via Rachel Held Evans
"Last month, I met three little girls who have been permanently removed from any contact with their father. You name the abuse, they endured it. It’s awful. So I have a hard time with people getting worked up about Calvinists or Arminians or Rob Bell being a heretic or Benny Hinn’s hair. There’s a lot more horrible things going on in this world deserving of our anger or passion. Of course, I also have a hard time telling those girls that God, in his sovereignty, ordained for them to have a horrible dad. But I can share with them my simple theology:
This world is broken, full of sin and sickness and pain and trouble and evil. That all that bad stuff keeps us from having a relationship with God, a relationship He desires. That God sent His perfect Son the the earth, to teach us and show us and example on earth of what God is like. And, most importantly, to take all of that sin and pain and brokenness in the world onto his body and die on the cross for us, because He loves us, unconditionally, so that we can have a relationship with Him. And that we become his adopted kids, so that even though dads on this earth let us down, He’s a Dad who never will. And that once He has us, once we accept what Jesus did, then He never lets us go. That’s really all the theology needed, I think.
In terms of works, I think reaching out to the least -- the broken, the hurting, the hungry, the poor -- is birthed out of the simple theology that the world is broken, but Jesus has fixed it and is fixing it, and for some crazy reason, trusts us humans to help with the healing.
So, for these girls, I put that into action by helping their grandmother, who is raising them now, with whatever support she needs (financial, emotional, etc.). By spending time with them and modeling who a man is supposed to be. By getting them in touch with caring women who can show them love. By telling and showing them who Jesus is.
It’s more simple than we’ve made it out to be, I think."
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