Responding to the Tragedy in Minnesota

Since the tragedy of the bridge’s collapsing in Minneapolis last Wednesday, there have been a variety of responses concerning how believers should think about tragedy and find comfort. The primary post of divergence is God’s relationship to the events and how that relationship should influence the counsel we give and the comfort we take.

Steve Camp, Mark Dever, Phil Johnson, Al Mohler, and John Piper all insist on affirming God’s complete and absolute sovereignty over the events. He willed them for His glory and the good of His people. This, they argue, is the only ground for the believer’s comfort. To give up God’s sovereignty is to strip away any basis for hope.

Michael Spencer, are concerned that we can perhaps be too God-centered in our responses. Rabbi Kushner goes so far as to say that God had no involvement in the tragedy at all; rather, He sat idly by, powerless to do anything about it.

Piper’s response to Kushner is powerful and helpful:

No, Rabbi Kushner. Your soft words offer no hope in the end. The foundation is false. And the consolation does not satisfy the God-given passions for truth and meaning in the human heart. May the Lord open your eyes to the One who died for your sins and rose again, Jesus Christ, so that if you would trust him, you would be saved from the wrath of God that your blasphemy and my contaminated anger deserve.

I encourage you to read it.

Here’s the roundup of responses:

• Steve Camp: What is the Message of the Bridge Collapse in Minnesota? . . . a biblical response
• Mark Dever: Interviewed by Todd Friel on The Way of the Master Radio
• Phil Johnson: Divine Providence in Disaster
• Al Mohler: “Lest You Be Consumed”—The Tragedy in Minneapolis
• John Piper:
  • Putting My Daughter to Bed Two Hours After the Bridge Collapsed
  • Video from the Collapsed Bridge
  • Waiting for My Husband After the Bridge Collapsed (Audio)
    
  • Response to Rabbi Kushner
• Jason Robertson: Lesson of the Minneapolis Bridge Collapse
• Michael Spencer:
  • A Time for Ordinary Questions
  • Ordinary Questions 2: Thoughts and A Story
  • Answers to “Can You Be Too God-Centered?” + What you can learn from reactions to a provocative question

See also our previous post: Minneapolis Bridge Collapses.

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