Pastor John Hagee was slammed for his comment that God let the Holocaust happen as a means of returning the Jews to Israel. He certainly did not create a new theological concept that God works in mysterious ways, and his purpose is not always obvious. Did not God destroy Sodom and Gamora?

Now I personally have a problem with the concept of God’s will being used to describe such horrors, because it removes man’s repsonsibility both for making it happen and for failing to stop it. The Holocaust was not a plan of God; it was a failure of man.

I heard John Hagee at the AIPAC meeting last year and I have no doubt he is a friend of the Jews and of Israel, though I certainly differ sharply from his theological readings of history’s tragedies.

However, how is Sharon Stone’s claim that the Chinese earthquake was “karma” for their actions in Tibet any different from Hagee’s claim that the Holocaust was a form of God’s will?

We all want a deity to vanquish our enemies and endow us with prosperity. It is a shallow theology that removes justice and righteousness from our own actions.

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