There have been millions of words written about the Asian Tsunami. Little wonder. The scale of the disaster is overwhelming — over 200,000 dead, millions homeless and some of the most beautiful and poorest areas of the world lying devastated. Just this week for example I was reading a report from Tearfund stating that in Sri Lanka there are 25,000 plus dead, over one million displaced and 250,000 homeless. Here in Scotland we have witnessed the awful tragedy of the Uist family who were swept away to sea as they tried to escape the storm that blew over much of Scotland in January. The Asian Tsunami was that magnified many times.

I do not wish to lessen or cheapen this catastrophe, nor do I have a particular desire to add to the volumes already being written. However there is one aspect of the whole affair which I would like to comment on. Despite the fact that we are supposed to be a secular society it remains the case that at times of great disaster the press do turn to religious leaders for their comments and perspectives. And generally our religious leaders had nothing to say. Sorry, they had plenty to say but most of it was pretty bland truisms repeating what everyone knew anyway. The standard ‘religious’ response was along the lines of — it’s a terrible disaster, we feel for the people involved, we must do all we can to help and it raises lots of questions. (To be fair I should point out that Richard Holloway who usually manages to put across his almost atheistic views, wrote an excellent and generally fair article in the Scotsman). The Archbishop of Canterbury was reported as stating that the Tsunami made him question his faith. As it turns out this was misreporting and his words were much more considered than that. Nonetheless there have been several religious ‘leaders’ who have used similar expressions resulting in The Scotsman’s headline “Queen’s Prayers as clergy admit faith rocked by death toll” (The Scotsman, 3rd January). Some of the clergy were all too quick to praise humanity and question God.

It is little wonder that one columnist could write, It also helps perspective if there are no religious complications. Any disaster, whether natural, manmade or inflicted by man, taxes religious faith. If you don’t believe there is a god, that removes one source of angst and mental misery immediately, unlike the dozens of clerics and theologians of all religions I’ve heard, and read, in the past few days desperately trying to reconcile 150,000 dead with the infinite wisdom of pick any god.

The Archbishop of Canterbury and other religious figures have been all too keen to appear sympathetic and understanding by suggesting that events like the Asian Tsunami causes them to question their faith. I have a great deal of sympathy for young Christians or others who are distressed and confused by such events. Although I would also say that it is because of such events that I believe in God. It was only as I considered the question of suffering that I realised that secular materialism not only offered no adequate explanation but also little practical help. However, I have a great deal less sympathy for those who are supposed to have thought through and considered these things. I also have to wonder where they have been in terms of this world — disasters and death are constantly going on — even ‘natural ones’. Think of the 20 million made homeless in Bangladesh last year by floods, or the hundreds of thousands killed in Sudan, or tens of thousands dying in Africa from starvation. Or the thousands killed by road accidents each year in Britain. Or the millions killed by cancer. Or the Christian parents in Dundee who this week are mourning the loss of their two-year-old son. If a religious leader has only thought about these things when confronted on TV with a large scale natural disaster then it does not say much for his powers of observation. It says even less for his theology.

In this they reflect our besieged atheistic friends who are becoming increasingly frustrated because their old fashioned modernistic arguments are more and more being exposed for the intellectual limitations they are. Richard Dawkins was quick off the mark — suggesting that the Asian Tsunami was once again an illustration of the fact that there is no God.

In this he was using Darwin’s old argument: There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the parasitic wasp with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars, or that the cat should play with mice.

Now, we before we answer this let us consider its implications. If there is no God and no creator then what we are saying is that this is just the way things are. ‘Mother Nature’ is cruel and vicious. There is no answer — only despair, death and destruction. But what about Darwin’s argument? He makes one big mistake — he assumes that the world as it is now is the world as God created it. But that is not the case. When you read Genesis 1, notice the repeated refrain, ‘And God say that it was good’. God did not create the world to have natural disasters, cancer and death. Something came into the world which has upset the natural order of things and polluted the whole environment. That is why, as Paul tells us in Romans 8, the whole creation ‘groans as in the pangs of childbirth’. We are faced with two choices — either the world is as it is because that is the way things are, or things are the way things are because sin came in and corrupted a good and perfect creation.

In this latter respect there were those on the other end of the religious spectrum who were all too happy to jump on the ‘this is God judging’ bandwagon. I think the worst example of this (I am sure there are many others) was the suggestion on a Swedish ‘Christian’ website that ‘perhaps’ this was God’s way of judging Sweden because of the jailing of a Pentecostal minister for preaching against homosexuality. Did the thought not occur to them that this was a very inefficient way of God punishing Sweden — killing 150,000 non-Swedes in Asia in order to get 2,500 Swedes!? Why not just destroy Stockholm? I am afraid that such simplistic equations continue to do the rounds and continue to bring disgrace on the name of Christ. Of course there is a judgemental aspect in that such natural disasters warn us of what is to come and the folly of living life without Christ. But to make the simplistic equation that natural disasters occur because of specific sins is neither logical nor biblical.

Another truism that is often used is that this event ‘brings us all together’ and shows how wonderful humanity is. Like all truisms there is an element of truth in that. There have been stories of human courage, endurance and kindness. My favourite was the story of Rizal Shapputra, a 23-year-old Indonesian who was busy cleaning his local mosque when the waves stuck. He was swept out to sea where he survived by clinging to driftwood, drinking rainwater and eating coconuts. Eventually, he was picked up a hundred miles out to sea by a passing cargo ship.

However, there have also been the most appalling stories of human sin and greed, even in the midst of such tragedy. Whether it is paedophiles targeting orphans or the Indonesian military seeing it as an opportunity to have another go at the separatist rebels in Banda Aceh, there has been more than enough evidence of the unnatural cruelty of human beings. Of course there has also been the generosity. Gordon Brown took the opportunity to push his excellent third world reduction programme. The European Union held a three-minute silence. Some people even managed to stop shopping for three minutes. In terms of giving the Scots even managed to get rid of our tight fisted image — apparently at the time of writing the Swedes were the best givers, giving £3.49 each, Norwegians came second with £2.43, and the Scots third with £2 — more than £10 million from Scotland. The Americans gave an average of £0.21 per person and the Italians £0.18. So let’s all have a wee dig at the Americans and rejoice in our ‘extraordinary and unprecedented generosity’. But wait a minute. At the same time as reading this table of giving I noticed a report which told us that the average woman in Edinburgh spends £135.22 per month on clothes, that they wear only half what they own, and that 90% say they have things in their wardrobe which they never wear. So giving less that 0.25% of the money one spends on clothes is hardly ‘extraordinary and unprecedented’ generosity.

What is the explanation and solution for all this? How can we explain and more importantly cope with this bent universe and our perverse human natures? The Bible’s worldview and answer is both far more coherent and far more practical than the ‘that is just the way it is’ view of the Darwinians, or the ‘nice God, nice world’ theology of much of theological liberalism. The world has been corrupted by sin. There is pollution of every kind. Human beings are polluted. God’s way of dealing with things is to deal with the root cause — the entrance of sin into the world. He sends his Son Jesus to atone for that. In dying on the cross Christ bore our sins. In being raised from the dead he is ‘declared with power’ to be the Son of God who takes away the sin of the world. Death and destruction are defeated by Christ. There will be renewal of the heavens and earth where humans can experience life without tears, pain and destruction. There will be an environment where there is ‘no more sea’ (Revelation 21). All the striving and groaning of the Creation will not be vain because the children of God will be revealed (cf. Romans 8). Meanwhile, as we also live in the Shadowlands, we too groan, give, long, weep, pray, hope, worship and look to Christ.

The seas have lifted up, O Lord, the seas have lifted up their voice; the seas have lifted up their pounding waves. Mightier than the thunder of the great waters, mightier than the breakers of the sea — the Lord on High is mighty.Psalm 102 v. 25-28