God of All Comfort: A Trinitarian Response to the Horrors of This World

249 Pages·2019·2.113 MB·English

by  Scott Harrower

GOD of All COMFORT
A Trinitarian Response to the Horrors of This World
SCOTT HARROWER
STUDIES IN HISTORICAL AND SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
God of All Comfort: A Trinitarian Response to the Horrors of This World
Studies in Historical and Systematic Theology
Copyright 2019 Scott Harrower
Lexham Press, 1313 Commercial St., Bellingham, WA 98225
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This book is dedicated to those who have mediated
God’s presence, care, and insight to me over many years:
Kate Harrower, Roland and Elke Werner, and Lindsay Wilson.
Thank you.
The novelist with Christian concerns will find in modern life distortions which are repugnant
to him, and his problem will be to make these appear as distortions to an audience which is
used to seeing them as natural; and he may well be forced to take ever more violent means to
get his vision across to this hostile audience. When you can assume that your audience holds
the same beliefs you do, you can relax a little and use more normal ways of talking to it;
when you have to assume that it does not, then you have to make your vision apparent by
shock—to the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost blind you draw large and
startling figures.
Flannery O’Connor, “The Fiction Writer and His Country”
―
CONTENTS
Foreword
Acknowledgments
1. Introduction
Part 1: Horrors and Skepticisms
2. The Backstory of Horrors
3. Horrors and Trauma
4. Issues Arising from Horrors
Part 2: Horrors and Interpretation
5. Addressing Horrors through Real-World Stories
6. The Horror-Attuned Reader and Perception
7. A Horror Reading of Matthew
8. A Blessed Reading of Matthew
Part 3: Horrors and Trinity
9. Recovering Safety
10. Recovering Story
11. Recovering Community
Conclusion
Bibliography
Subject Index
Scripture Index
FOREWORD
The brokenness of the world is patent. Indeed, stories of the brokenness are difficult, if not
impossible, to avoid. A night spent watching the TV evening news or CNN or FOX or
reading the New York Times or catching up with Facebook reveal the horrors. Last afternoon
there was shooting in a hospital here in Chicago. A doctor was executed by an ex-fiancé. Two
others were gunned down and the gunman himself was killed by the police. Domestic abuse
and sexual abuse add to the dark picture. And then there are diseases that ravage our bodies.
In fact, as I write I have two faculty wrestling with deadly disease. Looking out further from
where I live and work there are various armed conflicts in progress around the globe.
Famine, poverty, corruption in government, natural disasters are the common lot of
humankind. California has just experienced horrific wildfires. Scores are dead. And then
there is global warming and the threat it poses. The experience of such horrors has surely
contributed to the rise of the “nones”, that is, those who claim no religion at all. As
philosopher Charles Taylor points out we live in a secular age. For increasing numbers the
existence of God let alone a good God has become implausible. (Taylor’s observations are
especially pertinent to those in the West and those in the majority world with a secular
Western education.)
Theologian Scott Harrower is acutely aware of the brokenness as this book shows. He is
also very much aware of increasing religious skepticism in the West. Within a Trinitarian
frame of reference he addresses issues of horror and trauma. He argues that horrors and
trauma foster a sense of human meaningless and hopelessness. However, there is good news.
God has not abandoned his creation but through Christ is realizing his project of reclaiming
creation and establishing it in . For those in his image who are caught up in the project
shalom
there is nothing less than the prospect of restoration to full personhood. Matthew’s Gospel in
particular provides a lens with which to view the issues of trauma and of horrors that are
Harrower’s focus. Participation in God’s kingdom work becomes the way forward for a
meaningful life.
This is an altogether very useful book that is written with great empathy for those who
have suffered trauma caused by the horrors. It is biblically informed, sensitive to the human
condition, theologically astute, philosophically able, and a fine example of culturally engaged
theology.
Graham A. Cole
Dean and Vice President of Education and Professor of Biblical and Systematic Theology
Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work would not have been possible without the ongoing influence of past and present
teachers and colleagues. I am happy to acknowledge my PhD supervisors and other
professors at Trinity International University in Illinois: Graham Cole (whose Christian
personalism, understanding of providence, and use of the concept of shalom have been a
longtime influence) and Thomas McCall (who together with Keith Yandell introduced me to
analytical philosophy and the analytical-theological interpretation of Scripture). Kevin
Vanhoozer’s Prolegomena class at Trinity International University was also seminal for
understanding the way by which the theological interpretation of Scripture may relate to
continental philosophy. Further afield, interacting with Eleonore Stump’s works and personal
correspondence with her has also been very influential on my approach to knowing people
and to knowing personal beings via narratives.
In Australia, a number of Australian colleagues and institutions deserve my
acknowledgment and thanks. At Ridley College, Melbourne, Lindsay Wilson and Mike Bird
have been constant and thoughtful companions in the process of ruminating about the
problem of evil and the limitations we all experience during the course of our days in this
world. Their Christian faith, prayers, insight, and perseverance have been examples of hope
throughout the process of writing this book.
Douglas McComiskey from the Melbourne School of Theology has shaped my exegetical
thinking in dealing with narrative and religious claims, and I appreciate his contribution. My
present work departs from his in significant ways through phenomenology and epistemology,
and he bears no responsibility for any shortcomings of this present work.
Ridley College provided me with a sabbatical semester during which this work was
completed. In addition, together with the Australian College of Theology, it sponsored my
presentation of three papers related to this project at the 2016 Evangelical Philosophical
Society (EPS), Evangelical Theological Society (ETS), and Institute for Biblical Research
(IBR) meetings in San Antonio. I appreciated Brian Rosner’s attendance at one of these talks.
I was honored to present part of chapter 1 to the inaugural meeting of the IBR research
group “Suffering, Evil, and Divine Punishment in the Bible.” My thanks go to our moderator,
Kenneth Litwak, and to my fellow presenters and respondents: Richard Schultz (Wheaton
College, Illinois), Heath Thomas (Oklahoma Baptist University), Nathan Chambers
(University of Durham), Helene Dallaire (Denver Seminary), David Starling (Morling
College), Robbie Castleman (John Brown University), and Kevin Anderson (Asbury
University). Special thanks go to Kevin Anderson, who thoughtfully and patiently responded
to my initial paper and to a later and modified version of it. The Australian College of
Theology also partly sponsored my travel to that conference, and Graeme Chatfield attended
and engaged with two of my presentations. At that conference I received feedback from
Jonathan King and Ingrid Faro that was particularly helpful and has influenced my thinking.
My conversation with Ingrid Faro, in which she suggested that a “strong” version of healing
and recovery was possible in the aftermath of horrors, kept coming to mind during the
writing of this book. Following the development of this work into book form, Anne Ellison’s
feedback and suggestions were both insightful and sensitive to the subject matter at hand.
This work would not have been possible without the help of Gina Denholm, who helped
me structure the work and express myself in a clear manner. Her sense of humor and
encouragement pushed me over the finishing line. Patrick Senn also reviewed a number of
earlier sections of the work—thank you, Patrick, for your keen interest in the project, eye for
detail, and gentle manner.
1
INTRODUCTION
My heart sank when I noticed that USA Today’s lead article was “Your Definitive Guide to
2017: A Year of Hope and Horror.”1 Horrors never go away; they are always with us—
destroying life and maiming human beings. I also wonder what kind of hope we can
meaningfully talk about in this horrible context. The book you are reading is about horrors—
what they are, what kinds of horrors there may be, and why is it that they are so deadly. Once
we know what horrors are, we can do something about them, or at least ask God for help to
do something about our lives when horrors invade. We care about this problem because
horrors affect us all in irreversible ways, sometimes setting our lives on courses we never
hoped for and even dreaded.
Horrors raise theological, existential, and pastoral questions. How is God involved in a
world pockmarked by horrors? Is it possible to live meaningfully in such a random and
death-directed world? Is there any hope for recovery from horrors and the traumas they
generate in us? Simplistic answers to the questions raised by horrors do more harm than
good, yet engaging with these questions and the nature of horrors is something that maturing
Christians must face, lest our questions become roadblocks to faith. The central aim of the
book is to explore how God the Trinity engages with horrors and trauma, and what people
can hope for in light of this.
We all bring our own experiences and questions to bear on the reality of horrors. For this
reason, reading this book will be quite an intellectually, spiritually, and emotionally involving
project. You may have to take it up and then put it down for a week or two. The difficulty and
personal nature of the subject matter need not put you off. Indeed, we need books such as
this, as imperfect as it is.
WHY IS THIS PARTICULAR BOOK NEEDED AT THIS TIME?
A number of Christian and secular authors have explored horrors and trauma. However, a
common denominator among these works is a lack of direct and deep engagement with the
particular nature of God: God as Trinity. Though there are invaluable insights and great
strengths to these works, it is hard to overlook and overcome their generalized and
minimalist approach to God’s nature as a Trinitarian God and the significance this has both
for understanding horrors and for possible recovery from the trauma responses that horrors
generate. Moreover, our Western cultural context exaggerates the shortcomings of the recent
scholarship in horror and trauma studies. Our skeptical context and hyperawareness of what
is perverted about the world only serve to cement the skepticisms we may have about God,