Taking questions on “Why would a ‘good’ God allow suffering?” at Exeter University. Amazing to see two apparently contradictory things happening in the room, on the one hand, people texting in heart-wrenching questions, and at the same time two people who are not church or Christian Union people saying “count me in” and three more saying they’d “like to know more”. The way I make sense of this is, that in the last 5 minutes of the talk, as Christians, we can say something that no-one else on campus is even claiming. We talk about how God is not immune from suffering, how he suffered too. It turns out that God can relate to what we’re going through. He didn’t just watch the drama of human suffering and then fold his arms and look on impassively. No, He saw how bad the drama of suffering was and chose to dive in and suffer with us. We have a suffering God. We have a crucified God.