Is God angry with Japan?

Japan is wrestling with multiple catastrophes of unprecedented proportions. The earthquake of March 11 led to a devastating tsunami, and the combination of the earthquake and the tsunami disabled the cooling systems at the Fukushima nuclear complex, leading to dangerous instability and release of radioactivity. Any one of these events would be major disaster. Three days later, Shintaro Ishihara, mayor of Tokyo, suggested that the events carried a spiritual message: “We need to use tsunami to wipe out egoism, which has rusted onto the mentality of Japanese over a long period of time. I think (the disaster) is tembatsu (divine punishment), although I feel sorry for disaster victims.” Could he be right?

Ishihara is not the first person to link a natural disaster to divine judgment, nor is his comment the first to stir up intense criticism. (He apologized for his comment the next day.) In January 2010, Pat Robertson said that the Haitian earthquake was divine judgment for Haiti’s “pact with the devil” in gaining liberation from the French, and in 2009, John Piper saw divine purpose in a rogue tornado that hit a church in Minneapolis, just at the time the church was hosting a discussion of whether practicing homosexuality should disqualify a person from the ministry.

There have been many other such comments, and many objections to them. The objections tend to fall into three categories.

• Rabbi Kushner, a well-known commentator on misfortune, spoke for many when he observed, “Natural disasters are acts of nature, not acts of God. God cares about the well-being of good people; Nature is blind, an equal-opportunity destroyer” . To our title question, this objection responds, “No. God isn’t angry with anybody. Don’t blame him for nature.”
• Such comments are cruel. They only add insult to the pain that the victims are already feeling. This position, which is the one that the press heaped upon Ishihara, gives this answer to our question: “I don’t care how God feels. I only want to think about how the victims feel.”
• There is no correlation between natural disasters and morality. Bad things happen to good people, and many bad people don’t wake up to earthquakes, tsunamis, and overheated nuclear reactors in their backyards. This response lay at the root of Greg Boyd’s response to Piper’s comments on the tornado in Minneapolis. It offers an agnostic response to our question: “We can’t conclude from an event like this how God feels, because such events are not correlated with peoples’ moral condition.”

Just as the tragedy in Japan was unfolding, our study in Isaiah brought us to Isaiah 45:7, where the Lord boasts,

I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

“Evil” in this verse refers not to moral wickedness, but to disaster, the opposite of “peace.” Isaiah’s contemporary Amos makes the same point:

Amo 3:6 Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? shall there be evil in a city, and the LORD hath not done it?

As he presents himself in the Bible, God does take credit for disaster. He claims to be the one who sends famine, wild animals, and pestilence upon a civilization (Ezek 14:13-21). In fact, he threatens Jerusalem with a range of disasters eerily similar to what Japan has just experienced:

Isa 29:6 Thou shalt be visited of the LORD of hosts with thunder, and with earthquake, and great noise, with storm and tempest, and the flame of devouring fire.

If we accept the biblical picture of God, the first two objections ring hollow.

First, it is illegitimate to contrast “acts of nature” with “acts of God.” The Lord insists that he is behind disaster as well as peace. To ascribe disaster to some other force is to deny his claim to be the source of everything that happens.

Second, if God is indeed behind a disaster, calling peoples’ attention to that linkage is not cruel. It may cause pain, but if it warns them of the wrath of a holy God and turns them away from their sin, they will be grateful for it.

What, though, about the third objection, the arbitrary association between disaster and apparent wickedness? If God wanted to punish egoism and arrogance, why did the disaster hit Japan’s fairly conservative northern coast, rather than demolishing Tokyo, or Tripoli, or the red-light district of Amsterdam?

Our Lord addressed this objection in Luke 13. His audience asked him about the spiritual implications of a brutal attack by the Romans on Galileans worshiping at the temple. He replied (vv. 2-3),

Suppose ye that these Galilaeans were sinners above all the Galilaeans, because they suffered such things? I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.

He then reinforced the lesson with reference to another disaster (vv. 4-5),

Or those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them, think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.

Each of these sayings makes three points.

1. The Lord’s question presumes that his hearers expect a connection between disaster and distinctive sinfulness. The audience assumes that the Galileans fell under Roman swords, and the men in Siloam died under a collapsed building, because they were more sinful than other people who did not suffer these fates.
2. The Lord denies this connection. So far, he seems to agree with the third objection to a theological interpretation of major tragedies. The Japanese didn’t get their triple blow, nor the Haitians their earthquake, because they were worse than other nations.
3. But his third point actually invalidates the third objection. “Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.” All of his hearers should expect disaster as bad as the examples that were in the headlines. The only way to avoid these disasters is to repent. That is, the disasters do represent divine wrath, and urge men to repent.

Our Lord’s comments show that it is not wrong to explain disaster as divine wrath on sin. What is wrong is to explain lack of disaster as evidence of lack of sin. The scriptures regularly remind us that everybody has sinned against God. Rabbi Kushner wrote a famous book, Why Bad Things Happen to Good People, but there are no good people (Matt 19:17). From our perspective, some people are less obnoxious than others, but all have broken God’s law, and all fall under his judgment. The Lord hates the wicked (Ps 5:5; 11:5). The big question is not why we see earthquakes, tsunamis, famines, and plagues. God claims them as his work: “I make peace, and create evil.” These things graphically demonstrate God’s vehement wrath against sin. The question is, why aren’t they universal?

Immediately after making his three points about the meaning of police brutality and collapsed buildings in Luke 13, our Lord tells a story that answers this question (Luke 13:6-9):

A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came and sought fruit thereon, and found none. Then said he unto the dresser of his vineyard, Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and find none: cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground? And he answering said unto him, Lord, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it, and dung it: And if it bear fruit, well: and if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down.

All of us are fruitless fig trees. All of us deserve to be cut down. We are all under sentence of a judgment far worse than what has befallen Japan. The answer to our title question is, “Yes, God is angry with Japan, and he’s angry with the whole world as well.”

God spares some people to grant them time to repent. The question of why he granted Tokyo time to repent, rather than Fukushima, Sendai, and Minamisanriku, is a deep one, but does not affect our Lord’s point, or the lesson we are to draw. When disaster falls, it is not the work of random, impersonal nature. It gives us a glimpse into the fierce wrath of a holy God against whom our entire race has sinned. It warns us of the judgment that will befall us as well. Awakened to our danger, our only hope is to recognize that he has spared us, repent of our sin, and receive his provision for forgiveness, the work of the Lord Jesus. To do otherwise, to make excuses like those outlined above, is to

despise … the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth [us] to repentance. (Rom 2:4)