June 1, 2016 3:34 AM

When thanking God is a substitute for gratitude and accepting responsibility

It’s an unbelievably callous thing to say when a gorilla was killed because of human irresponsibility. God didn’t save her baby. If anything, God put her baby in harm’s way. And God was perhaps seconds away from witnessing a gruesome death without zookeeper intervention. To quote Jack Hanna, director emeritus of the nearby Columbus Zoo, “I’ve seen [Harambe] take a green coconut, which you can’t bust open with a sledgehammer and squish it like this.”…. Even if this wasn’t her fault, because you can’t always control what your kids do, this is no different than someone thanking God for a successful surgery when the doctors and nurses did all the heavy lifting. It’s misplaced gratitude. Regardless of blame, a gorilla was killed so her son could be safe. A little empathy wouldn’t hurt, along with some real gratitude to the zoo officials who took quick action to save him.

I don’t know enough of this story to be cognizant of what led the boy to be in Harambe’s enclosure. To me, that’s not the important part of what transpired. Certainly, I’m glad the boy is OK, and if nothing else, I hope his mother has learned a lesson or six. What she’s clearly failed to learn is that it wasn’t God who saved her child; it was the action of zoo personnel who made the call to kill Harambe.

God protected my child until the authorities were able to get to him?” Really? I can (sort of) understand the delusions of a mother who almost lost her child and (perhaps) needs to rationalize her own failure to adequate supervise her son. I can even (kind of) understand how she might need to believe in a Higher Power looking out for her offspring. What she didn’t recognize initially (which may explain why she took the Facebook post down) was that crediting God for saving her son minimizes the active and vital role zoo personnel played in ensuring she didn’t have to bury him.

The default to “God is good” too often seems an escape valve to provide cover for one’s mistakes. In this case, Ms. Gregg may well have been (whether directly or indirectly) responsible for her son being in the gorilla enclosure to begin with. She certainly bears responsibility for the death of the gorilla…but “God is good,” which in this case means not having to accept personal responsibility. Which means that God isn’t just good, He’s a one-size-fits-all smokescreen Christians may use to escape responsibility for their actions and/or irresponsibility. Ms. Gregg’s post betrays no recognition that she’s ultimately responsible for her son having to be rescued in the first place. Of course, “God is good,” right?? It’s certainly better than actually taking responsibility…and thanking those who saved your bacon (and your son).

Next time- hopefully, there won’t be one- you might try thanking those whose quick response and decision-making actually saved you from having to face the prospect of burying your son.

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This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on June 1, 2016 3:34 AM.

What if we put ourselves out there and no one could be bothered to notice? was the previous entry in this blog.

Rebels without a clue is the next entry in this blog.

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