God the Humanitarian

November 22, 2008 in religion by Paul Currion | 2 comments

But since you rejected me when I called and no one gave heed when I stretched out my hand, since you ignored all my advice and would not accept my rebuke, I in turn will laugh at your disaster; I will mock when calamity overtakes you– when calamity overtakes you like a storm, when disaster sweeps over you like a whirlwind, when distress and trouble overwhelm you.

Proverbs 1:24-27

While struggling through the more dense corners of the web I found this gem, deployed by a Monopolist Christian. It’s really hard to work out what lesson they hope the heathen Other will draw from it, isn’t it? If somebody did this in real life, you’d think that they were a callous dick - but apparently it’s all good if God does it. Luckily I refuse to let this prevent me from recognising that most Christians don’t follow this particular bible passage especially closely.

  1. Matthew Slater’s avatar

    Matthew Slater on November 22, 2008 at 3:43 pm

    It’’s not fair to attribute this quote to Christianity. The Israelite religion of the time might be considered a ‘primitive’ or at least local or tribal religion, in which God seeks the prosperity of that tribe at the expense of all others. This seems to be the level of development of the state of Israel to this day, while most religions are becoming more universal.

    One of Christianities better achievements, in my view was to overturn this sort of conditional favouritism. Jesus’ assertions like love thy neighbour, judge not, turn the other cheek, the kingdom of heaven belongs to the least of these, etc can challenge everyone every day. To me at least, they imply a strong humanitarian ethic.

  2. Paul Currion’s avatar

    Paul Currion on November 22, 2008 at 5:04 pm

    I couldn’t agree more about a humanitarian ethic being drawn from Jesus’ words. It’s very obvious that the Christian prosocial imperative (the Good Samaritan model) was very much the driving force in the early days of the modern humanitarian movement.

    However we shouldn’t mistake the excellent work of those particular Christians for a general characteristic of the religion itself. It’s worth noting that I didn’t seek this quote out - it was presented as part of some sort of argument by a Christian. Why is it unfair to attribute this quote to Christianity, when a Christian is so eager to claim it?

    (One thing I find deeply ironic is when the work of those humanitarians is put forward as an argument for Christianity by modern Christians who themselves exhibit precisely none of those virtues of charity, compassion and humanity. I would point you to some examples, but then I’d have to link to their sites, and that would upset me.)