“Who Sinned?”…Spiritual Blindness

Here I was concerned with the subtle condescension of those being interviewed on the news last night…should have known there was more to come. What is the actual reason for the earthquake, according to Pat Robertson?

…something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, “We will serve you if you will get us free from the French.” True story. And so, the devil said, “OK, it’s a deal.”

And they kicked the French out. You know, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free. But ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after the other. … [http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/01/pat_robertson_blames_haitian_d.html]

I’m not sure why I continue to be so shocked and appalled by such statements, as this isn’t the first time Robertson has blamed the victims of catastrophic events to make his “Christian” point, but I keep hoping the compassionate Christian might show up! The only way for a successful slave revolt was through a pact with the devil?!?!?! (That certainly wasn’t the case in the Exodus…as it turns out, God has a history of being on the side of the oppressed!)

I don’t presume to know as fact or assert as a true story dealings with the spiritual realm. What I do know is what we’re told in the Word of God. In the ninth chapter of John, Jesus encountered a man blind from birth:

²His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

³“Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.

Sometimes — a lot of times — things happen that we simply do not understand. Sometimes things happen that God may show His glory. This is not to say that God causes all these disasters we deem “acts of God,” but He does use these results of a sinful world to bring people to His saving grace.

If we are to ask “Who sinned,” the answer is at once “no one,” as in Christ’s answer to His disciples, and “everyone,” in that all of this devastation that was never intended in God’s perfectly created world is a result of the human race’s choosing to disobey God through the first Adam. But the good news is that God’s grace always trumps (Romans 5:12-21):