The youth pastor at one of my former congregations had a cartoon taped to his office door. It pictured a little guy standing, trembling, in front of a massive desk behind which was sitting a big, big man. The little guy wore torn jeans and a T-shirt, and had a leather loop around his neck holding a cross in front of his chest. His hair was messy and his toes peeked out the front of his sandals. A stick-on name patch read, “Hi! I’m Mike! I’m the Youth Pastor.”

On the dark and imposing desk was a bronze plate boldly proclaiming, “Senior Pastor.” A caption underneath carried the senior pastor’s booming message to his underling: “I DIDN’T SAY IT WAS YOUR FAULT; I SAID THAT I WAS GOING TO BLAME YOU FOR IT!”

Blame Game

Something goes wrong and we need to point fingers, don’t we? In tragedies, like …