Southern Stories
Remembering Lessons of Faith Through Tragedy
July 11, 2008
Pastor Bill King ('80) is a campus minister at Virginia Tech. The following article is his reflection of the tragic campus shootings on April 16, 2007.
He was indeed a strange looking oracle—his hair askew in a disheveled mop, the Snoopy t-shirt peeking out from beneath an orange Hawaiian shirt unbuttoned to his ample tummy. But those words of Dr. J. Benjamin Bedenbaugh were terribly important to me in the aftermath of the April 16, 2007 shootings at Virginia Tech: "The function of theological education is to give you a broader base of ambiguity."
Over the past year I have had the opportunity to reflect on that day and its aftermath from a variety of perspectives, to ponder what was helpful in ministry and what was surprisingly unimportant. I've wondered, "How can I prepare other ministers to serve in tragedies like 4/16?"
The short answer to that question is, "I can't." The world is just too complex to anticipate every scenario. You can develop the best disaster plans, but when the hurricane hits, literally or figuratively, you do not manage the whirlwind. You ride it one urgent moment at a time.
And that is why Dr. Bedenbaugh's observation is so important. In my experience, the greatest danger to effective ministry in times of crisis is the felt need to have clean answers to messy questions. When everything seems chaotic, the temptation is almost irresistible to offer prematurely perceived purpose in the midst of the absurd.
I have heard a number of theological explanations offered for 4/16, ranging from the vindictively barbaric ("God was punishing Virginia Tech for its partying ways") to the callously presumptuous ("God sacrificed some in pursuit of a greater plan to transform others"). As logically satisfying as those explanations may have been for the speakers, I find it hard to believe they brought much consolation to the bereaved.
There is a craft to ministry and one is well served to be adept in the skills of study, exegesis, counseling, and communication. Yet finally it is an attitude, not cultivated aptitudes, which is necessary in moments of crisis. More precisely, it is a humble confidence, born of knowing both the riches of a long tradition and the limits of our wisdom, which allows us to speak hope to horror.
Bearing witness, offering the honest emotions of the Scriptures and liturgy, and bringing timeless words into contact with raw pain, these are what the pastors of Blacksburg found to be most helpful in the healing of our community. We confessed the ambiguity of living in the aftermath, but we tried also to point to the broad base which stands firm when stability is hard to find.
Given the incredible amount of suffering, I would never say I enjoyed ministry in the days following the tragedy. That could only sound like a trivialization of others' pain. But I would say there has been great fulfillment in offering the resources of the Christian faith to our community.
Just as an engineer finds great satisfaction when the dam in which she has invested all her energy endures when the floodwaters rage, so I think all of us ministering in Blacksburg have been profoundly gratified to discover anew that the riches of the faith are indeed sufficient for even the most monstrous tragedy.
The psalmist gave us words for our pain. John the Evangelist gave us ways to speak of the hope which can not be extinguished. Bread and wine nurtured us at our weakest. There, in the midst of what we do weekly, were the tools to begin rebuilding lives and our community.
"A broader base of ambiguity." Dr. B. got the need right. Sometimes mainline Christians are deservedly chastised for their lack of fervor in bearing witness to the hope of the gospel. But fervor should never be purchased at the cost of honesty. To assert clarity where there is mystery and knowledge where the veil remains drawn is not faithfulness; it is precisely the opposite, the unwillingness to live by faith in the enduring mercy and redemptive power of God. 
If I were to sum up what I have learned in the past year as a result of ministering after 4/16 I would offer two assertions:
• Tragedy demands that we learn to live without anxiety, even in the face of mystery and ambiguity.
• God's grace, in the form of word, sacrament, and a thousand small acts of healing care, is indeed sufficient.
I am deeply thankful to Dr. Bedenbaugh and all my teachers and classmates at Southern Seminary for helping me begin internalizing this wisdom which has been so critical.
For the sake of the church and our world, may our seminaries continue to be places where eager minds cultivate "a broader base of ambiguity."
Photos courtesy of Virginia Tech University
