Tsunami has Shaken People’s Faith: Christian Leaders

London, UK – Anglican and Catholic religious leaders in UK has conceded that the Indian Ocean tsunami had shaken the beliefs of many followers, but said the disaster would ultimately serve to strengthen people’s faiths.

The disaster has so far claimed more than 123,000 lives – including those of at least 35 Britons – with international aid operations only now beginning to reach some of the hardest–hit areas, nearly a fortnight after the tragedy.

And the church leaders warned today that years of hard work lay ahead for the international community.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, said the “paralyzing magnitude” of the disaster was likely to make many believers question their faith in God.

Writing in The Sunday Telegraph, Dr Williams said the Boxing Day cataclysm had provoked feelings of outrage and helplessness, saying, “We can’t see how this is going to be dealt with, we can’t see how to make it better.”

He added, “The question: How can you believe in a God who permits suffering on this scale? is therefore very much around at the moment, and it would be surprising if it weren’t – indeed, it would be wrong if it weren’t. The traditional answers will get us only so far.”

The Catholic Archbishop of Birmingham said many people would question how God could allow such catastrophes.

The Most Reverend Vincent Nichols, in his sermon at the city’s St Chad’s Cathedral, said, “Questions arise about who or where does the ultimate power rest. If not us, then where is the power to cope with, change or prevent events such as these?

“Where is the all–powerful and why do these natural tragedies occur?” the Reverend asked.

Both men said that, despite the huge loss of life, faith would survive and people of all faiths would fall back on their beliefs to cope with the struggles.

“The extraordinary fact is that belief has survived such tests again and again – not because it comforts or explains but because believers cannot deny what has been shown or given to them,” said Dr. Williams, adding, “These convictions are terribly assaulted by all those other facts of human experience that seem to point to a completely arbitrary world, but people still feel bound to them, not for comfort or ease, but because they have imposed themselves on the shape of a life and the habits of a heart.”
Faced with such a terrible challenge to their faith, Christians must focus on "passionate engagement with the lives that are left,” voiced Dr. Williams.

Rev Nichols added, “Our faith tutors us, in moments such as these, to a quite particular belief in God.”

“And the truth we are given is quite astonishing, quite revolutionary. This truth requires of us, again and again, to refashion our hearts so that we do not misunderstand, do not let go of the gift we have been given,” he said. “God’s light is most like love and, as we have seen over and over again, disaster does not wipe out love: rather it intensifies it, in loss, in relief, in effort.”

“Disasters do not wipe out faith anymore than they wipe out love. Rather, the light of love, the light of God glows more persistently in that awful darkness. It shines in human heroism, generosity, selflessness and courage,” said the Archbishop, adding, “Death, of course, is the ultimate disaster. But come it will. That is 100% certain. But no matter how death comes, whether it is early, in the first months or years of a life, whether it comes in the full vigor of adulthood, or slowly after a long decline; whether it comes in a sudden physical collapse or in a calamity such as we have just seen, it has no power to rob us of our God given grace, our destiny to be with God for all eternity.”