March 2014 – Daniel Hochhalter

The Internet is buzzing about the latest rant against God from Bill Maher. Set off by the upcoming movie Noah, Maher calls God a ”psychotic mass murderer” who “drowns babies” and has “anger management issues” worse than Russell Crowe’s. Many Christians are shocked, offended, and even enraged by what he said, and everyone seems to be talking about it, so I thought I would offer my two cents as well.

Thought #1: Bill Maher is an atheist. What else would we Christians expect from an atheist? Atheists don’t believe what we believe. They mock what we hold sacred. They will blaspheme a God who, to their way of thinking, does not exist. We can’t possibly hold the expectation that they should treat us and our beliefs with respect.

Thought #2: Bill Maher is an entertainer. An entertainer’s job is to attract and hold people’s attention. That may seem narcissistic, but it is the nature of the beast. Entertainers must continually draw attention or they become irrelevant. Maher’s remarks are designed to get a rise out of believers: the more he can offend Christians (and occasionally those of other faiths too, though not with the same level of venom), the more attention he receives. His provocative and sometimes offensive use of rhetoric is not much different than what Miley Cyrus does with a foam finger or a wrecking ball. When entertainers offend, usually it’s best to just ignore them.

Thought #3: An infinite God does not need to be defended against the rhetoric of a finite man. Often, a first reaction to anti-faith rhetoric is to try to build strong arguments to put doubters like Maher in their place. But if atheists mock our foundational beliefs, they will also mock our retorts. With rare exceptions, very few people have ever been argued into God’s kingdom. Most people’s hearts are changed by love, not logic. Christians should respond to anti-faith attacks not with words of anger but with acts of grace: feeding the poor, helping the sick, praying silently that God will reveal his truth and goodness to Maher and others who don’t believe.

Thought #4: Christianity has survived, and will survive, much worse persecutions than this. In the grand scheme of things, all Maher is doing is hurting some feelings. That’s nothing compared to the brutal persecutions of Christians in ancient Rome, or in present-day China, Egypt, and Syria. Jesus said that his followers would face persecution and even death. A verbal attack like Maher’s is barely a blip in the story of our faith.

Eventually, Maher’s words will fade into a footnote on Wikipedia, if that. But the church will still be the church – flawed and imperfect. We Christians will still be the broken vessels God uses to spread his love. And that is our primary business.

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February is always a difficult month for me because it marks the anniversary when my doctoral dissertation died a sudden and violent death. February is the month that I flew out of England for the last time.

This February, like the last six, was not a happy time. I approached it with a sense of dread, grief and sadness, still feeling the pain of the loss of my work. This February, though–the sixth since my postgraduate research went sideways–I had the joy and thrill of a recently-signed book deal, and with it a sense of newness. It is a new chapter. Perhaps a sense of hope. Yet I continue to grieve. The loss still stings.

I feel a little like Job–specifically, Job in the final chapter (Job 42). Job’s ordeal is over. He has had his audience with God (although God’s response was basically that he is God, and he does not have to explain anything to us). Job’s friends have been directly rebuked for giving him such crummy, off-target advice in claiming his trouble was due to sin (with Job, ironically, then interceding on their behalf). His wealth has returned and his siblings have joined him in a feast.

And he has ten sparkling brand-new children—seven sons and three daughters—the exact number of children he originally lost, crushed to death under a collapsed roof. Further, to take the whole reward thing up a notch, these three daughters are described as the most beautiful in the land (verse 13).

This epilogue bothers me. It smacks of a “happily-ever-after” fairy tale. It wraps up the drama in a package that’s just a little too neat. Did Job stop grieving simply because he was divinely upgraded to a better, more beautiful Family 2.0?

A new blessing doesn’t lessen the grief of loss. And continuing to grieve in a time of blessing is not short-sighted or sinful.

For a plant to live, the seed must die. That doesn’t mean the seed never existed. Out of the death of my doctoral dissertation was born a book deal. And this book may end up being more widely read than a dusty old dissertation in an obscure university library.

Still, I grieve the loss of those seven years of work. And I celebrate. Typical of the God of resurrection, this God brings life out of death. For Job, his new children were born out of death, perhaps a metaphor for a new chapter in his life: reminders of hope in a context of death. That doesn’t mean his other children never existed. Perhaps, when he surveyed the second batch of loving faces around him, he was able to fondly remember the first batch—and perhaps, in grief, to celebrate.

Month: March 2014

Sticks and stones…

Hope in the sting of loss