I didn't do it; nobody saw me do it . . . Satan did it!

The Internet Monk notes today that Christian comboxes have been filled with discussion about what God's purpose might be in allowing the I-35W bridge to crumple into the Mississippi River between Minneapolis and St. Paul.

And he rightly wonders what up with that?

The questions I have this morning aren’t about divine causation or Satanic mischief or even evangelistic opportunity. My questions are more earthly minded.

Where did inspections go wrong?

How much of our urban infrastructure is in similar condition?

Is the blame shifting that’s sure to come going to solve the problem?

How much security can we expect in urban life?

Ultimately, how much risk do we engage in that would be unacceptable if we “knew the score,” so to speak?

Does it do any good to talk about who is responsible?
What are families going through?

Where there enough first responders? Who is caring for them?

One of the things that bothers me about religion in general and evangelical Christianity in particular is a tendency to change the focus of ordinary things to religious things. “So heavenly minded, they are of no earthly good” is a valid criticism. It makes me feel good when Baptists and Catholics send disaster relief teams into these situations to just help out. Blessings on those people.

What should happen with a God-centered mind is a redemption and elevation of the ordinary. God is pleased when engineers, politicians and road inspectors have a Christian testimony. He’s also pleased- just as pleased, but in a different way- when the engineer designs a safe bridge, when the politician funds a sufficient infrastructure and when the inspector is thorough and rigorous.

There’s a time to ask theological questions, but there is a time to ask important, humanly significant ordinary Christians. There’s a time to judge a movie by the faith statements of the creators, and a time to judge a movie by the standards of good movie making. There’s a time to evaluate work by its potential for evangelism, but there is also a time to judge work by pragmatic standards.

Christians are sometimes shoddy thinkers, shoddy workers and shoddy creators. That’s usually accompanied by all the expected scripture quoting, testimony giving and God/Satan chatter.

There’s a time for theology, and there’s a time to talk about why bridges fall and what we can do about it.

MY PROBLEM with that kind of thinking exactly reflects IMonk's problem with that kind of mindlessness . . . that it's mindless, and it compromises Christian compassion and the Christian witness. There's something seriously messed up about people whose first reaction to a horrific tragedy is to ponder supernatural causes when their first reaction ought to be praying for the victims, praying for the souls of the dead . . . and rolling up their sleeves and getting their hands dirty being the hands (and strong backs) of Christ on earth.

I've experienced that kind of supernatural fatalism first hand and, for my money, it's nothing more than a conscious or subconscious effort to absolve oneself of responsibility for things going wrong by blaming it on God . . . or the devil.

Here's a concrete example for you. I used to work for a Catholic radio station hereabouts, and the whole culture of the place oozed looking for a "spiritual warfare" explanation for every single, blessed thing. A garbage truck accidentally backs into our transmitter shack and almost destroys the transmitter? Satan drives for Deffenbaugh.

The sewer line keeps getting clogged up underneath the station's rest room in the aging strip center in a bad part of town? Satan is harassing us to disrupt the spreading of the gospel.

The cheap, broken-down equipment in the control room and production studio keeps . . . well . . . breaking down? We're being attacked.

ONE TIME, during a station fund raiser, my boss was having a (ahem) devil of a time getting a telephone guest onto the air from her perch in the production studio. I asked whether she'd done A, B and C.

Yes, yes, yes. OK, let me check it out.

When I walked into the production studio, I found her commanding "Be gone, Satan!" Upon inspecting the control board and phone interface, I found the problem wasn't Telco Satan.

Despite her protestations, my boss had not done A, B and C. I pressed a button . . . et voila!

Just call me St. Michael, slayer of phone demons.

IF ONLY I HAD THE POWER to slay the Interstate bridge demons. But that, I think, will be up to the State of Minnesota.

Tragically, it will come dozens of dead motorists too late. Lord, have mercy.

Please.