Sermon Illustrations
HBO Host John Oliver Struggles with Tragedy and God's Will
John Oliver, the host of the satirical news show, HBO's Last Week Tonight, was interviewed by Terri Gross on Fresh Air. Gross asked, "Did you go to church a lot when you were growing up?" Oliver responded:
I did until I was, like, 11 or 12, and I just didn't believe in it. There were too many … there were some bad things happening then and I just didn't care. I just didn't feel like there were any answers I liked coming from the church I went to … There were kids at school who died and my uncle dying was really devastating to me, and I just didn't feel like … when you ask like a hard question and you were kind of brushed off with, "Well, you know, it's God's will." That kind of knocked me out. If that's true then I want nothing to do with this. But you just can't say that it's God's will for these kids at school dying for no reason. That's just not a good enough answer. You've got to wrestle with it a bit more than that.