The hidden God

...That's true, in spades, but Beyond this, I think we should be good behavior...

...Jesus tells us that we will not be cause it is often true...

...if God is good he is not God...

...crops enhances the opposition to the needs of developing countries, ways that try to save his virtue, while argument...

...It was not strated...

...who is our life appears, then you also It isn't our place, at this point, to know "It's only fair to warn you- will appear with him in glory" (Coloshe's omniscient...

...willing to know nothing...

...My one who makes everything happen the and equitably achieved...

...and that means a careful pressing for- making him less than completely powThere is surely something to this re- ward with G.M...

...Such attempts as process portable cash crops rather than food for that the benefit of any doubt, which theology or Teilhard's evolving cosmos the poor...

...vote is for the precautionary principle way it happens, God as the scene deTo this contention there has been a re- but understood to include careful re- signer, playwright, director, puppetsponse, mainly from the Left...

...God's strength is rechurches than we want to acknowledge...

...crops, pesticides that kill weeds but not claims about the likely bounty that G.M...

...Pest-resistant less than the sometimes overwrought formula, "If God is God he is not good...

...When Jesus says, "He who moral life in a universe where honesty has seen me has seen the Father," he and morality are fragile but essential tells us both that this is the kind of God human traits, played out against an inwe have, and also that this is all we can different background...

...food...

...sential aspect of the risen Christ applies It is fascinating that Jesus is, in a sense, that whatever we do for the least of also to us, and to our own lives this side hidden, following the Resurrection...

...apparently supposed to get time off for not our ways...

...They reflect the reality we see Gospel, he has gathered them on the ish-not even if Christians begin to act as in Christ crucified, and in the hope of mountain: "And when they saw him if they took the gospel seriously...

...For G.M...

...Lavin told me on the campaign trail that he wanted "to hear Commonweal 9 April 7, 2000...

...The potential ecological threat there will always be, should be given continue the attempt to explain God in of G.M...

...and nets...

...There is, in fact, a ing illusion...

...In his absence the courts were em- of some of the three thousand people killed or disappeared boldened, ordering the arrest of more than a dozen top mili- under Pinochet's sixteen-year dictatorship, in what many tary officials...

...Some doubted: it is clear that some- itself an act of faith and can't be demon- side of our resurrection, is found in the thing was not entirely clear...

...We can begin T appear that there is a fine nice isn't coming through...

...The hiddenness that is an esthan to try to trust the one who tells us...

...with a nonanswer: cause they are in real pain, and are gen- the sense that we ordinarily give that "I have no idea, except that he stood Commonweal 8 April 7, 2000 where the suffering are, and suffered the idea of trying to live an honest and with them...

...The atheist or agnostic looks forgiven if we do not forgive, that we form of religion which is akin to carrying at people crowding their way toward the are to love even our enemies, that whata lucky rabbit's foot or knocking on shrine at Guadalupe or venerating a ever we do for the least human being wood, and it is more pervasive in our wonderworking icon, and can't help con- is done for God...

...There all from his side...

...as if we will be reward- some while others suffer horribly...

...Life may be an auto- is no comfort, or even any convincing participate, and told that the consematic death sentence, but some of us are answer, in the idea that God's ways are quences will be serious if we do not...

...Lavin went so far as to meet with relatives a hunted man at home...

...Sincere or not, for human-rights abuses during his rule...

...11 erful: the idea is that the picture is not yet complete...

...When Christ of the end, we can't be absolutely sure...

...What I want to suggest involves no more than a couple of THE HIDDEN GOD hints, and maybe that's as good as we'll All-powerful, & vanquished ever get...

...Even the noblest know of him...

...The hiddenness calls us to cerely thinks this way, a bit like a child trust, to a living, and therefore risky, re- with an imaginary friend...

...As in any serious relation- these people is that in the end they will ship-like marriage or parenthood-we be wonderfully surprised...

...This hiddenness may be the way but rather that the news is too good to from any agnostic, which should make in which he initiates us into the reality be true...

...Chesterton says, somewhere, that face of anyone suffering-anyone, fiobvious that this was the risen Lord the problem many agnostics have with nally, born and on the way to death...

...If thing that radically inverts and chalcorporations, whose aim is profit and ex- there is an appropriate bias here, it is lenges it...

...but we are invited to ed for such things...

...Though he lost to SocialTHE NEW CHILE ist Ricardo Lagos in a tight January run-off, not since 1970 The Right after Pinochet have conservatives come so close to gaining power through the ballot box...

...Pinochet himself is named in sixty-one lawsuits saw as a disingenuous ploy to get votes...

...Our hope for lationship...

...And our doubt- of death...

...There is something of this thing, most malnutrition and starvation Rockefeller Foundation is, moreover, picture of God in the Bible itself, but come from a maldistribution of food, not working hard to overcome the patent- there are other strands there that also an absolute shortage...

...Christians too often see regimes, disorganization, and inequitable agribusiness companies their hold over the revelation of Jesus Christ as somedistribution underlie food shortages...

...I have It is easy to find something obscene in tance between divine immutability and always gone to church, tried to live a the idea that God arbitrarily rewards human suffering, and the initiative is Christian life...

...the results or the end of the story, other sians 3:3...

...food will put agreements between those companies all-powerful (in the directorial sense small farmers, responsible for local food and developing countries, and that cam- mentioned above), and not as someneeds, at the mercy of large multinational paign has met with some success...

...on the cross...

...Lavin-freed by the absence of Pinochetre-invented the Right and may have changed the course of he prediction was obvious...

...London arrest would benefit the Chilean human- Lavin, a "Chicago Boy" economist who once worked in rights movement while dealing a serious blow to Pinochet's government, took advantage of the former genthe general's political power base...

...Theodicy has been reduced to the content of various crops...

...the disciples on the shore do doubting, faith-is not an excuse to might react if put to the test, though we not recognize him until they fill their avoid the mission: to all of those on the may imagine we would be noble...

...This sort of thinking should be resisted...

...Corrupt political ing problems that give the large need attention...

...Religious people should be care- ligion as a crutch, a shield against the that-in explanation, in thought-is ful not to be too defensive about this, be- harsh realities of the world, a comfort- vain...

...trasting this with a starving child, whose vealed in absolute powerlessness (from You encounter it when people find them- parents are no doubt praying for her sur- our point of view), in the death of Christ selves in some personal crisis and ask, vival as fervently as anyone ever prayed...

...This has to be to discern God's presence and God's line-if indeed there is any dealt with pastorally and sensitively, but will only when we are, to some extent, line at all-between religion and super- it does confirm the agnostic view of re- like God...

...The only contact that they worshiped him...

...these, we do for him...

...There is something bracing about us understand our brotherhood...

...The be- his Resurrection...

...food research...

...Obvious, but eral's detention to do what no conservative has done since only half right...

...live with the faith and hope that things "For you have died, and your life is will turn out wonderfully, but, this side hid with Christ in God...

...but some doubt- lief that life has any inherent meaning is we will have with this reality, on this ed...

...Jesus, the same one who had been cru- Christianity is not that it is good news, The rest is as hidden from us as it is cified...

...The power revealed in Christ upJOHN GARVEY sets all ideas of power as control, even evolving control...

...God's presence is made manifest not only in acts of compassion and self-sacrifice...

...The rest is hidden, and is Christian looks, to someone who sinmeant to be...

...Augusto Pinochet's Chilean politics...

...test...

...We do not know how we gardener...

...And most The criticism of atheists and agnostics, witness, and have come through, give significantly, at the end of Matthew's mentioned above, is not about to van- us hope...

...God food crops, and foods with enhanced food will bring...

...After being declared physically unfit to stand the country's return to democracy in 1990: he declared that trial on charges of human-rights abuses, Pinochet's return to Pinochet could be tried for human-rights violations if he reChile last month made clear the once unthinkable: he is now turned to Chile...

...Those who have been forced to in the breaking of the bread...

...He has collapsed the dis"How could this happen to me...

...the disciples on the road to Em- mountain, including those who doubted, we pray, appropriately, in words the maus do not know the one to whom he says, "Go therefore and make disci- Lord gave us, "Do not put us to the they are talking until they recognize him ples of all nations...

...The master...

...How should we pro- being God here means God being the nutrients would be a blessing if safely ceed in the face of this uncertainty...

...We are largely hidden from Mary Magdalene mistakes him for the fulness-our ordinary half-hoping, half- ourselves...

...it is present to us only he rhetoric of some athe- uinely baffled: the God who is supposed when we place ourselves there, where ists and agnostics makes it to make good things happen if you are God has been in the flesh...

...But few would have guessed the other great beneficiary of Pinochet's arrest: the Chilean Right...

...it is hardly an argument...

...For one search and field trials of G.M...

...and any attempt to go beyond stition...

...It aims to negotiate free licensing thing added to this picture of God as another, a reliance on G.M...

...While Pinochet was Andrea Elliott away, Joaquin Lavin of the far Right ran for president and nearly took the country by storm...

...We have to You have to sympathize with people Part of the problem with any theodi- answer, "How could a good God perwho ask this sort of naive question, be- cy is the notion that God is powerful in mit such suffering...