I've had a sour view of Anne Graham Lotz, but to be honest I couldn't tell you exactly why. Looking at this link, you can see what she said on CBS's Early Show.
According to the transcript of the broadcast, Clayson asked, "I've heard people say, those who are religious, those who are not, if God is good, how could God let this happen? To that, you say?"
Lotz replied, "I say God is also angry when he sees something like this. I would say also for several years now Americans in a sense have shaken their fist at God and said, God, we want you out of our schools, our government, our business, we want you out of our marketplace. And God, who is a gentleman, has just quietly backed out of our national and political life, our public life. Removing his hand of blessing and protection. We need to turn to God first of all and say, God, we're sorry we have treated you this way and we invite you now to come into our national life. We put our trust in you. We have our trust in God on our coins, we need to practice it."
I also found a CNN interview transcript where I was very impressed with her responses.
2 comments:
Why does all this talk of God punishing America or blessing America make me uncomfortable? We talk like God is treating America the same way he treated nations in the Old Testament. That whole paradigm makes me uncomfortable. For me it is distracting from what we should really be doing. I prefer to focus on a micro view of what God wants rather than the macro...for some reason I think it is logical for the latter to follow the former, and, when we confuse that, we end up ignoring the micro. Does that make sense? I know what I mean at least.
Sidenote: I am tired of litmus test Christianity. i.e. prayer in school, etc. I am a Christian and I think legislated prayer in school is a dumb idea. When I hear someone say God is out of our schools, (as above) I hear someone advocating school prayer. Do we as Christians really want that legislated? Sorry for being off topic and pretty much going on about nothing.
rob smith
Your comments are exactly on target for me. Why it pushes me the wrong way is because there is a thought here that USA is the new Israel. We are God's chosen people. Why else would be so prosperous? Why else would we be the strongest nation in the world?
Where I want to take it (in my Sunday sermon) is to look at Ezekiel 16. God says there was nothing special about Israel. Her parents were Amorite and Hittite. But God saw her, lying in her own blood, unclean, and said "Live!" He then matured her, clothed her, then adorned her with beautiful things.
This sounds like America to me. God chose to bless her. It wasn't because she deserved it. It is the American arrogance that believes they deserve what they have that is the problem.
Then back to Ezekiel, Israel prostituted herself. Then there is a subnote to the destruction of Sodom. Sodom was destroyed, not because of homosexuality, but because she was arrogant, fat, and unconcerned. Again sounds a bit like America to me.
Is God angry? I don't know. This is truly a great nation and it is truly a prostituted nation. We are arrogant, fat, and fairly unconcerned. Religious right points the finger at the sinners. I think we should first consider our own relationship with God.
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