Over the last few days, I’ve had a lot of difficulty sleeping. Hearing fuzzy reports and receiving ceaseless texts of accounts describing children calling for their parents, elderly people left alone without power or water up decimated holler roads, and bodies strewn throughout receding floodwaters have been echoing in my mind. I’ve connected with some folks doing relief work on the Tennesee side and will be heading into the mountains this weekend with cases of food and a chainsaw.
Living a few towns over from the devastation, the reality of Helene’s aftermath is hitting closer to home than when I lived in another part of the country. I realize that if we had merely winded up in a different part of Tennesee, it could have been my daughters who were swept away by flood waters.
Much ink has been spilled on the sovereignty of God amid natural disasters. I would commend to you Pastor Keith Fosky’s thoughts on the matter here. The question I have been considering is this: what is the Christian’s responsibility in the midst of natural disaster, especially that which is adjacent to him.
“Not the Gospel”
The title is meant to be provocative. The Christian Church has and will always be the primary engine of good in our world. It’s the Church and its saints that have built hospitals and rescue missions and have ended an untold number of evils in our World. It’s the Church and its saints that rush into danger in every corner of the World when inevitable disasters strike. In the wake of hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, landslides, and the aftermath of human-caused disasters, Christians have always been the ones to run towards peril, risking life and limb to bring physical and spiritual salvation.
But many have fallen into disordered priorities. A cognitive dissonance has arisen surrounding reactions to more localized needs. One can sit in many church services and hear about missions/relief efforts in faraway places, but next to nothing about similar efforts even one or two states over. Missions trips embark on journeys to the other side of the world, potentially flying over their brothers and sisters in Christ – their own countrymen, languishing several thousand feet below them.
Additionally, there seems to be an almost overreaction to the way the Church’s mission has been misappropriated through the social gospel/social justice gospel. In an effort to stress the absolute necessity of adjoining the gospel to any action the Church takes, it seems that a mindset has developed that essentially separates physical from spiritual relief.
After all, post-disaster physical relief is “not the gospel.” It’s not the same as a Sunday morning exposition. It’s not the same as leading a Bible study on a Wednesday evening. It’s not planned. It’s not neat. It doesn’t involve air conditioning and a Keurig. It’s messy. It’s dirty. It involves blood, mud, tears, and sweat. It involves praying next to people who are dying, urging them to put their hope and trust in Christ before they leave this World. It involves explaining to 5-year-olds why Dad isn’t coming back.
But it is necessary. And the Church ought to be the institution at the center.
Scriptural Charges
The Scripture has many direct examples and principles that spurn our Christian consciences towards action when there is an immediate need. Acts 11:27-30 talks about a specific monetary collection that was made by saints in Antioch for saints in Judea who were suffering amidst a famine. This passage establishes the principle of contributing towards relief, specifically for other Christians, as they are our first duty. We serve other saints in tangible, physical ways, as we are charged in James 2: If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,” yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that?
We receive further instruction in Romans 12: Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor, not lagging behind in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer, contributing to the needs of the saints, practicing hospitality.
Helping our brothers and sisters then serves as an example to unbelievers (Matthew 5:16). We assist unbelievers while proclaiming the gospel to them, our actions aligning with our words.
Questions to Consider
- Who needs the relief, and where are they? The scriptural pattern is generally to consider proximity (the Good Samaritan) and to serve other believers with preference. It’s worth asking: How close to me is the need? Is it realistic to serve this immediate need based on my ability to be there physically, or would it be more efficient to fund efforts?
- How immediate is the need? Is time of the essence? Am I the best equipped to meet the need? For search and rescue, this would include my own physical abilities and resources. Rubber-necking and social media scouts are not helpful in disaster situations. I should be sure that my presence would actually be useful.
- How would my own actions affect believers around me? Would it encourage others to do good? Has God put you in a position where your actions would positively encourage others?
- Proverbs 3:27 says, Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to do it. Should I realign priorities to respond to this disaster, or are my current responsibilities such that I don’t have the freedom to physically chip in?
- How would this work be evangelistic? How can I glorify God’s name and share Christ with those in need? What gospel opportunities are there (hint: there always are!)
- How are my priorities aligned? Do the members of my community/state/country matter to me? Do I have my ordo amoris properly aligned?
Galatians 6:10 – So then, while we have opportunity, let’s do good to all people, and especially to those who are of the household of the faith.
