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December 14th, 2012
06:17 PM ET
Massacre of children leaves many asking, 'Where’s God?'By Dan Gilgoff and Eric Marrapodi, CNN Belief Blog Co-Editors (CNN) – As he waited with parents who feared that their kids were among the 20 children killed at a Connecticut elementary school on Friday, Rabbi Shaul Praver said the main thing he could do for parents was to merely be present. “It’s a terrible thing, families waiting to find out if their children made it out alive,” said Praver, who leads a synagogue in Newtown, Connecticut, and was among nine clergy gathered with parents at a firehouse near Sandy Hook Elementary School, where the shooting occurred. “They’re going to need a lot of help,” Praver said of those who are close to the dead. From the first moments after Friday’s massacre, which also left six adults and the shooter dead, religious leaders were among the first people to whom worried and grieving families turned for help. Over the weekend, countless more Americans will look to clergy as they struggle to process a tragedy in which so many of the victims were children. “Every single person who is watching the news today is asking ‘Where is God when this happens?’” says Max Lucado, a prominent Christian pastor and author based in San Antonio. Follow the CNN Belief Blog on Twitter Lucado says that pastors everywhere will be scrapping their scheduled Sunday sermons to address the massacre. “You have to address it - you have to turn everything you had planned upside down on Friday because that’s where people’s hearts are,” Lucado says. “The challenge here is to avoid the extremes – those who say there are easy answers and those who say there are no answers.” Indeed, many religious leaders on Friday stressed that the important thing is for clergy to support those who are suffering, not to rush into theological questions. A University of Connecticut professor on Friday hung up the phone when asked to discuss religious responses to suffering, saying, “This is an immense tragedy, and you want an academic speculating on the problem of evil?” “There is no good answer at that time that anyone can hear and comprehend and take in,” said Ian T. Douglas, the bishop for the Episcopal diocese of Connecticut, referring to counseling family and friends of the dead. “They’re crying out from a place of deep pain.” Praver, the rabbi, will join a memorial service Friday night at Newtown’s St. Rose of Lima Roman Catholic Church. “We’re going to have a moment of prayer for the victims,” Praver said of the service. “We cannot let it crush our spirit and we march on.” Some national religious groups are also sending staff to Newtown, with 10 chaplains dispatched from the North Carolina-based Billy Graham Evangelistic Association on Friday. Public officials including President Obama, meanwhile, turned to the Bible in responding to the shooting. “In the words of Scripture, 'heal the brokenhearted and bind up their wounds,' ” Obama said from the White House, citing the book of Psalms. On Twitter, #PrayForNewton became a trending topic. CNN’s Belief Blog: The faith angles behind the biggest stories Some religious leaders argue that modern American life insulates much of the nation from the kind of senseless death and suffering that plagues much of the world every day. “Most of the world, for most of the world’s history, has known tragedy and trauma in abundance,” wrote Rob Brendle, a Colorado pastor, in a commentary for CNN’s Belief Blog after this summer’s deadly shooting in Aurora, Colorado, which left 12 dead. “You don’t get nearly the same consternation in Burundi or Burma, because suffering is normal to there,” wrote Brendle, who pastored congregants after a deadly shooting at his church five years ago. “For us, though, God has become anesthetist-in-chief. To believe in him is to be excused from bad things.” My Take: This is where God was in Aurora Lucado said there was an eerie irony for the Connecticut tragedy coming just before Christmas, noting the Bible says that Jesus Christ’s birth was followed by an order from King Herod to slay boys under 2 in the Roman city of Bethlehem. “The Christmas story is that Jesus was born into a dark and impoverished world,” Lucado says. “His survival was surrounded by violence. The real Christmas story was pretty rough.” Many religious leaders framed Friday’s shooting as evidence for evil in the world and for human free will in the face of a sovereign God. “The Bible tells us the human heart is ‘wicked’ and ‘who can know it?’” the Rev. Franklin Graham said in a statement about the massacre. “My heart aches for the victims, their families and the entire community.” Many religious leaders also said that such tragedies are a good time for lay people to express doubts about God – or anger. “This is a time to go deep and pray,” says Lucado. “If you have a problem with God, shake a fist or two at him. If he’s God, he’s going to answer. And if he’s in control, he’ll find a way to let you know. soundoff (9,195 Responses)« Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 Next » |
  About this blog
The CNN Belief Blog covers the faith angles of the day's biggest stories, from breaking news to politics to entertainment, fostering a global conversation about the role of religion and belief in readers' lives. It's edited by CNN's Daniel Burke with contributions from Eric Marrapodi and CNN's worldwide news gathering team.  |
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I do not have to proof God exists. nor do I care too. For those without souls, my only concern is that you do no evil on your fellow man, since you lack conscience. Believers created churches to scare the soulless into believing. . The idea of fire scares even the soulless (Athiests). Organized religion is not for believers but a control for non-believers, to keep them in line. dont bring your childish arguements to me, or your correction of my spelling or grammar, for that I could not care less.
Seems like a 520.
If you could care less, you would not have mentioned it. Idiot.
No, 'fraid not. We are only tracking the "god got kicked out of school" dumbshit cliche. There are many other dumbshit cliches being thrown around by Christian parrots, but you'll have to track them. I'm having enough trouble keeping up with this particular tsunami of stupid to track any others.
Apple, and yet I did mention it. interesting, I suppose this means you have no relevance to me.
readers, this is an example of those seeking meaning. Dont react to comments, make them. dont critize, make change.
That is so dumb, I really have nothing to say.
I am responding to a comment to say that you should not respond to comments.
God was waiting for those knowing the shooter to "do something". God gave them the facts that he was dangerous – they let us down, not God. They all said "we knew it was him" when the news broke. God gave them intelligence – they chose not to use it. God had a way to prevent it -people failed here.
God is weak. He is a fool.
I've read the reports, and none said they knew it was him. All said they were very surprised it was him, that he was the last guy they thought it would be.
Nice lie though. Nice Christian lie.
apple, God is weak and a fool? yet he created you..hmm, what does that make you?
A product of evolution silly.
A product of evolution?! Can there be anything more absurd?but alas i believe you are serious. oh and i know your answer to this...uh god is more absurd, you dont need to say it
There is no God, so it can't be absurd.
What makes me laugh with religion is if things goes wrong you need God to help you, if things are going good it's because of God. All that creates an irrational dependance.
God is good. The farther you get away from God, then you need to find your way back to Him. Things bad don't happen when God's with you. So get closer to God while you still can.
Vote (D) for devil; what did we expect?
Remember to vote (R) as in retarded in 2016.
Where's God? Taken out of the schools that's where. That's telling God He's not needed so the devil he's invited in. God is sitting on His throne allowing the devil to run rampant because we only need Him when something goes bad. God is a jealous God. There should be no other gods before HIm. We worship our jobs, cars, houses, money, friends, drugs etc but we don't live for Him. God is not in the homes so kids turn to evil and shoot their parents in the face. God is not a sugar daddy to give us everything then have no relationship with Him. He sent His Jesus and and people are ashamed to call on Him. He's watching and waiting for the people to turn to Him to help fight our battles. With God in our lives, we make better judgement and decision making. Where is God? Waiting to hear this country ask for forgiveness and turn from their wicked ways. If not this madness will continue. Its your decision.
Matthew 18:20 For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.
520? bah I'm loosing count.
Too much christardness.
Amen. Rightly said.
You should be ashamed. Your delusional fiction has NOTHING to do with this. And for you to come here and make this about your crazy belief is so ruthless, so heinous...be ashamed, be very ashamed.
"God is a jealous God."
And petty....don't forget petty.
And
Immoral, vain, abusive.....what's not to love?
519!!!! Five on this page alone! The TSUNAMI OF STUPID is gathering momentum!
Typical religie babble. You sound like an insane child.
People asking where is God need to grow up.
God needs to be back in the schools, Pledge of Allegiance, one nation under GOD! Bring it back man!
The original was better
murphy13, why? I don't understand your point.
Sadly these theocratic history revisionists are everywhere.
Close enough! 518!
The "Pledge of Allegiance, one nation under GOD!" was added in the 50s when we wanted to appear better than those godless Russians. It was not the original pledge!
Your delusional fiction does NOT belong in public and surely not in schools. Shame on you!
http://www.oldtimeislands.org/pledge/pledge.htm
A little help for those with keyboard palsy.
Let's see, first I am going to make three guys build a boat 440' long . . . that should take a few hundred years . . . and I will have them make it out of wood, even though wood isn't strong eonough to be used for boats over 325' long. Then I am going to have them get two of every land animal on the planet . . .
Bwa Ha Ha Ha HA!!! This is fun!
Then I am going to make them put those 6,000,000 animals and all their food and water into a 1,500,000 cubic foot boat, that's a quarter cubic foot for each animal and its provisions . . .
It's good to be God.
Them I am going to make 6 people tend 6,000,000 animals for over six months. Each person has to tend a million animals.
Then I am going to make them take all the animals home again when they finally land.
Then I am going to make those three couples repopulate all the planet, banging out Africans and Asians and Mayans and Pigmies and Aborigines, just all the races.
Bwa Ha Ha Ha HA!!!
Oh yeah! I'll slaughter everyone else. All the other animals too, just for giggles.
The great thing about being God is that you can be a total dickhead, and nobody can do anything about it!
There is no god. Stop being delusional idiots.
No Faith, no Hope, no Love ... I pity you your spiritual poverty.
that makes no sense. but pity me all you want. you're a simpleton.
JOhn is so lost. For him simple things don't make sense. He connects all good with his delusion but refuses to see all the bad his delusion has brought to the world and this country. Ever since 'in god we trust' has been put on the currency this country has fallen financially and moraly. Remove the delusion and have a free country again.
Dear God, why do you allow such violence in our schools? (signed) a concerned student.
Dear concerned student, I'm not allowed in schools. -God
And yet another one! Will it ever end?
517!!!!
My gosh, Fox, Limbaugh, Beck, Palin, Coulter, and the whole gang must be blathering this on their shows today! It's a tsunami of stupid, the same idiot remark from 517 parrots!
I'm not sure which makes you look more stupid:
1. that you know and speak your god' thoughts
2. that you want to blame all educators for the actions of this one wacko
The truth is that God is a monster to the Satan worshiper, disgused as an athiest.
Atheists don't believe in satan silly.
John, stop...you are making yourself look very very uneducated.
God has you in his book. He has a plan for each of us. He knows when you will be born and when you will die.
He is therefore responsible for all death, murder and destruction for all of history including every abortion ever performed, every rape, every murder, every miscarriage, every atrocity.
He is perfect. He is omniscient. He is omnipotent. So how could this not be so? It is God’s will...
God was not at the school that day because. HE IS NOT ALLOWED!!!!!
He is all powerful but can't negotiate a school?
Poor god. What a wuss!
We allow the disproven theory that species are an outcome of evolution to be taught as science and I believe einstein's Copenhagen observations with respect to Relativity and Quantum mechanics in support of Creation should be taught instead.
516! Woiw, they are really piling on the cliche bandwagon today! It's hard keeping up!
The end of time is what kills everyone in Revelations.
"..., fear the one that destroys your soul"
teh delusion called 'god'...or mohamed or whatever
If I remember right, they kicked God and prayers out of the schools along time ago. How can people expect the protection of God on places that he is not welcomed. It's time to allow God and prayer back into the schools.
Count, please?
Schools are for education. Not for preaching.
The Socialists already gave the country the flag BS. Now you want em to teach and lead prayers? Here's a novel idea. Have the PUblic Servants make a pledge to the Masters(citizens) back home.
you're a clown who will simply rot in the ground becoming worm food after you die. just like everyone else. keep your fairy tales out of schools and grow up a little bit.
515
You are an idiot.
they kicked a mental condition called delusion out of schools to protect the children. Yes, that is what they did. Delusion...look it up.
The 2nd amendment freaks always say "guns don't kill people; people kill people". Then these same people have to admit that Bush and his neocons were totally wrong to invade Iraq using WMD as their excuse for doing so. So if their logic is to say guns don't kill people then it's safe to say WMD don't kill people, too. I mean let's face it, if guns can't kill by itself then WMD can't kill by itself. Right?
The whole country went for it. Ahem, gubmint people.
Guns don't kill people. Guns don't kill people. It is the fast moving lead thingys that kill people. Get it straight.
Guns don't kill people. People don't kill people. It is the fast moving lead thingys that kill people. Get it straight. (oops 🙂
Christians, the great irony is that Jesus WAS the anti-Christ. The great deceiver. Even now the horror of his reign is realized upon this Earth but you are too blind to see. He has you under his spell. The Dark Lord, the Necromancer. Jesus Christ. He presides over misery and you worship him. Fools!
Fools! I'll squash you like insects. But first me n Apple are gonna smoke up some more glass meth.
Being eaten by worms seems harsh to me and I hope to bring as many to salvation as possable,
Buzzard's got to eat....same as the worm
If you're looking for God, he was in operating room number two on December 14, and he doesn't like to be second guessed.