Where Was God When This Happened? Part 6
The scandal of divine negligence
Christianity is totalitarian monotheism: God is watching carefully.
Nothing we do escapes his notice: “I tell you, on the day of judgment you will have to give an account for every careless word you utter; for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” Matthew 12:36-37
Moreover, prayer works because God can even read our minds. Christians believe in, love, worship, and sing songs to this God who pays such close attention to every human being.
If God is so attentive—actually, so intrusive—then he cannot evade responsibility for our wellbeing. How can he just watch so many of the really horrible things that happen? Wouldn’t he want to do something?
Tim Sledge has called it correctly:
“Decent parents protect their kids from danger. If your toddler grabs the liquid Drano container, you don’t watch in silence. But that is exactly what God the Heavenly Father has done through the ages. He just watches, invisible and silent.” ·
Here is an excerpt from Laurence Rees’ book, The Holocaust: A New History:
“The Nazis created six euthanasia centres, five in Germany —Brandenburg, Grafeneck, Bernburg, Hadamar and Sonnenstein—and one in Austria at Hartheim, close to Linz. Typical was the one at Sonnenstein, on a hill in the suburbs outside the town of Pirna, not far from Dresden. Built originally as a fortress, the building was turned into a mental hospital in the nineteenth century.
“In 1940 work began on converting several rooms in the basement into a killing facility. One small room was made into a gas chamber and disguised as a shower room, with an airtight door linking it to a mortuary. Selected patients were taken in buses from other mental institutions in the area and on arrival at Sonnenstein told to enter the basement to take a shower, as part of the admissions procedure into the new hospital. Once the patients were in the fake shower room the gas valve was turned on and they were murdered.
“After they had been gassed and pronounced dead, their bodies were taken into the mortuary and any gold fillings or gold teeth in their mouths were removed. The bodies were then moved next door into a room that contained two cremation furnaces made by the Berlin firm of Heinrich Kori GmbH. The corpses were placed on a steel frame—normally two at a time—and pushed inside the furnace. Finally, their ashes were thrown out at the back of the building on to a hillside. During the operation of the Sonnenstein killing centre, from June 1940 to August 1941, an estimated 14,751 people were murdered in this way.” (Kindle, p. 168)
· Tim Sledge, Four Disturbing Questions, with One Simple Answer: Breaking the Spell of Christian Belief, pp. 45-46
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