.
Of course, the statement itself, no matter how much context one supplies, is another question. But it, too, is complicated.
It was easy enough to identify the historical event to which Robertson referred: a ceremony that took place in Bois Caiman in August of 1791, led--at least in part--by Boukman Dutty. But my Encyclopedia Britannica was much too sketchy on Haitian history to be of much help. Without time to visit a good research library, I was left at the mercy of Google, Wikipedia and all of the other sometimes wise, sometimes wacky denizens of the Internet.
A brief search revealed that the history is both complicated and very contested--not least because the interwoven threads include colonialism, revolution, race, slavery and voudou, to name only a few. The issues go far beyond what I am able to verify or claim to understand at this point. And, beyond determining the events themselves, there is the question of what Robertson really meant to say. (The CBN website states he did not mean to claim the earthquake was an act of God's wrath against the Haitian people.)
It's complicated. But my point is simple. I was wrong about Robertson's heart, as demonstrated by the actions of his organization and the larger context of his statement.
I'm grateful that God is not limited by our complications, whether mine, Pat Robertson's or anyone else's. I am grateful for--and praying for the effectiveness of--the efforts of OBI and all of the vast number of organizations and individuals who are responding to the needs of the Haitian people. May the Lord use all of our giving, praying and going--together with the heroic efforts of the Haitian people themselves--to comfort the survivors and to bring the resurrection of a truly better life out of the tomb of this nightmarish disaster.
Blessings,
Stan