God's Judgments by Steven J. Keillor

I must confess that generally I write off most statements made by Christian leaders concerning God's judgment of America. A couple examples may explain why. Consider the group of Christian leaders that labeled Hurricane Katrina as God's judgment on New Orleans for its promotion of homosexual tourism in their fine city. Problem: the French Quarter was mostly unscathed by the hurricane and the damage was mostly to the homes of poor people. Why would God whoop on the poor people just because homos like to visit the French Quarter? Another of my favorites is that all the social problems we have in our schools is a direct result of the Supreme Court outlawing prayer at the start of classes during the 1960's. If you have ever read the prayer that American boys and girls used to recite in public school, you know it was the most milquetoast, watered-down, generic prayer possibly ever uttered by human lips. If anything, I think God might have been directly behind its excision just because He couldn't stand to hear it anymore! The problems in the Public Schools have more to do with the teaching of Darwin over a sustained period of time not because kids don't mumble some empty prayer every morning. This brings me to Steven Keillor's excellent book God's Judgments: Interpreting History and the Christian Faith. The essence of the book is a simple question: Is there any reason to believe that God judges nations in this present epoch as He did in the Old Testament? The answer is a well-reasoned theological and historically nuanced yes. Even though we live in the Age of Grace, God judges the nations for their misdeeds in the present. The implication of this is that Christians living in a nation that is under judgment will suffer as well but of course will be spared from final wrath in the hereafter. The book moves a bit slow as Keillor makes his carefully reasoned biblical case, but you need this material to fully appreciate the historic examples he uses such as the Civil War, War of 1812 and 9/11 disaster. One is left at the end with the realization God has visited judgment on our nation and will do so again until we mend our ways. The problem is if we are nationally oblivious to God's judgment we are going to try to employ public solutions when we really need to repent and this is the hubris of modern man. I would recommend this book especially as a balance to the many books on American history from a Christian perspective which tend to celebrate our national story while largely ignoring our darker moments. This is a message on judgment that is worth paying attention to.