When God Gets the Blame

"What are you doing here? I don't understand," Fatticci, a substitute teacher, remembers shouting while driving alone. Even when she took walks with a friend, she let God have it. How could he let John, pastor to the deaf at First Baptist Church of Lakewood, die of cancer? How could he let him suffer for four years? "We were doing everything right. We were honoring you!"

Historian Gerald Sittser had also long been a man of faith. An ordained minister with a doctorate in the history of Christianity from the University of Chicago, Sittser served as a pastor in Los Angeles before taking a professorship at Whitworth College in Spokane, Wash.

But after witnessing three generations of his family--his mother, wife and a daughter--die in a head-on collision caused by a drunk driver, he felt betrayed by God. "I've been faithful to you for years," he remembers crying in anguish. "How could you do this to innocent people?" He scoffed at the notion of prayer.

Even people of abiding faith can find themselves railing at God after irreparable losses. Fatticci and Sittser believe the anger, though surprising and sometimes guilt provoking, was a necessary part of a journey that strengthened their faith and stretched their souls.

Wrestling with God in the darkest moments, they say, led them to conclude, much as Job did, that God is too great for us to understand. That realization made other people more precious to them and allowed them to grow more sensitive, more loving, more generous with their time.

The Old and New Testaments are rich with people who implored God in anger, disappointment and frustration. "The book of the Psalms, which is the primary devotional literature of the whole Bible, is full of complaints," said David Augsburger, professor of pastoral care and counseling at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena.

A long list of men who encountered God--Abraham, Moses, Job, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea and Amos--expressed anger as well as submission, said Augsburger, a clinical psychologist, ordained Mennonite minister and noted author. Even Jesus cried out from the cross: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

Augsburger, who trains ministers and clinical psychologists, said people who are upset with God should vent their anger. Anger, he said, is simply a demand for justice. Repressed, this demand turns to guilt: the grieving person's belief that he, or even the person he lost, was in some way responsible.

"When you validate their anger, the demand doesn't spring back and boomerang on them," Augsburger said. His first aim in trying to help people who are angry with God is "to invite them to express fully what's in their pain, hear the pain and encourage them to go on to lament it." When they lament, he said, they are crying out, not only to the listener in front of them, but also to God.