In 1917, during WW1, Karl Barth recognized that the liberal theology that formed him had very little to say about suffering because of the overly-optimistic view of humanity’s moral goodness.

Preachers in that day had nothing to offer in the face of suffering.

You could argue the same today.

Too many pastors and Christians—especially in the US—have been formed by a theology of happiness, convenience, triumphalism and exceptionalism that we have almost no category for suffering, lament and weakness.

Whether it’s charismatic Christians who can’t reckon with sickness, intellectual Christians who only live in their heads, or upwardly mobile Christians who have always lived with convenience, many have zero to say, because the cross has been misappropriated up to this point.