It’s predictable that when a mass shooting takes place in a church, Christians are going to struggle to explain why God didn’t protect his flock, who were undoubtedly praying for safety. But some solve that problem by saying that God did the victims a favor by letting them be murdered. Like Hans Fiene at The Federalist.





“Deliver us from evil.” Millions of Christians throughout the world pray these words every Sunday morning. While it doesn’t appear that the Lord’s Prayer is formally a part of the worship services at First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, I have no doubt that members of that congregation have prayed these words countless times in their lives. When we pray these words, we are certainly praying that God would deliver us from evil temporally—that is, in this earthly life. Through these words, we are asking God to send his holy angels to guard us from those who would seek to destroy us with knives and bombs and bullets. It may seem, on the surface, that God was refusing to give such protection to his Texan children. But we are also praying that God would deliver us from evil eternally. Through these same words, we are asking God to deliver us out of this evil world and into his heavenly glory, where no violence, persecution, cruelty, or hatred will ever afflict us again.

Okay. So if he really believed that, wouldn’t he be on his knees praying to be murdered at church every time he goes? And if God really loves his children, wouldn’t he let more of them be murdered in order to deliver them from evil? Look, he doesn’t really believe this. He can’t. It’s just another post-hoc rationalization to insulate his faith from critical analysis. And he was joined by Ainsley Earhardt of Fox and Friends (so expect Trump to be tweeting this soon).

“We’ve been reporting this shouldn’t happen in a church,” Earhardt said during an interview with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R). “But I was downstairs talking with some people that work here that we all talk about our faith and we share the same beliefs. We were saying there’s no other place we would want to go other than church.” “Because I’m there asking for forgiveness,” she continued. “I feel very close to Christ when I’m there. So, I’m trying to look at some positives here and know that those people are with the Lord now and experiencing eternity and no more suffering, no more sadness anymore.”

Great! So again, if allowing people to get murdered means they’ll go to heaven and have no more suffering and no more sadness, shouldn’t you be cheering for it? Shouldn’t you be thrilled that it happened? Now combine this with the right’s refusal to even consider any kind of gun control because, they argue, having guns keeps people from getting murdered. Shouldn’t you be in favor of any policy you think will make it more likely that they’ll be murdered so they can have no more suffering and sadness? And rather than complaining about the killing of Christians around the world, why aren’t you shouting hallelujahs and hosannas instead?

Because they don’t really believe this at all. It’s all nonsense. They pretend to believe it because it makes them feel better and it inoculates them from the scourge of ever questioning their beliefs. It all reminds me of Doug Stanhope and the story of the fire ants.