Facebook Theology, The Stumbling Blocks of Satan and Real Estate

A friend of Riparian Church on Facebook lives in South Africa, working among the orphans.  She recently mentioned that her family is having trouble moving into their new digs because a squatter is living in the garage.

One comment reads: 

God must have something amazing planned for your family over there or Satan wouldn't be putting so many stumbling blocks in your way! 

What's troubling here is that this squatter is a human being, a child of God.   And the assumption that he's a mere object, a pawn of Satan in his plans against the white middle class missionary endeavor, is really chilling at a lot of levels.

For starters, it encourages the strange ego-trip of Protestantism, that anybody not actually part of whatever we're up to is a tool of hell and deception.   And the ability to flatten out people into characters in our own drama encourages the unhistorical reading of both scripture and our lives: how can you call this situation a "stumbling block of Satan" when it's about a homeless person trying to put a roof over his head?   Or when laws have been passed and emended and interpreted that seek to redress imbalances in housing?  How is that "Satan"?   Satan more likely evicts people from housing than provides housing, so which side is God on, here?Napoleon facing the stumbling blocks of Satan, 1812, while trying to do God's will.

Then too, since when does adversity translate into a clear sign of fulfilling God's will?  Hitler's and Napoleon's marches to Moscow were beset with stumbling blocks.  Imagine that theology: "Dear Adolf: Praise God that you are doing His work!  Do not be discouraged by the stumbling blocks Satan has put in your path!  These should only encourage you that God has great plans for Russia!"

Obviously, none of which is to say a word against my Internet friends' mission or their legal right to their own housing (about which I know none of the details).  They are doing good work, so far as I can see.  But they could only know it because the work is good, not because it's difficult or beset with the ordinary vicissitudes of South African real estate.

Scripture notwithstanding, it's incredibly harmful and warping to the Christian soul to talk of circumstances like this as "stumbling blocks of the enemy."

When Christians cease to look for the spiritual enemy in circumstances and instead look for the image of God even in twisted, difficult circumstances, it may be that Christianity makes a little moral sense.