EDITORIAL: Lessons from an exploded mineshaft

Posted: 1/06/06

EDITORIAL:
Lessons from an exploded mineshaft

Gladness and relief melted into sadness and grief last Wednesday morning. Like millions of Americans, I scoured the newspaper as I poured my first cup of coffee. The most important headline reported encouraging news: “12 of 13 trapped miners survive.” I prayed as I poured milk over my cereal, thanking God for the safety of a dozen West Virginia coal miners I never would know.

A short while later, my wife, Joanna, walked in from the bedroom, where she had been watching TV. “What an awful tragedy; 12 of those 13 miners died,” she said. I showed her the newspaper article, confident–or maybe simply hoping–the happier report was true.

She called me as I drove to work. Unfortunately, the TV report she heard had been based on the latest information: Miscom-munication at the mine led to an incorrect early report. Instead of 12 survivors, the Sago Mine explosion claimed their lives, leaving only one survivor.

When I got to work, I read an e-mail from a friend, who wrote late the night before: “I realize that many in the media will not recognize why those 12 miners in West Virginia were found alive. They live because Christ lives, and when he is with you–regardless of where you find yourself or what conditions you find around you–he is the Breath of Life, and you can live.”

I wondered about my friend's faith. Would it shrink in the harsh glare of reality? The Breath of Life did not sustain those coal miners when carbon monoxide filled their lungs. If faith is built on a belief that Christ can make a person invulnerable to danger or immune to disease, what happens to faith when calamity knocks people to their knees and disease rusts their armor?

Later that day, I read a news article that illustrates a tragic shortcoming of such theology. CNN quoted John and Ann Casto, who lost her cousin in the mine. Casto heard both reports–first, that 12 miners survived, and then, that 12 died–with the miners' families, friends and neighbors at Sago Baptist Church. When the erroneous good news arrived, “they were praising God,” Casto said. But when they finally heard the truth, “they were cursing.” Mrs. Casto described the miners' loved ones' feelings graphically: “We have got some of us … saying… that we don't even know if there is a Lord anymore. We had a miracle, and it was taken away from us.”

Of course, it's not fair to assess survivors' theology based solely on what they say or do in the aftermath of catastrophe. They speak from raw emotion, not reason. If God is willing to accept their curses, and the Holy Spirit intercedes for them “with groans that words cannot express,” who are we to judge? Still, we would be foolish not to learn from the Sago Mine disaster and ponder implications of the contrasting responses to the erroneous and accurate reports of what happened down there.

Of course, Christians understand that “every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of heavenly lights” (James 1:17). But we back ourselves into a theological corner when we build a case for God's love and Christ's presence based on positive outcomes to calamitous circumstances. Think of the inverse logic: If we claim miners survived because the Breath of Life was present to draw life-giving oxygen out of death-dealing carbon monoxide, then what are we left to say when miners die? Is God absent? That's the line taken by scoffers and atheists; Christians should take care lest we give them theological cover.

The testimony of Scripture affirms two vital truths regarding tragedy and suffering.

First, a relationship with God and belief in Christ do not exempt us from horrible events. Throughout the Bible–Jacob, Job, Jeremiah, Jesus and Paul, to name just a few–the faithful suffered as much (and in many cases, more than) the ungodly.

Second, God is present in the midst of suffering, feeling all our pain more acutely than we feel it. Psalm 46 and Romans 8 state this truth magnificently. As God told Joshua, “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Joshua 1:5), Jesus said to his followers, “Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).

Jim Bennett died in Sago Mine. He was a vibrant Christian, said his son-in-law, Daniel Meredith, who predicted Bennett spent his final hours “witnessing to people … organizing and praying.” Although God didn't bring Bennett out of that mine, God was down there with him, comforting him and welcoming any of Bennett's friends he led to faith in Christ just before they departed this broken earth.

Marv Knox is editor of the Baptist Standard.