I feel the need to honor the dead by posting the growing tally of victims from the tsunami. It keeps me aware of how fragile life is, how necessary to live each day conscious of the gift that it is.
125,000...
that would be like UCLA, OSU and USC being wiped off the face of the earth... in a day.
like half of Butler county (Ohio, where we live) disappearing
I certainly hope there is no masked euphoria in the prophetic corners of christendom that see this tragedy as a sign of the end times...
5 comments:
Actually, I saw Hal Lindsay speaking about the death and destruction, saying that he believes that this is what Jesus was warning us about when he spoke of disastrous events just preceding the time of his return (presumably in Matthew 24?) I didn't linger long, and it wouldn't be fair for me to say he was "masking euphoria" but it did look to me like he was close to exploiting the tragedy for his own self-promotional purposes.
Yeah, that's what I'm afraid of. I remember before Y2K Dr. Dobson couldn't hide his glee thinking that this kind of worldwide disaster might mark the end times. He was so happy about it, one of his guests had to remind him of how horribly terrible Y2K was going to be!
Of course, nothing happened and the end times didn't start, etc. But that energy and enthusiasm over potential devastation has always stayed with me as a warning...
P.S. There was a prophetic community that we used to be on the edges of led by guys like Mike Bickle, Rick Joyner, Paul Cain (now in disgrace) and Jack Deere that used to talk a lot about the end times disasters and I was thinking about them too. They have their own community of round the clock prayer and people from all over the world come there just to pray. It's wild. I visited several years ago... They believe that if a house of prayer is set up in every city of the world, Jesus will return. (Simplified version, but the gist of it)
My father believes the tsunami is a sign "of the times". He is not gleeful about it but hopeful that Christ will return soon. I think Christians are always looking for the "signs" but Jesus specifically said we would not know the time of His return. In fact, he said things would seem normal...people would be marrying, working, etc...
Susan
Well if that list doesn't express it all....
Tragedy of this scale is par for the course of human history. I think our expectations of not suffering tragedy have changed however and it's that that may make us more incredulous.
No matter how you look at it, relating this devastation to religious ends feels out of place to me.
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