The Theological Implications of Bird Poop

Does everything happen for a reason? If I said that someone survived a car crash with barely a scratch, but four others in the car were killed outright, most people, religious or not, would likely observe, “stuff happens for a reason.” Behind that observation is the popular religious belief that God micromanages the world. But if I were to ask, was there some divine reason for a bird dropping poop on my forehead rather than on my shoulder this morning, many might think that my question was silly. Nevertheless, a serious issue lies behind both situations: is anyone completely in charge of the universe?

            One answer is that God is in charge and micromanages the universe. If so, everything happens for a reason. A micromanaging God would scarcely leave anything to chance. This way of reasoning leads inevitably to the conclusion that even bad things (the recent pandemic, for example) are due to God’s deliberate management. Hence, since by popular definition God can do no wrong, whatever seems bad must really be good—and that includes the bird poop on my forehead. A micromanaging God would have had good reason for the bird poop—for under the theory of divine micromanagement, God makes everything happen for a benevolent reason

            Perhaps, however, God only generally manages the universe and is simply not responsible for everything that happens. Under “general” management some things are divinely manipulated but other things are simply allowed to happen for no reason at all. Under this theory the universe has been set up to work in a well-regulated way, and God only intrudes every so often for whatever reason strikes the divine fancy. For the most part things do seem to work fairly well in our world. The world turns with general regularity and only an occasional glitch or two (cancer and destructive tornadoes come to mind). This theory raises the question: how can we ever really be certain what is caused by God, what is part of the regular pulse of the universe, and what is a glitch in the system? The bird poop is well accommodated by this explanation: it is just one of those billions of little things that never register on the divine radarscope, or are just part of the regular pulse of the universe where things happen for no particular reason—like a leaf falling off a tree or bird droppings. I simply happened to look up at an opportune moment this morning at the precise time the bird pooped. Such occurrences are part of the regular design of things, for leaves fall from trees and birds poop all over the place. But under this theory one can never be sure of anything God does or does not do.

            It is also possible that God has chosen to be an observer of events in a universe designed to run itself, more or less—or worse God has gone missing. One may well ask, how is that possible? God created the world, so why would he abandon it? Good question! But since we cannot even prove that God exists, how could we possibly know whether God is missing? A missing God, however, does make a kind of perverted sense of our human situation, and could account for natural disasters and unconscionable human suffering (cancer, tsunamis, and hurricanes come to mind)—in short, no one is minding the store. Bird poop on the forehead makes excellent sense in such a world. A God absent for the big things could scarcely be expected to be around for the little things.

            Perhaps we have simply misunderstood God’s character. If God were a bit devious, it could explain the general regularity of the cosmos and its blessings when things work without the glitches, such as natural disasters, the tragedies of human disease, and fatal accidents. In short, God may be prone to be a bit “impish,” so to speak. Certain passages in the Bible seem to support such a theory, at least the early Israelites and Christians must have thought so by some of the ways they portrayed God (the Book of Job comes to mind). Bird poop on the forehead is precisely the kind of thing one might expect from a mischievous God.

            Of course, it is always possible there is no God. The only difference between this possibility and the last is that human tragedy and natural disaster could not be caused by a nonexistent God, but must be the result of randomness in the universe that never had a manager of any sort. We would be alone in a sort of well-regulated universe—except for the occasional glitch. Such a situation accommodates regularity, natural disasters, and bird poop on the forehead.

            The five possibilities for explaining bird poop and divine management of the universe boil down to this. Do you choose to believe in an uptight micromanager, a lax general manager, a God gone missing, a mischievous deity or in no God at all? I suppose one could choose to ignore human experience (which the Bible is), and fashion a God of one’s own imagination. I suspect that is what most of us do.*

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

*This essay appeared originally in Hedrick, House of Faith or Enchanted Forest. American Popular Belief in an Age of Reason (Cascade: Eugene, OR, 2009), 13–15.

A Quest for the Historical Jesus is a Necessary Task

This is a short response to an anonymous brief essay sent to me by Bill Yarchin on Dec. 26^th, 2025, entitled “The Quest for the Historical Jesus was a Category Error.” The essay begins this way:

The so-called quest for the historical Jesus therefore emerges not as a difficult enterprise, but simply as a misframe. From Schweitzer onward, the Jesus-quest has rested on a fundamental mistake: the assumption that texts composed as mythological literature can be mined for biographical recovery. That assumption is not merely optimistic. It is categorically confused.

I am responding to this statement: “From Schweitzer onward, the Jesus-quest has rested on a fundamental mistake: the assumption that texts composed as mythological literature can be mined for biographical recovery.” I do not accept the author’s contention that the synoptic gospels were deliberately “composed as mythological literature.” Such a statement, however, is perhaps somewhat more accurate for the Gospel of John.¹

            The synoptic gospels on the other hand present themselves, at least superficially so, as historical narrative but use the conventions of myth and legend in telling their story about an Israelite man, Jesus, an artisan, the son of Mary whose brothers (James, Joses, Judas, and Simon) and sisters were described as still living at the time of his public career (Mark 6:3).² The authors locate the events of their stories in a specific geographical location—in Judea of occupied Roman Palestine at specific times: In the days of Herod, the King (Matt 2:1; Luke 1:5, Matt 14:1, Mark 6:14)); during the administration the Roman Prefect, Pilate (Matt 27:1; Mark 15); when Caesar Augustus was issuing decrees (Luke 2:1) and Quirinus was Governor of Syria (Luke 2:2). In the 15^th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being Governor of Judea, Herod Tetrarch of Galilee, Philip, Tetrarch of the regions of Ituriae & Trachonitis, and Lysanius Tetrarch of Abilene, in the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiphas (Luke 3:1–5). The location of the space and time is not the stuff of myth and legend.

Their narratives were about a man (anthropos) whom, they report, his fellow countryman knew to be one of them (Mark 15:39) and about whom they were perplexed because of the mighty deeds (dunamis, Mark 6:2) attributed to him. He is described as experiencing human emotions, fear (Mark 14:32–36), grief (Luke 12:41; Heb 5:7; John 11:35), and anger (Mark 3:5). Among other things he was known as a teacher and there are substantial numbers of sayings attributed to him by the authors of the gospels. It is a fit subject of inquiry to ask which of these sayings more probably originated with the historical man than the divinized Lord of Christian faith and which may be due to faulty memory or some other origin.

            Another thing with which I disagree is the way the anonymous author has framed the goal of the quest. S/he implies that the goal of the Quest of the Historical Jesus is the “recovery” of biography (see the statement above). In my view the goal is much less than what s/he implies. The goal is to recover historical aspects of the life of the historical man, Jesus, whom the authors of the gospels describe as someone who had a “hometown” (patrida, Mark 6:1) in Roman-occupied Palestine.

            For these reasons I still regard the Quest for the historical Jesus as not only possible but necessary. Or put another way, why should I not inquire into historical aspects of the man’s life, since the gospel writers have invited the inquiry by also describing him in mythological and legendary language, the goal of the inquiry being to sort out in so far as possible the man from the myth.

            Jesus, a first-century Israelite man “born of a woman, born under the law” (Gal 4:4), was deprived of his humanity in the fourth/fifth century creeds of the Church. Aspects of his humanity were restored to him in the nineteenth and twentieth century Quest for the Historical Jesus. And now the anonymous author would erase even the scant bits of historical information restored to his human life. Such a retreat into myth and legend as s/he proposes would require the Church to completely surrender its curiosity, incredulity, and sapience.

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹See Hedrick, Unmasking Biblical Faiths, 154–163. John does not know the difference between myth and history.

²Joseph is not mentioned in Mark. In Luke Joseph was assumed to be the father of Jesus (3:23; 4:22). In John Jesus is described as the son of Joseph (1:45; 6:42).